Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

The Origins of Debt, Money, Slavery and Empire
21 Sep 2011
🖨️ Print Article

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://www.againstthegrain.org/files/files/atg/atg_2013.01.07_graeber.mp3

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
    29 Jul 2026
    Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Neoliberalism to Trumpism: The Re-Normalization of White Supremacy as State Ideology
    29 Jul 2026
    The crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of the U.S. state.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Question of Western Sahara, Tinguiri Mansour Omar, 1979
    29 Jul 2026
    “It is perfectly clear that the war of aggression waged by Morocco against the [Western] Saharan people is a purely colonial war.”
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Trash Panda Politics Guides the Black Misleadership Class’s Electoral Dumpster Dive
    29 Jul 2026
    The Congressional Black Caucus electoral strategy has turned the 2026 midterm elections into a dumpster dive for corporate interests and Zionist approval.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    U.S. Support of Israel is Absolutely an Issue of Affordability and Economic Populism…So Why Won’t the Democrats Discuss it as Such?
    29 Jul 2026
    The Democratic Party's continued support for Israel's genocide is not just a moral and political liability but also an economic one which impacts its voters, yet the party refuses to frame it as such.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us