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


  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Who Protects the People from the Human Rights Protectors?
    26 Feb 2025
    Can Palestinians get a little Humanitarian Intervention?
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Y. Davis, James Baldwin, 1970
    26 Feb 2025
    James Baldwin on white madness–and Black resistance.
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso , Austin Cole
    The Struggle for a Zone of Peace Continues!: A Conversation with Austin Cole
    26 Feb 2025
    The newly launched U.S./NATO Out of the Americas Network activates local grassroots organizations across the region in an effort to make this hemisphere a Zone of Peace.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Gimme, gimme, gimme …
    26 Feb 2025
    "Gimme, gimme, gimme…" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Françoise N. Hamlin and Charles W. McKinney, Jr.’s Book, “From Rights to Lives”
    26 Feb 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured authors are Françoise N. Hamlin and Charles W. McKinney, Jr.  Dr. Hamlin is Royce Family…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us