Comments on: Murphy Replies to David Graeber on Menger and Money

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:53:25 +0000

TO WHAT SMALL MICROCOSM ARE YOU EVEN REFERRING TO?

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:46:47 +0000

Anthropology has studied economic systems among diverse populations, both market-based and non. It is precisely this “understanding of the whole” that Austrian economics fails to take into account. There has been no society documented in history that used barter as a means of every day exchange. I argue that the Austrian school makes a priori assumptions based on “ethnocentric” perspectives of human behavior. The “whole” is precisely what this school of thought neglects.

Please read the book so you can grasp the “whole” argument!

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:40:13 +0000

IS AUSTRIAN ECONOMIC THEORY NOT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT MARKETS REGULATE THEMSELVES?
This is a simple question.
I do not know your argument if you will not articulate one!

By: MattC

MattC — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 11:38:40 +0000

Super response above Aaron. If your basis in argument is a microcosm of a wider ecosystem which in itself has more moving components than that small microcosm accounts for how would you be able to understand? In any sense – you don’t know what you dont know. And if you are inclined to argue agsinst a thing on the basis of no comparable understanding of the “whole” why would anyone take your ideas seriously.

Get Real.

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:38:24 +0000

Please elaborate. What am I failing to understand about Austrian economics? Save the insults, provide an actual argument.

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:08:28 +0000

I think you are right. I am foolish. I am foolish for trying to have a discussion about a book with someone who has not even read it.
I really hope you, and others like you, will take the time to question your extremely narrow perspective in response to actual evidence. Your assumptions about human nature are radically ethnocentric.

By: Eric Evans

Eric Evans — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:31:58 +0000

“ECONOMICS’ UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR IS WHAT IS QUESTIONABLE!”

And if you think that’s what Austrian economics is about, you’re a bigger fool than in your last post.

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:48:26 +0000

ECONOMICS’ UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR IS WHAT IS QUESTIONABLE!
And concerning Austrian economics, the presumption is that markets can regulate themselves. This is not that difficult to grasp, it’s just not true. We understand Austrian economic theory, it’s just that we are anthropologists and we rely on EVIDENCE AND FIELDWORK to make statements about human behavior. In fact, we would probably consider your perspective more in the domain of religious devotion as no amount of evidence is ample enough to question your fundamentalist position.

Also, have you even read the book?

By: Eric Evans

Eric Evans — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 03:19:57 +0000

“Graeber has well demonstrated that money was “a creature of the state””

Graeber demonstrated nothing of the sort, and furthermore Graeber’s understanding of economics in general is pretty questionable. It’s safe to say that he needs to actually understand Austrian economics before he presumes to speak about it.

By: Aaron Dietrich

Aaron Dietrich — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:52:58 +0000

Graeber has well demonstrated that money was “a creature of the state”; historical evidence reveals it as a unit of account employed by the authority of law. Thus, money has not been selected for because of the “marketability” of any commodity since that commodity rarely exchanged hands; it was and is an abstraction used to compare values that are in turn enforced by the power of a presiding authority. For example, it’s no coincidence the USD maintains its status as the dominant reserve currency when backed by the most powerful military in the world (not gold)!
The use of silver among long-distance traders was accurately described by Graeber as a unit of account (you wouldn’t actually bring the bank with you on a foreign expedition). Silver was adopted in Mesopotamia and as such “used to compare the values of everyday items.” This is not actual metal being traded back and forth but instead the exchange of debits/credits measured against the concept of silver which was “stockpiled in the temple.” This is the case with any modern Credit card, and there are much less sophisticated means of conveying the same information without electricity (a bar tab). The USD is itself a pure credit instrument. Over time and through crises, money’s intrinsic ethos has been discarded, its accounting function always remains.
Clearly, Menger’s “general explanation” is in no way consistent with Graeber’s account. I would advise critics to actually read the piece before trying to invalidate it.
The barter myth has been exposed by ethnographic and historical evidence at the peril of armchair conjecture. If you have no historical or contemporary evidence for your assertions (aside from prisoners and children) you have little to argue with.

By: tunk

tunk — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:26:06 +0000

I agree with Henry. For Austrians, “money” is DEFINED as a commodity that serves as a general medium of exchange. Economic analysis merely proceeds from the logical implications of that definition. How could such a medium have arisen? What determines its exchange-value? Et cetera. But as Mises wrote in HA, while “[a]ll theorems of economics are necessarily valid in every instance in which all the assumptions presupposed are given [...] they have no practical significance in situation where these conditions are not established.” It seems to me that, despite Murphy’s protestations, all that Graeber did was establish that the historical conditions required for our origin-of-money story were not established. If we’re interested in truth, we should be grateful for this.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:36:30 +0000

David Graeber would argue that coercion is unproductive, but that a certain degree of social responsibility is productive. However, it cannot be enforced by coercion.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:28:16 +0000

You can read the book for free on Amazon……

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:27:12 +0000

You shouldn’t generalize about anthropologists based on some that you saw a television show or some other commcercial endeavor. As a rule of thumb, anthropologists and economists alike who go on television and produce “shows”, are typically whacks anyway.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:24:47 +0000

You hit the nail on the head.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:23:30 +0000

Not necessarily. You simply allow for a roughly balanced barter on the spot for that stranger occurence, or the stranger already knows of a rate for exchange for that particular region/context, so they ask for a negotiation based on that premise.

The daily workings of the system, go on unchanged.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:20:26 +0000

Graeber isn’t “arguing against freedom”. That is utter nonsense. He is an adamant defender of freedom if you knew his work. Robert Murphy is a defender of freedom too. They have more in common than in difference.

By: Ned Netterville

Ned Netterville — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:15:40 +0000

Only by pseudo-scientists who do not know what they do not know.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:35:46 +0000

That is the premise. It remains to be seen if it is true in fact. Is money primarily a medium of exchange? Did it actually arise in this way? Does historical and anthropological research bear this out? Is the function of medium of exchange a primary or a derivative phenomenon?

Because another possibility is: money is originally credit, and it arose in this manner. This seems to be borne out by historical and anthropological research.

Again, your premise is a definition of money which may or may not be true in itself. If it is true, then your conclusion is accurate. The premise clearly depends upon concrete data, not upon divine revelation, nor is it axiomatically evident, but rather is merely culturally evident, and what may be in question in a culture is merely a local and time-bound phenomenon, not necessarily a universally present or invariable element.

By: physguy

physguy — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:28:30 +0000

“Mises must be laughing in his grave to find that there are still fools who think themselves “scientific,” yet are still stuck in the mud of empiricism alone without any praxeological knowledge of unimpeachable truths. ”

That’s what’s called “religion”, not science. And for good reason …