This is an opinion article about the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. The author summarizes the book and discusses several of its central ideas: the society of debt, usury as a force more powerful than religious ethics, the end of capitalism, and the abolition of debt. In the final paragraph, he writes that, despite its “pamphlet-like” character, the book is a kind of summa of the cultural anthropology of debt.
Ramón Punset: Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at the University of Oviedo. He served as a lawyer for the Tribunal Constitucional (Constitutional Court) between 1988 and 1994. This independent court is responsible for upholding the Spanish Constitution and has the authority to overturn rulings made by the Tribunal Supremo (Supreme Court), the highest judicial body in Spain.
Comments by DGI volunteer Pere Carrillo Camps:
The article is a translation from Spanish, but it remains interesting. I believe it is particularly relevant to the time it was written—2013—because during that year, the housing rights platform PAH (Plataforma d’Afectats per la Hipoteca, a social movement working to stop evictions and cancel debts resulting from the 2007 financial crash) had a significant impact on the Spanish state. For me, this shows the influence of the book and the motivation behind writing about it: the author was trying to make sense of a period marked by widespread protests, even though this context is not explicitly mentioned in the article.