Re: [xmca] Ceci n'est pas un dollar

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

Larry and Rod and Tony and...,
Not familiar with Hyde, but it sounds like he is riffing on the classic
anthropological work by Marcel Mauss, The Gift. Mauss' central point is that
gifts are a critical social glue for society because they create
relationships of reciprocity. (and this is why the gift is also to be
feared, and he does some lovely work showing how the etymology
of gift is linked in many languages with notions of "poison").

I only skimmed a little but I think that what Graeber is pointing to is the
way in which "debt" is different from the social "indebtedness" precisely
because the social bond aspect of debt is no longer there. Companies and
people run up debts with no sense of honor or shame in letting go of those
debts (e.g., corporations that are fiscally irresponsible and then
require bailouts or people with mortgages they can't pay that require
bailouts - both are willing to walk away from their debts without a sense of
shame).

To put it another way, whereas Mauss noted that there are no free gifts, it
seems that Graeber is pointing to a way in which today we do imagine free
gifts - things received for which we do not need to reciprocate. No more
karmic balance, no need to pay it forward, just free money. In a Marx to
Mauss argument, we might point to capitalism as the thing that liberates us
as free individuals from these social obligations. A liberation which has a
good side (the breaking down of barriers between people - Marx's Chinese
walls) but also a terrible side (the erasure of any knowledge of the role of
social and collective forces in our lives, and thus an utter lack of
indebtedness).

Larry, as to the way that you put the concern with value, I think that the
similarities of the dollar bill in your hand and in your head come not so
much in the form of indebtedness, but rather in the way in which both of
these things get their "value" from "the social." That is, the value of the
dollar depends completely on it's relationship with other dollar bills and
thus with commodities that can be purchased (including common stock,
insurance derivatives, etc.). This relationship is fundamentally social. A
favorite quote from Marx might help:

"The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it.
Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing,
wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into
something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but,
in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out
of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than "table-turning"
ever was."
Now consider the word. We might say: "The form of the sound, for instance,
is altered, by putting multiple sounds together. Yet, for all that,
the sound continues to be that common every-day thing, a sound. But, so soon
as it steps forth as a word, it is changed into something transcendent. It
not only stands as a vibration on our tympanic membrane, but, in relation to
other words, it stands on its head, and evolves out if its sonorous brain
grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than "noise" ever was."

Okay, I took some liberties there, but hopefully it makes the point about
the parallel between the "value" of the commodity and the "value" of the
sign (and Saussure certainly read Marx, and by many accounts he was heavily
influenced by Marx).

The point is that their "value" comes from the social, but I don't think
that we experience a sense of indebtedness to our community for the language
that we speak (although one could certainly argue that we should). But this
is a different point from Graeber's, I think.

-greg


On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:06 AM, Rod Parker-Rees <
R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:

> Apologies for skimming a stone over the surface of a deep discussion but I
> couldn't resist chipping in with a recommendation for Lewis Hyde's lovely
> book 'The Gift: how the creative spirit transforms the world' (
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gift-Creative-Spirit-Transforms-World/dp/1841958336- other ways of accessing books are available!). I think Hyde deals very
> well with the important distinction between the exchange of gifts (which
> leads to a social, relational bond which is importantly more than a debt)
> and commercial transactions between people who do not (necessarily) have a
> social relationship. He has a chapter on the nature of 'contributions' in
> academic exchanges (why academics offer their work to journals for nothing
> and why some are a bit sniffy about writing for money!).
>
> All the best,
>
> Rod
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Larry Purss
> Sent: 17 October 2011 05:58
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Ceci n'est pas un dollar
>
> Tony,
>
> Andy asked me where I was going with my focus on Shotter's notion of
> "chiasmic intertwining".
>
> The Occupy Wall Street is a concrete way of reflecting on this question.
> David Graeber's concept of "debt" as the central value behind globalization
> that JUSTIFIES the violence and shattering of a sense of "home" as the
> result of social relations being organized around the concept of debt. If
> you "owe" the other you MUST PAY IT BACK.
>
>  Tony, you state,
>
> And monetary value is not an altogether different kind of affair than
> semantic value or phonemic value -- i.e., Saussure's "valeur."
>
> Is this the "key" or central question, What do I "owe" the other? or "What
> do we "owe" others?
>
> The value of social relations as "exchange values" that is at the heart of
> globalization and the violence perpetrated in the "collecting" of debts
> owed.  If the other person gives you something of value you are indebted to
> the other and loose freedom.  How deep does this relational concept of debt
> and being indebted to the other organize our activities?
>
> Chiasmic intertwining is pointing to another way of valuing social
> relations and is asking the same question,  What do we "owe" each other?
>  Framing debt as a "particular relational value" rather than an economic
> question  opens the way to challenge debt as this totalizing way of relating
> to the other. Challenging the deep seated value that becoming indebted and
> dependent on the other results in loosing personal freedom and must be
> resisted at all costs. The notion that dependency  puts you in an exchange
> relationship with the other deforms all relations of mutuality.   To be
> vulnerable is to be placed in an exchange relation and MUST BE PAID BACK.
>
> Can the Occupy Wall Street movement shift the monetary and economic debt
>  narrative [who owes what to who] to a moral conversation of "What do we owe
> each other? as a question fundamentally about values.
>
> I suspect Obama wants to be pushed in this direction
>
> THIS IS A DEBT CRISIS
>
> Larry
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>
> > Yes, indeed. Chris Sinha's paper, distributed here not long ago, is
> > good on this too.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > On Oct 16, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Of course, neither the thought of the dollar bill nor the paper
> > > dollar
> > bill itself is actually a DOLLAR.
> > >
> > > a DOLLAR is a measure of value used for exchange, keeping accounts,
> etc.
> > >
> > > And monetary value is not an altogether different kind of affair
> > > than
> > semantic value or phonemic value -- i.e., Saussure's "valeur."
> > >
> > > An excellent source on such matters is the work of David Graeber
> > > (see http://www.amazon.com/David-Graeber/e/B001IQXM5K/ ), who also
> > happens to be one of the instigators of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
> > >
> > > In his latest book on Debt, Graeber argues that Adam Smith's fable
> > > about
> > the orgins of money is completely unsupported by any history or
> > anthropology. Graeber's work is full of examples that could be used
> > for exploring issues in this thread.
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-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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