Started: Debts, by David Graeber

A week ago I started reading this book; I am interested in the topic, since it is one of the topics that are central to the current crises, especially of European states. In my opinion a psychological and even philosophical issue, and David Graeber's book should give me some insights to this.

Well, today I conquered page one hundred; frankly spoken, I have to admit I am bored. not to hell, but bored. Being a concentrated reader is not my strength I have to admit, but this time I really have problems to follow the paragraphs. Of course it's a dry topic by itself, but Mr. Graeber does not make it easy for me. I do not see the necessity to investigate that deep into whether bartes has existed or not and what other scholars think about that. Nevertheless I have a strong feeling I agree a lot with the author, he argues in a reasonable way - a style I alsways look for in nonfiction. Maybe the long elaborations in the beginning are necessary indeed, for the whole building of thought and have to sink into my mind and make sense once the whole text is consumed by me.

But he the author really gives me the creeps in a lot of tiny little details that I have to read over and over and shake my head because I really do not understand. Two examples:

1. But can all justice really be reduced to reciprocity? It's easy enough to come up with forms of reciprocity that don't seem particulary just. "Do unto others as you would wish others to do unto you" might seem like an excellent foundation for a system of ethics, but for most of us, "an eye for an eye" does not evoke justice so much as vindicative brutallity. (p. 91)
   
   Please? These two statements are in no way synonymous! The former for me is indeed an excellent foundation for a system of ethics; the latter is, as far as I know, an archaic attempt to curtail blood feuds, being famous as a principle in the Code of Hammurabi. This of course does not fit into our modern times ethics of law, but it can in no way be deducted from the first dictum. Easy: When you take another man's eye, you probably still does not want him to take yours, right? Right.
    
2. The greater the need to improvise, the more democratic the cooperation tends to become. Inventors have always understood this, start-up capitalists frequently figure it out, and computer engineers have recently rediscovered the principle: not only with things like freeware, which everyonve talks about, but even in the organization of their businesses. Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer enineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty for forty people with their laptops in each other's garages. (p. 96)
   
   This is so wrong that it hurts. I know a little bit about my industry - information technology. And in spite of not having read Steve Jobs' biography yet (it's in my shelf already, though) I still concerned myself somewhat with the beginning of Apple Computers. First, it was no spin-off whatsoever from IBM. IBM was big in business that time, but as far as I know there are no strong personall ties of the founders to that company. Jobs and Wayne worked for Atari before, Wozniak for HP, Markkula was an ex-manager of Intel.
   Even worse, Steve Jobs as overall master-mind was not what one would call a guy with a strong sense for democray. On the contrary, as many other brilliant engineers he had a very strong mind and tended to tyranny. Like maybe Linus Torvalds as another recent example. I totally disagree with Graeber that democracy is the best fit when flexibility is needed. I agree with, e.g. Leopold Kohr, that a wise tyrant would be best form of governance to gain fast advance. Also, there were no "democratic garage-circles" at early Apple, and I do not have to mention that there were also no laptops at this time.
   I do not know about the political attitude of the Apple founders, but I doubt that they were Republicans. The list of campaign contributions Apple Inc. gave gives also no indication to that. Last, Apple Computers was not founded in the 1980s, but in 1976.
   
   Really, how can one put so many false facts in a short paragraph, in the times of the internet, when this is so easy to investigate?

The author should have stuck to the area he is an expert in. It makes me uncomfortable to trust his other hypotheses when I have to stumble about wrong statements regarding stuff I know. Anyway, since I never stop reading books I started, I will continue and hope to find more pleasure in learning from it. Learning about the roots about the crisis we are facing now.