The book is so wide range and meta narrative with a bunch of really specific examples. Some of those have been addressed but nobody seem to want to address the book as a whole.
The basic idea of the book is very old and not original. Social science and philosophy has been arguing about the definition/meaning/origin of debt, money, property right for a long time. He takes a very clear position on it that is clearly based in his ideological believes and then does a running narration of 5000 years of history that all proves his point crossing every social science in the process.
From my perspective as somebody that knows economics, its blatantly clear that he has no respect for economist and has not bothered with history of economic thought beyond finding a few quotes to slander. At the same time its totally clear he has never seriously read the works he seems to despise. It seems that it is his serious believe that economist and apparently the whole history of economics is simply justification for imperialism and slavery.
Not to mention that he is incredibly rude and response with personal attack when people point out that he made some very basic factual errors.
Some of his claims are so incredibly wrong that even somebody who only did the simplest online '101 History of Economic Thought' should not make.
Let me give you an example. Consider this text:
> Voluntary as well as compulsory unilateral transfers of assets (that is, transfers arising neither from a ‘reciprocal contract’ in general nor from an exchange transaction in particular, although occasionally based on tacitly recognized reciprocity), are among the oldest forms of human relationships as far as we can go back in the history of man’s economizing. Long before the exchange of goods appears in history, or becomes of more than negligible importance…we already find a variety of unilateral transfers: voluntary gifts and gifts made more or less under compulsion, compulsory contributions, damages or fines, compensation for killing someone, unilateral transfers within families, etc.*
This was written by an economist in 1892 who according to Graeber only improved on Adam Smith work "by adding various mathematical equations".
The text above was from Carl Menger, one of the most well known economist of the century and one of the founders of modern economics. Not just that, even on that wrote precisely on many of the questions Graeber book addresses. So exactly the kind of person Graeber seems to be wanting to debate and dismiss. The perfect pillar of modern (as in Post-Marginal) economics to shoot down.
Why then would Graeber claim that he only "adding various mathematical equations"? I seems that the only explanation is that he look up the wrong person on wikipedia, as there is another person with the same name who was a mathematician. Nobody who read even an introduction to modern history of economic thought would make that mistake.
He clearly doesn't have a clue who Carl Menger was and clearly has hasn't read his works. He clearly didn't actually study history of economic thought when writing his book. Rather he had preconceived notion and all he needed was a few selective Adam Smith references and dismiss the rest.
At the same time he proudly reference the 1925 'The Gift', to prove how much smarter anthropologists are as they understood the importance of the Gift economy. Compared to economist who according to him only believe in the "Mythical Land of Barter".
He speaks with equal authority about some almost unknown tribal societies, 5000 year old city states that we only have very basic data on and 2000s century politics and modern central banking (that he has borderline no understanding off). Given his very clear and explicit bias and he evident willingness to do selective reading and misinterpretation I much rather read on these topics from actual experts without such a clear bias and explicit political message.
To someone unfamiliar with anthropology, perhaps it would seem that there is only very basic data on the ancient societies that were touched upon by the book, but in reality the data is fairly robust and is almost certainly accurate.
Beyond that, I don't see how the Carl Menger quote you cited is proof that economists have a robust understanding of gift economies - and indeed it really doesn't.
Graeber is correct that mainstream economics pretty much only cares about market economies, and he is correct that modern economics is a highly ideological discipline where schools that did not align with imperialism.
Now, does Graeber overstate his claims? Perhaps. Is he wrong on the history of economics? Yes, though I can tell you I never heard of Carl Menger by name until I already had a pretty solid understanding of marginal utility theory.
Most importantly, is that a solid argument against the core thesis of the book? No. And yes, economics as a discipline is incredibly politically charged and has very poor predictive ability, assumes way too much, and is largely unaware of its issues.
My point was not that anthropologies don't have good data, rather I was referring to some of the specific examples in the book for witch we don't have.
> Beyond that, I don't see how the Carl Menger quote you cited is proof that economists have a robust understanding of gift economies - and indeed it really doesn't.
Its not the primary study of economists and not what they are primarily interested in and there is nothing wrong with that. Its also just one example, you can find other references to such things from Smith on.
However, Graeber consistent accusation is that economists had no understanding of its existence and therefore they are fundamentally wrong everything as the whole discipline is built on false foundation.
In fact, I would argue Graeber critic is basically built on a moral judgment. He seems to be unable to accept that even while knowing of these things, people would not consider it very relevant. Because for him it lays the foundation for everything about how the world today SHOULD work.
> Graeber is correct that mainstream economics pretty much only cares about market economies
This is pretty clearly wrong. You can go back to even Adam Smith, if you look at his 2 relevant books, one is pretty clearly not about market economics.
Economists have pretty much always been interested in institutions as well. In fact, when the discipline started 'Political Economy' was the term and that included a mix of economics and political science.
And even after those were split, Political Economy, Economics&Law, Institutional Economics and other were all still within the discipline. Now of course if you simple define 'mainstream' as excluding all of that is just an incredibly narrow definition and view of economics.
But of course if we accept that the definition of discipline as an explicit critic then I not sure what the counter argument is. Its basically just saying "I don't like what these people do because I think markets are evil, therefore if you study them you are evil.
