Carson Knight

ANTH 1010- 10 A.M.

Chapter 4 Summary
Graebers fourth chapter, Cruelty and Redemption, begins with Graeber stating that
there is an unresolved debate with the difference of money being seen as an IOU or a
commodity. He states that money is both and that they are two sides of the same coin. He says
because they are two sides one coin, that credit money is based on trust, which turns trust into a
commodity. When this trust is established, it creates the reality that anything could function as
money, as long as everyone knew there was someone willing to accept that it would cancel out
any debts. Except that he claims the gold and silver that circulated from Rome to India and China
was created on purpose, knowing that this brand of currency would circulate and be accepted.
And even though the Romans used gold and silver, the English used wood, lead, and even leather
token money that was accepted as currency.
Graeber states that the reason for this, is because wherever a market is, there will be a
jumble of currency; such as the cacao money of Mesoamerica or the salt money of Ethiopia.
He says that money is always something between a commodity and a debt-token and that the
obvious battle between state and market, between governments and merchants, is not inherent to
the human condition. He then says that our two origin stories, the myth of barter and the myth of
primordial debt, may seem to be completely unrelated but they are two sides of the same coin
and that one assumes the other.
He then uses the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, the author of On the Genealogy of
Morals. He says that Nietzsches belief is that not just barter, but buying and selling itself, will
precede any other form of human relationship. And that the urge to trade, to compare values, is

the very thing that makes us intelligent being, and different from other animals. The values of
society will some later, which means that our ideas about gender and our responsibilities to other
people take shape in strictly commercial terms. He says the Nietzsche assumes that any system
of commercial accounting will produce creditors and debtors, and because of this is the exact
reason morality emerged. Due to debt is the reason that communities emerged, and the tribe
provides them with peace and security.
Nietzsche then assumes that everything about human nature stems from the primordial
debt theory. This theory states that because of the feeling of debt we have to the ancestors we
obey their laws; and this is why we allow punishment for any of our transgressions. Graeber then
says that Adam, then, is no longer seen as a creditor, but a transgressor, and therefore a debtor
who passes onto us the burden of original sin. Graeber states that this all makes since is you
begin from Nietzsches beginning premise, but the problem is that the premise is insane. And that
is the entire point.
Nietzsche knew that we are all rational, calculating machines who are able to calculate
debt. However, Graeber gave an example of a successful hunter who gave walrus meat to an
unsuccessful hunter, and insisted that being human meant refusing to make calculations and
refusing to remember who gave what to whom, because it would create debt. Although, if
Nietzsches analysis of debt is helpful to us, then, it is because it reveals that we start from the
assumption that human thought is essentially a matter of commercial calculation, that buying and
selling are the basis of human society.
Graeber talks about the definition of redemption, which is to buy something back, or to
recover something that had been given up in security for a loan. Graeber says that we have spent
years contemplating religious texts that would be recognizable to a reader of that time when they

were written. He says that early prophets, such as Nehemiah, allude to debt crisis. Nehemiahs
first reaction is to issue a Babylonia-style clean state edict, where all commercial debts were to
be forgiven. An example of this would be the Law of Jubilee, a law that stipulated that all debts
would be automatically cancelled in the Sabbath Year, or after seven years had passed. This
would cause redemption. Yet in religious terms, redemption was a release from ones burden of
sin and guilt. Graeber states that Jesus parable suggests that forgiveness for debt is ultimately
impossible. That Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. This version of human
life; to forgive our debts, never cast the first stone, and love our enemies, is inherently corrupt.
This tells us that we are fundamentally unworthy of forgiveness.
Graeber says because of this debt, when people this of money they will think of prisoners
and slavery. What makes debt different is that it is premised on an assumption of equality. This
assumption is clear with the Big Man, who has large amounts of economic efficiency and wealth
by being close with his kin and neighbors, and therefore creating debtors. Graeber ends this
chapter by saying that what we see, in the Bible, and other traditions, are traces of the moral
arguments by which such claims were justified, usually subject to all sorts of imaginative twists
and turns, but inevitably, and to some degree, incorporating the language of the marketplace
itself.