Published in Gods & Radicals Press:
It’s good to save, right? For example, it is wise and responsible as to ‘save for a rainy day’. If you have the means, it may well be prudent to do so. It makes sense to increase your income in comparison to your outgoings, how much you earn in comparison to how much you spend, your input against your outputs. But your household budget does not exist in a vacuum outside of banks, governments, and everyone else’s transactions. This ‘everything else’ is what is often called or reified as “the economy”. And it’s a commonly parroted belief that the economy functions like your household budget, just a scaled-up version…
Originally written and presented at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Werkstatt in 2018. Updated and rearranged for inclusion in samizdat published to commemorate launch of David Graeber Institute 2022.
Avi 