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
    TESTIMONY: Coup d'Etat in Haiti, Maxine Waters, March 4, 2004
    15 May 2024
    Remembering when Auntie Maxine Waters testified for Haiti, and against the US coup-mongering gangsters.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Won’t you please come to Chicago? Cheri Honkala on the Democratic National Convention
    15 May 2024
    The City of Chicago has inadvertently granted the Poor People’s Army a permit to march to the convention steps of the United Center during the Democratic National Convention.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Papa Cop’s Pedagogy of the Oppressor (Apartheid state professors or SS students?)
    15 May 2024
    "Papa Cop’s Pedagogy of the Oppressor (Apartheid state professors or SS students?)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Anthony Rogers-Wright
    The Democrats Have Lost Their Trump Card: A Study of Three Issue Areas
    15 May 2024
    The Democrats have used the very old tactic of winning votes out of fear, recently that of the MAGA boogeyman. But this tactic is finally beginning to lose its effect.
  • Danny Shaw
    Columbia Students vs The State
    15 May 2024
    Columbia alumnus, former professor, and organizer, Danny Shaw, recounts his experience at the Columbia University Gaza Solidarity Encampment organizing with students.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us