Comment by segfaultbuserr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by segfaultbuserr | Hacker News Reader

Only marginally related, but I highly recommend reading Debt: The First 5000 Years [0] by David Graeber. By examining and analyzing anthropological records, the author proposed a heterodox economic theory. Unlike the conventional economic model which says the human economic system comes from barter, currency, and finally debt/credit, the author argued that most historical evidence showed that the origin of the human economic system is actually debt/credit - The concept of debt came from the gift economy of early human communities: one friendly person shares one item to one's neighbor, and expect the neighbor provides something in return to help in the future. Barter was the extraordinary rather than the norm: it was only used with outside strangers (because they were not accountable under the human credit system of the local gift economy).

Money and currency is actually a much later development as a method to quantify the debt, in this process, subjective human emotion is removed and replaced with an autonomous and objective economic machine.

From this point, the author gave an alternative interpretation and analysis of human history. His conclusion is that the boom and bust of debt is an important driving force in human history, in this process, the debt bubble becomes bigger and bigger - until the unavoidable explosion of debt crisis. Then there will be a radical breakdown of social order, Finally, a new society is rebuilt, and all the debt from the previous society is canceled - this is a periodic cycle that occurs at a scale of 100-300 years. And the author argued, since the 1970, we have returned to (the beginning) of a new cycle.

You don't have to agree everything that the author claims, but the author is good at telling a story, and it's a fascinating read. My summary is not exactly what the author said, the Wikipedia article the P2P Foundation Wiki [1] has a better summary, it includes transcripts of interviews.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

[1] https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/First_Five_Thousand_Years_of_...

> And the author argued, since the 1970, we are reaching the next cycle.

So... when was the last time this supposedly happened? Because I can't think of even a single time in human history where there has been "a radical breakdown of social order... a new society is rebuilt, and all the debts from the previous society is canceled."

What's the credit score of the U.S. government? 700s? 600s? 500s? 400s? People won't understand the seriousness of the situation if it isn't boiled down. There needs to be a simple credit score of the US government and people can compare if they're better.

The debt of the United States is in Dollars. So the question isn't what they can repay (they'll just print as much as needed) but what the value of the dollar will be after.

WW2 where most of Europe was destroyed. Contrary to what mainstream media will say is that a large part of it was Germany unable to pay war reparations from WW1 and entering stages of hyper inflation during Weimar Republic. This of course led to a certain party that was really against international bankers. After the resulting chaos we have Pax Americana.

Not a good example, Weimar republic debt wasn't caused by a bubble, it was caused by the punishing burden placed on it by the Allies.

If you look at the actual timeline between 1919 and 1933. The hyperinflation occurred 1921 and 1923. Not surprising since that is in the immediate aftermath of WWI. The actual rise to power of those guys in spiffy uniforms was 1929-1933 and was due to austerity in the face of deflation and banking collapse. Same thing happened in the US under Mellon. Only difference is the Germans picked the guy with the Charlie Chaplin Stash and the US picked a kindly man in a wheelchair.

Which is why WWII and WWI are closely related: had I been writing that comment, I would have said that the revolution in social order and cancellation in debt happened in the period from WWI through to the end of WWII.

In 1910, Europe was an aristocracy, and even the US social order was defined by some enormous winners at the top. WW1 itself dramatically reoriented the power dynamics internationally, which led to dramatic political change everywhere, which setup the conflicts that resulted in WW2.

Sure, but none of this supports the stated thesis that these revolutions happen every 100-300 years and that they are a result of debt bubbles. WWI was not a debt bubble, it was a war. Not the same thing. It was also much less than 100 years before the alleged onset of the current revolutionary cycle in the 1970s.

This is good. I kind of buy into this theory. About the 100-300 year cycle, that stands as well. History is littered with changing reserve currencies.

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