La mutinerie - Etienne Chouard about Inuits (David Graeber)

Étienne Chouard explains, using a book of Graber, how egalitarian societies of hunters have refused the precise calculation of debits and credits in order to put on the ground of their humanity the sharing of resources.

So there is this part about the Inuit, where this guy, Graeber,

explains the remarkable experience of one anthropologist (Freuchen)

who meets with Eskimo people,

goes fishing with them, and comes back empty-handed.

He hasn't caught much, and as he comes back to his shelter,

he finds plenty of fish, because another one, who caught a great deal,

has piled some and given it to him. So naturally he thanks him.

But the other one gets offensed and says: “Do not ever thank me for this”.

The Inuit answers him:

“Up in our country we are human!” the hunter said.

“And since we are humane we help each other.

We do not like hearing thanks, for such matters.

What I have today, you could have tomorrow.

Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves...

and by whips one makes dogs.”

You need to hear the explanation in order to really grasp how powerful this is...

And then, it's worth reading again and again a dozen times,

it's astonishing really, profound.

“The last sentence is a bit of a classical wording of anthropology,

and one will find similar refusals of accounting credits and debits...”

— refusal to calculate credits and debits! —

“... throughout the anthropological literature

on egalitarian hunting societies.

Far from seeing himself as human

because of his ability to calculate economics,

the hunter asserts that we are truly human

when we refuse to do this sort of calculations.

When we refuse to measure or memorize, who gave what,

to whom, precisely because those behaviors

inevitably create a world

where we will undertake comparing power to power

measure them,

calculate,

and reduce ourselves, progressively, mutually, to a state of slavery...

or that of dogs, a debt bondage.

Not that this man, like untold millions of similar

egalitarian spirits throughout history...

not that this man was unaware

that humans have a propensity to calculate.

Had he not known, he couldn't have digressed the way he did.

Indeed we are enclined to calculate.

We have all sorts of inclinations.

In any situation of the everyday life,

we are enclined in many ways that simultaneously

drive us in different directions, often contradictory.

None of them is truer than the other.

Which do we chose as the foundation of our humanity,

and put at the ground of our civilization ?

Such is the real question.”

And so lately, that's not too long ago,

it's been two, three hundred years...

for the last 300 years,

merchants have colonized our collective psyche!

And we account for debits and credits!

A merchant, doing his transaction...

as we pay, we negate the relationship between individuals.

There is a relationship during the transaction,

until payment puts and end to it,

and we become strangers again.

Whereas humans, since the dawn of time

— as anthropologists explain, it's amazing! —,

it's that humans, before merchants colonized us

and dehumanize us,

humans knew how crucial were those mindful acknowledgments;

the acceptance of perpetual dependency and reciprocity.

And so when we...

That which predates money, isn't barter:

barter had no use but to conciliate strangers on a transaction.

However, a society with no boundary for the future,

aiming at living together, didn't swap.

We used to lend things:

“okay, you need this tool, I'll lend it to you,

sure, just use it“,

as the Inuit says, “you need it, it's yours, take it,

well, yes I lend you some... And you will return,

you might give a little more back, or you might give a little less...”.

They never give back exactly the same amount,

thus always leaving a small obligation that ensures we don't rip each other's faces...