Greetings

elitc:

Debt: The First 5000 Years covers a vast sweep of history, anthropology, and political economy, arguing not so much for a single thesis as for a braid of complementary ideas. Among them are:

• That money originated as “social currencies” used to rearrange relationships among human beings (marriage, funerals, blood money, and other social functions), and was not used to buy and sell things. Indeed, this kind of money is to be found even in societies without a significant division of labor.

• That the first money used for commerce took the form of credit: tallies of transactions and loans denominated in a common unit of account and periodically settled by delivery of various commodities.

• That the conflation of these two different kinds of money led to debt peonage, slavery, the demotion of women’s status, and other iniquities that one might expect to happen when human relationships are mediated by the same currency as commercial transactions.

• That much of the psychology and morality around money traces its origins to the violence and slavery that have been part of creditor-debtor relationships for thousands of years. War and slavery were crucial in creating the economy we know today, which should not be surprising, as our economic habits still encode the anxiety one might expect from such origins. As well, they perpetuate violence and, if not outright slavery, debt servitude to this day.

• That history has alternated between periods of credit money and coinage, with the latter corresponding to times of greater violence, social chaos, slavery, and the repression of women. So for example, the Middle Ages saw the virtual abolition of slavery and the flowering of complex credit relationships facilitating trade across the Indian Ocean and beyond. Coins were seldom used. Compared to the Axial Age that preceded it, it was a time of relative peace and prosperity, ending with the rise of Europe and the influx of vast amounts of silver from the New World. A new age of coinage began.

• That markets have never been “free” in the sense of being separate from government, but, to the contrary, were created by governments to facilitate their acquisition of various goods (especially for their armies). They have been intertwined ever since.

• That all major world religions grew in response to money, whether informed by the beliefs of people living in a money economy, or in reaction to its evils.

• That the origin of capitalism as we know it today is “the story of how an economy of credit was converted into an economy of interest.” Debt, he says, is the primary instrument of colonization whether internal or abroad – keeping in mind that behind the man with the ledger is a man with a gun. Moreover, the enforcement of debts is key to maintaining the political power relationships the prevail today.

• That the invasion of market relations into every sphere of life has always been accompanied by violence. War, debt, and the market are inextricably linked. Even today, our money system is based mainly on the monetization of government war debts. If there is one persistent theme to this book, it is that our association of debt repayment with morality is false; that, indeed, the debt relations that hold today are rooted in a history of violence; that debt and money itself are social creations and not unalterable facts of nature; that our understanding of human nature is deeply colored by the market-based, debt-based world we live in. The world could be different. We are right to want it to be different.

You can download the book here (pdf).  Coincidentally, I’m starting a reading group on this tomorrow.

THEY GOT DAVID GRAEBER! WEYYYY! :D

My heart is exploding with joy at 1) no longer having a fever or feeling dizzy 2) the prospect of a whole hour of listening to David Graeber.

It is crystal clear that white supremacy exists.  It seeps through every pore in our society. It infects every social relationship.  It obviously affects Occupy Wall Street.

Everyone knows the wealth divide, the incarceration numbers, gentrification, the education gap and more are part of the class and racial oppression of the United States.  All this is obvious.  More politically contentious matters are the social interactions, which are racialized in negative ways in society and specifically in OWS.  It is always painful, because at best we hope movement spaces are places where people can finally engage with one another on universal-human terms.  However, it is not a surprise that even in movement spaces people experience white supremacy.  Our society is saturated with it, so to expect non-racialized human relations in the movement would be utopian.

The combination of structural oppression based on race and class, the history of white supremacy and capitalism, and how that affects people’s interactions with one another, has led to a school of thought called Privilege theory.  Privilege theory recognizes structural and historical oppression, but has an undue focus on individual behavior and thoughts as a major way of addressing white supremacy (and other oppressions, but I will tend to focus on white supremacy and class).  Privilege theory has a set of basic principles: a) Privilege theory argues that movement spaces should be safe for all oppressed groups.  One way to make such a space safe is by negotiating one anothers’ actions in non-oppressive ways.  For example, this means straight white men should talk less or think about the privileges they have when discussing an action or political question.  b) Privilege theory justifies that militancy and political sophistication is the domain of a privileged elite based on class, gender and racial privileges.  c) Privilege theory roots political and strategic mistakes in the personal privileges that people bring into the movement.  d) Privilege theory seeks to deal with these issues primarily through education, teach-ins and conversations.  This piece will point out key failures in all four principles of Privilege theory.  It will tentatively lay out some ways forward, while recognizing more research and, more importantly, more struggle is needed to resolve some of the outstanding problems facing the movement.

read more

Wahey! a critique of Privilege theory. I’m starting to shudder every time someone uses the word ‘privilege’.

The domestic violence charity Refuge could face closure this summer amid funding cuts of 50%, its chief executive has warned.

The charity, which supports 1,600 women and children, has seen funds decimated and is now “fighting for our very survival”, Sandra Horley said.

She spoke out after reports that hundreds of domestic violence victims are being turned away from women’s refuges every day because of a lack of spaces.

The Guardian revealed earlier this year that funding from local authorities to organisations working with domestic-violence and victims of sexual abuse fell from £7.8m in 2010-11 to £5.4m in the current financial year.

The cuts have prompted accusations that the coalition’s austerity measures are unfairly affecting women, and putting them directly at risk.

Horley said: “As CEO of Refuge for nearly three decades, I have never been so worried about our future.

“The domestic violence sector is being decimated. Refuge is stretched to breaking point. We are now fighting for our very survival, desperately trying to raise voluntary funds to keep our doors open. If we don’t do this by the summer, we may face closure.

“What kind of a world do we live in where women and children are beaten and funding for services to protect them is being withdrawn? Britain is in danger of returning to the days of Cathy Come Home when the vulnerable were forced to sleep rough. Abused women could find themselves in a dilemma: stay at home and risk being killed or flee with their children to sleep on the streets.”

Horley also questioned the government’s intention to introduce Clare’s law – a new disclosure scheme which enables women to request information from the police about their partner’s previous convictions.

She said the domestic violence sector did not support the initiative and she believed funding would be better invested in improving the basic police response to domestic violence, “which is still extremely poor in forces across the country”.

Last year two refuges, looking after women from ethnic-minority backgrounds, were closed. Official estimates suggested there were 400,000 incidents of domestic violence in the UK last year.

Around 230 women seeking refuge from abusive partners were turned away because of lack of spaces every day, campaigners said.

Earlier this year, Lynne Featherstone, the Home Office minister for equality, denied there was a crisis in the domestic violence support sector.

She said: “I would rebut very firmly that the sector is in crisis, this government is putting its best foot forward and is committed to ending violence against women and girls”.

But Vivienne Hayes, the chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, which represents 350 small charities and community groups, said: “Government cuts have impacted more negatively on women than men. You have to wonder whether this is a case of institutional sexism.”

Just when i thought my disgust a politicians and the state couldn’t go any deeper.