Debt: Between Reality and Fiction

Abstract

The text presents the major outlines and theses of David Graeber’s book Debt. The First 5000 Years and underlines its major faults. One of the major laudable qualities of this work is that it points out many dimensions of what debt really is, how it has changed throughout history, how we conceive it, and what is interconnected therewith. While it is ambitious and Graeber does overturn many myths and currently established notions, the work turns out to be theoretically and practically too loose in its presentation of the alternatives to the present situation, in its explanation of the causes of the crisis of 2008, as well as the very historical emergence of capitalism and its consequent phases, including the most recent one defined by financialisation and neoliberalism.