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


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    POEM: Apologies to All the People in Lebanon, June Jordan, 1982
    21 Aug 2024
    June Jordan’s painful apology for US complicity in zionist terrorism in Lebanon, and against the Palestinian people.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Dan Kovalik on Israel's War on Gaza
    21 Aug 2024
    Ann Garrison caught up with attorney, journalist, and author Dan Kovalik just as the Coalition to March on the DNC stepped off from Chicago’s Union Park on the first day of the Democratic National…
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    SADC Holds 44th Annual Summit in Zimbabwe as Regional Imperatives Mount
    21 Aug 2024
    Economic integration, peacekeeping and a burgeoning public health crisis take center stage in deliberations.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Pussy’s on the ballot— Again …
    21 Aug 2024
    "Pussy’s on the ballot— Again …" is the latest form BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Anthony Rogers-Wright
    Environmentally, There’s Not Enough Daylight Between Democratic Party Policies and Project 2025 to Fuel a Solar Panel
    21 Aug 2024
    Election season has sparked a frenzy of hysteria around Project 2025 and people are leaning on the Democratic party to stand as an oppositional force. However, just as with many other policies, the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us