Matias Vernengo — Debt and the deep sources of inequality

In a previous post I noted that economists (particularly mainstream ones, like Brad DeLong) could actually learn quite a bit from anthropologists like David Graeber. One thing that they (anthropologists, not mainstream economists) seem to understand is that debt is a social relation that evolved with the creation of inequality. Debt servitude or slavery being quite old, as a result.

Naked Keynesianism
Debt and the deep sources of inequality
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah

It would appear that a big reason that conventional economists do not take notice this rather obvious historical fact is because any mention of it is sure to draw criticism as Marxism." 

Of course, it is also possible they have just dense, dumbed down by too much math. I'm not kidding, too much math makes many smart people stupid in that they formalize the world and miss what is actually happening, most of which is qualitative rather than quantitative.