<
https://doctorow.medium.com/finance-caused-the-fall-of-rome-fd091fa02973>
"It’s hard to overstate the impact that David Graeber’s 2012 blockbuster
Debt:
The First Five Thousand Years had on society; it’s a truly magesterial history
of the way that debt — and debt forgiveness — played in the establishment of
advanced civilization and its downfall:
<
https://www.tor.com/2012/04/16/the-best-science-fiction-ideas-in-any-non-fiction-ever-david-graebers-debt-the-first-five-thousand-years/>
Graeber — a key Occupy activist who helped coin “We are the 99%” — drew heavily
on the scholarship of Michael Hudson, an economic historian, who led a team of
Harvard assyriologists, Egyptologists and archaeologists in a major project
exploring the role of debt in antiquity.
Core to Hudson and Graeber’s work is the recognition that societies can be
divided into “debtors” and “creditors,” and, depending on which group is
favored by policy, different kinds of enduring, intergenerational social roles
emerge. If we give primacy to creditors’ claims above all, then debtors will
inevitably fall deeper and deeper into debt, and eventually become indentured
servants to their creditors."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
