| I haven't read Debt yet but I have a copy in front of me. Yours is the second critique here that seems to be based on a misreading or misunderstanding of the work. You've not fully quoted Adam Smith: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Graeber's refutation, in part: The bizarre thing here is that, at the time Smith was writing, this simply wasn't true. Most English shopkeepers were still carrying out the main part of their business on credit, which means that customers appealed to their benevolence all the time. There's nothing disingenuous here. Benevolence (mutual trust and an interest in both one's well being and the well being of the other party in the relationship, informed by some knowledge of one's own needs and the needs of the other party, if you'd prefer to unpack it) is needed to establish a credit relationship. None of this seems like "complete batshit." Some of the stuff that comes later might be, I haven't read it. (have you read it?) |
> You've not fully quoted Adam Smith
That's a strange objection because neither did Graber. The lines appear in the middle of a long and dense paragraph from the chapter Of the Principle Which Gives Occasion to the Division of Labour[0]. I don't understand why you feel the second line in anyway changes the point about rational self interest driving specialisation. Have you read the Wealth of Nations?
> Benevolence (mutual trust and an interest in both one's well being and the well being of the other party in the relationship, informed by some knowledge of one's own needs and the needs of the other party, if you'd prefer to unpack it) is needed to establish a credit relationship.
Sure, it makes sense if you redefine benevolence. FWIW, the dictionary definition[1] is inclination or tendency to help or do good to others; charity. Conflating credit to charity is disingenuous on it's own but Graber doesn't stop there, he says Adam Smith
> wants to imagine a world in, which everyone used cash, in part because he agreed with the emerging middle-class opinion that the world would be a better place if everyone really did conduct themselves this way, and avoid confusing and potentially corrupting ongoing entanglements. We should all just pay the money, say "please" and "thank you," and leave the store.
Except that this is unfounded speculation by Graber. Or to use Graber's favourite turn of phrase, an attempt at de-legitimization. There is nothing in the actual text where Smith suggests anything of the sort.
Further, Graber claims Smith
> created the vision of an imaginary world almost entirely free of debt and credit, and therefore, free of guilt and sin
Again, there is nothing in the text to support the idea that Smith saw debt as sin. The only kind of debt Smith took exception to is public debt[2] and that was for entirely different reasons.
0: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/adam-smith/the-wealth-of-n...
1: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/benevol...
2: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/adam-smith/the-wealth-of-n...