Indebted to David Graeber’s Debt here, for the following which for a change is just a bunch of quotes completely out of context, even worse on the representativeness point, and to make matters … worse, maybe, … some remarks from Yours Truly…
Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began “comparing power with power, measuring, calculating” and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt. (p.79) — This may be why so many bureaucrats, and many an auditor behaving within the worst corners of that category, appear to behave as if in debt ..?
If someone fixing a broken water pipe says, “Hand me the wrench,” his co-worker will not, generally speaking, say, “And what do I get for it?” — even if they are working for Exxon Mobile, Burger King, or Goldman Sachs. … One might even say that it’s one of the scandals of capitalism that most capitalist firms, internally, operate communistically. True, they don’t tend to operate very democratically. Most often they are organized around military-style top-down chains of command. But here is often an interesting tension here, because top-down chains of command are not particularly efficient: they tend to promote stupidity among those on top and resentful foot-dragging among those on the bottom. (pp.95-96) — The rest of the discussion over the natural tendencies in corporate internal/external behavior echoes society’s many comments, including mine on this blog…
Exchange, then, requires formal equality — or, at least, the potential for it. This is precisely why kings have so much trouble with it. (p.109)
Rabelais places the encomium in the mouth of one Panurge, a wandering scholar and man of extreme classical erudition who, he observes, “knew sixty-three ways of making money — the most honorable of which was stealing”. (p.124) — I may want to rid my LinkedIn profile of some niceties …
[Comparing Chapter Eight, Credit versus Bullion (p.211–) with ‘Piketty’ might make a great grad+ thesis ..?]
[Similarly, p.383– may be read and viewed, analysed, in light of “blockchain currencies’ ” lofty promises of money without recourse to state fiduciants but to anonymous (and masses of) trustees.]
OK then, as a final one, important for those that still consider Adam Smith’ Wealth to have some modicum of value still:
For Smith, the pursuit of wealth beyond a point where one has achieved such a comfortable position was pointless, even pathological. (p.399)
Which indicates the point I’m still aiming for… And:
[Why you’re looking at the ceiling of my garden shed ..? Palazzo Nicolaci, Noto again]