RMF Report: Breaking Up? A Route Out of the Eurozone Crisis (2011)

“Debtor-led default and exit are fraught with risk, and have costs attached to them. But the alternative is economic and social decline within the EMU that could still end up in chaotic and even costlier exit. In contrast, if default and exit were planned and executed by a decisive government, they could put the country on the path to recovery. For that it would be necessary to adopt a broad economic and social programme including capital controls, redistribution, industrial policy, and thorough restructuring of the state. The aim would be to change the balance of power in favour of labour, simultaneously putting the country on the path of sustainable growth and high employment. Not least, national independence would also be protected.” (from Executive summary)

Authors: C. Lapavitsas, A. Kaltenbrunner, D. Lindo, J. Meadway, J. Michell, J.P. Painceira, E. Pires, J. Powell, A. Stenfors, N. Teles, L. Vatikiotis
Published by Research on Money and Finance, November 2011
RMF Occassional Report 3
92 pages

Media Coverage of the Report: The Miami Herald (by Joanna Kakissis, 17 November 2011), Prin (in Greek, by Petros Kosmas, 13 November 2011), El Pais (in Spanish, by Amanda Mars, 13 November 2011), Guardian (by Heather Stewart, 13 November 2011), Eleftherotypia (in Greek, by Leonidas Vatikiotis, 12 November, 2011), CNN (by Costas Lapavitsas, 10 November 2011).

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Edu-Factory Journal, No. 0-1 (2010-2011)

Edu-factory is a transnational collective engaged in the transformations of the global university and conflicts in knowledge production. The website of the global network (www.edu-factory.org) collects and connects theoretical investigations and reports from university struggles. The network has organized meetings all around the world, paying particular attention to the intertwining of student and faculty struggles.

Issue 1: University Struggles and the System of Measure
September 2011
Editors: Nirmal Puwar, Gerald Raunig and Brett Neilson
81 pages
Contributions by Edu-factory collective, Enda Brophy and Myka Tucker-Abramson, Lina Dokuzović and Eduard Freudmann, Victor Jeleniewski Seidler, Mary Evans, Bridget Fowler, Peer Illner

Issue 0: The Double Crisis
January 2010
141 pages
Contributions by Edu-factory collective, Christopher Newfield, George Caffentzis, Jon Solomon, Stefano Harney, Ned Rossiter, Marc Bousquet, Revista Multitud, Pedro Barbosa Mendes, Claudia Bernardi and Andrea Ghelfi, Lina Dokuzović and Eduard Freudmann, Uninomade

ISSN 2078-3884
no copyright

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David Graeber: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011–) [EN, CZ, RU]

“Before there was money, there was debt.

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter system–to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginning of the agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems. It is in this era, Graeber shows, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

With the passage of time, however, virtual credit money was replaced by gold and silver coins–and the system as a whole began to decline. Interest rates spiked and the indebted became slaves. And the system perpetuated itself with tremendously violent consequences, with only the rare intervention of kings and churches keeping the system from spiraling out of control. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history–as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.”

Publisher Melville House, July 2011
ISBN 1933633867, 9781933633862
542 pages

Original essay (Mute, February 2009)
Illustrated essay with excerpts from the book (Triple Canopy, July 2010)
Video interview on Greece (Democracy Now!, July 2011)
Video interview (PBS: Need to Know, August 2011)

Review: Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (Social Text, 2011).

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Debt: The First 5,000 Years (English, 2011, updated on 2020-4-10)
Dluh: prvních 5000 let (Czech, trans. Lenka Beranová, 2012, 71 MB, added on 2020-4-10)
Dolg: pervyye 5000 let istorii (Russian, trans. A. Dunayev, 2015, 18 MB, added on 2020-4-10)