David Graeber

the whole story we summarized in the last chapter – our standard historical meta-narrative about the ambivalent progress of human civilization, where freedoms are lost as societies grow bigger and more complex – was invented largely for the purpose of neutralizing the threat of indigenous critique

a feeling of gratitude for a favour or service.
—Oxford English Dictionary

The very fact that we don’t know what debt is, the very flexibility of the concept, is the basis of its power.

Those of us who do not have armed men behind us cannot afford to be so exacting.

For a very long time, the intellectual consensus has been that we can no longer ask Great Questions. Increasingly, it’s looking like we have no other choice.

Economists generally speak of three functions of money: medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.

Money provides a way to make multilateral exchange much simpler.

we also hanker after meaning’

anyone who would rather be doing something useful with themselves.

very familiar in academic contexts) who spend their time staffing committees that discuss the problem of unnecessary committees.