> and he is correct that modern economics is a highly ideological discipline where schools that did not align with imperialism
I disagree that its highly ideological. This is of course hard to measure. However if we just look at political divide you will see that inside of economics you have people from all over the political spectrum while some other social disciplines are far more left, some almost exclusively so.
Honestly common from people like Graeber, the accusation of other disciplines being ideological is highly unconvincing.
I'm not sure what the second part of sentence means? Are you trying to say people who were against imperialism got removed from economics? Because that would be very wrong.
> Yes, though I can tell you I never heard of Carl Menger by name until I already had a pretty solid understanding of marginal utility theory.
Its pretty much universally accepted that there were 3 economists who lead the marginal revolution in economics.
They are mentioned in any history of economic thought class.
I understand that in general economics education doesn't put much interest in history of economic thought and so I do not fault people for not knowing. It is only surprising in one who implies he is an expert in history of economic thought and seeks to fundamentally critic it.
> Most importantly, is that a solid argument against the core thesis of the book? No. And yes, economics as a discipline is incredibly politically charged and has very poor predictive ability, assumes way too much, and is largely unaware of its issues.
Anthropology is less politically charged because most people are not interested in it and they don't try to make any predictions. Nor are they asked to make accurate predictions years in advanced in a world of 8 billion people.
I would argue the attack against economics as a social science is incredibly unfair, no social science in the complex real world can accurately predict, even if you assume perfect models, you wouldn't have the access to the needed data in real time.
There is a large difference between economics as a discipline and the reality that social scientists (most often economist) have been used by states and are forced to come up with recommendation. Jet somehow in economics such mistakes are seen as a reflection of economics as discipline itself.
Saying things like economist as displine failed to predict 2008 is about as useful as saying sociologist failed to predict the opcode epidemic. You can argue that Political Scientists failed to predict the Arab Spring. And we can play these games for all disciplines. Now you can likely go back and find individuals working in these discipline pointing at warning signs but that's not the same thing.
You seem to follow the popular outside economics view of economics where they as dispine are all totally arrogant and fundamentally un-reflective, rather then what most actual economists actually write and believe in.
I really just pointed at one example of a problem in the book. The book also ignores a whole bunch of very important questions that are very relevant in order to tell a very tight narrative about the things he wants to talk about. Most of all his conclusion about how these 'facts' should inform the world today.
This post was really helpful, thanks. I've had an actual academic text on the history of economic though on my-to read list for years, at this point—you've prompted me to bump it up the queue.
The basic idea of the book is very old and not original. Social science and philosophy has been arguing about the definition/meaning/origin of debt, money, property right for a long time. He takes a very clear position on it that is clearly based in his ideological believes and then does a running narration of 5000 years of history that all proves his point crossing every social science in the process.
From my perspective as somebody that knows economics, its blatantly clear that he has no respect for economist and has not bothered with history of economic thought beyond finding a few quotes to slander. At the same time its totally clear he has never seriously read the works he seems to despise. It seems that it is his serious believe that economist and apparently the whole history of economics is simply justification for imperialism and slavery.
Not to mention that he is incredibly rude and response with personal attack when people point out that he made some very basic factual errors.
Some of his claims are so incredibly wrong that even somebody who only did the simplest online '101 History of Economic Thought' should not make.
Let me give you an example. Consider this text:
> Voluntary as well as compulsory unilateral transfers of assets (that is, transfers arising neither from a ‘reciprocal contract’ in general nor from an exchange transaction in particular, although occasionally based on tacitly recognized reciprocity), are among the oldest forms of human relationships as far as we can go back in the history of man’s economizing. Long before the exchange of goods appears in history, or becomes of more than negligible importance…we already find a variety of unilateral transfers: voluntary gifts and gifts made more or less under compulsion, compulsory contributions, damages or fines, compensation for killing someone, unilateral transfers within families, etc.*
This was written by an economist in 1892 who according to Graeber only improved on Adam Smith work "by adding various mathematical equations".
The text above was from Carl Menger, one of the most well known economist of the century and one of the founders of modern economics. Not just that, even on that wrote precisely on many of the questions Graeber book addresses. So exactly the kind of person Graeber seems to be wanting to debate and dismiss. The perfect pillar of modern (as in Post-Marginal) economics to shoot down.
Why then would Graeber claim that he only "adding various mathematical equations"? I seems that the only explanation is that he look up the wrong person on wikipedia, as there is another person with the same name who was a mathematician. Nobody who read even an introduction to modern history of economic thought would make that mistake.
He clearly doesn't have a clue who Carl Menger was and clearly has hasn't read his works. He clearly didn't actually study history of economic thought when writing his book. Rather he had preconceived notion and all he needed was a few selective Adam Smith references and dismiss the rest.
At the same time he proudly reference the 1925 'The Gift', to prove how much smarter anthropologists are as they understood the importance of the Gift economy. Compared to economist who according to him only believe in the "Mythical Land of Barter".
He speaks with equal authority about some almost unknown tribal societies, 5000 year old city states that we only have very basic data on and 2000s century politics and modern central banking (that he has borderline no understanding off). Given his very clear and explicit bias and he evident willingness to do selective reading and misinterpretation I much rather read on these topics from actual experts without such a clear bias and explicit political message.