Nhi Nguyen

Anthropology

02 May 2017

Graeber Chapter Summary

In this project, I will make one chapter summary when I read Graebers book for this

semester. After, Ill give my point of view that the Graebers ideas and contents in Encyclopedia

are match with each other or not.

During reading Graebers chapters. I will summarize the thesis of chapter twelve 1971-

The Beginning of Something Yet to Be Determined. This Chapter argues the state-finance nexus

is enforced by real material force, and the people of a nation bear the costs of war. Graeber

Cashes out that our present era begins precisely in 1971, when the U.S unilaterally suspended its

Bretton Woods obligation to exchange gold for dollars at $35 per ounce. Besides, Graeber opens

the final chapter of Debt to discuss the death of the Bretton Woods accord, the value of all

national currencies to USD (American dollars).

The devastation of World War II came an international agreement that brought stability to

international economies as it benefited the nation with the greatest military, social, and

economic, etc. Graeber predicted the war was a reason why the Bretton Woods agreement was

struck, and why the agreement was abandoned. Besides, Graeber explained when the U.S

disconnected the value of dollar from gold standard, the value of international currencies

plummeted. And the U.S was free to increase its own treasury by printing money. However, in

the countries with massive gold reserves, when the US dollars decreased, the price of gold would

increase.
 By the way, Graeber chooses to focus almost on a single Kinol of debt US Treasury

bonds - and argues the large notional debt of the U.S government. Graeber highlighted for the

audience how the dollar was valued and why money was printed, and more important was: who

was the master of the process. Graeber mentioned the Federal Reserve was not a government

organization; paid the US mint to print money. The Federal Reserve then bought Treasury Bonds,

then lend the US debt to other banks. Only the Federal Reserve could order the printing of

money. Thus, the dollars printed were debts notes that were traded like currency.

During reading both Graebers book and Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural

Anthropology. I had the comparison between these reading about money. In the last chapter of

Graebers book, Graeber focused much on the U.S. currency dollar and the value of the money

applied in real life. Similarly, reading money part in Encyclopedia, it described the value of the

money is the payment which is the transfer from one person to another person. Money represents

this interest, and its meaning depends on the circumstances of every single performance. While

Graeber expressed the money in US dollar, Encyclopedia went overall kinds of money in the

world or general. When the last chapter of Graebers book explained why the money was printed

and the value of dollar affect the economics of the world, Encyclopedia paid attention to the

deeply understanding of money like long standing markets systems. Both reading all told the

particular use of money gave rise its own distinctive institution. Under describing the money, the

main idea of Encyclopedia was whatever the purposes and circumstances money was used, it

gave rise to the particular world view, which in turn defined the ways in which money itself was

represented. In the contrary, the chapter twelve in Graebers book wanted the audience to

understand the position of the dollar; required on understanding of international macroeconomic,

finance, and policy.

 Throughout writing this project, I gained for myself the knowledge of currency in the U.S

nor around the world. Both reading had the meaningful lesson about debt and money. Oneside, I

could understand more the value of dollar Im using every day. Actually, I didnt care much how

the money came from before doing this project. However, when I had chance to read over and

made the summary, I comprehended a little more about the cultural of one country. Money is one

of the cultural experience in many cultural things in a country.