Debt

Huzaifa Omair Siddiqi talks about the idea of debt, mainly with respect to the book by David Graeber on its history. This episode is dedicated to his memory.

Huzaifa is a doctoral candidate at the Department of English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, working on speculative materialism. He has written on several subjects including Graeber’s work.

The image is that of the Cone of Urukagina, which has the first recorded instance of the word ‘freedom’ (‘amargi’). In his book, Graeber talks about this record as one of several issued periodically by Sumerian kings to “declare all outstanding consumer debt null and void…, return all land to its original owners, and allow all debt-peons to return to their families”.

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