Like most of us, you probably learned in school that people invented money to replace barter, markets are guided by The Invisible Hand, and a debt is a kind of sacred promise. Like much else you learned in school, says anthropologist David Graeber, this is wrong. Markets are constructed by states, while the appearance of debt, slavery and money in human affairs coincide with the appearance of violent empires, and recede when empires are in decline. Debts are only sacred, Graeber explains, when the poor owe the rich, and there are key distinctions between debts and promises. Graeber, the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years is interviewed by C.S. Soong on KPFA's Against the Grain...
The Origins of Debt, Money, Slavery and Empire An Against the Grain Interview by C.S. Soong and Sasha Lilley
KPFA.s Against the Grain is consistently one of the best interview shows around. We at BAR steal ideas from them all the time. You can find a link to Debt: The First 5,000 Years here .
listen
http://www.againstthegrain.org/files/files/atg/atg_2013.01.07_graeber.mp3
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Colin Kaepernick.
The climate movement has been captured by a professional managerial class that prefers charity galas and virtue signaling to building power.
"Find me another 11,780 votes?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
The Yemeni attack involved dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, targeting sites from which Saudi warplanes took off to strike Yemen.
Responsibility for Haiti's deteriorating conditions does not rest on the Haitian masses. A population does not rise up spontaneously but depends on political movements and organizations to build it.
