ABSTRACT
One of the core principles of economics is that human beings relate to one another on the basis of exchange. In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber seeks to disprove this by discrediting three supporting “myths.” In Debt, Graeber seeks to disprove this by discrediting three supporting “myths.” The first, referred to as “the Myth of Barter,” is the eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith’s notion that money arose to facilitate barter. Graeber writes that the Myth of Barter cannot go away because it is central to the discourse of economics. The second myth is that of “primordial debts,” meaning debts that have always existed. Like barter, primordial debt suggests that people interpret their relationships as transactions. Graeber rejects primordial debt as a myth that claims money itself is a tribute to state power. The third myth is that the market and the state are independent from each other.
