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


  • Protesters march in Lima
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    One Year Anniversary of Coup Regime Marks International Day of Solidarity with the Peruvian People
    06 Dec 2023
    On the anniversary of the Monroe doctrine, the struggle against the repressive Boluarte coup in Peru regime enters its second year. National Strike, Day 364
  • Fred Hampton speaking at a rally
    Jon Jeter
    Fifty-four Years Later, Fred Hampton’s Martyrdom Looms Large Over Palestinians’ Freedom Struggle
    06 Dec 2023
    The thread connecting the struggles of Black and Palestinian liberation makes itself known in the propagandistic attacks on the Palestinian resistance. The assassination of Fred Hampton helps…
  • Protest with BLM sign and Palestine flag
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black People Won't Be Silenced About Israel
    06 Dec 2023
    As the US continues to conflate every criticism of Zionism with anti-semitism, the predicable happens once again. Black people are used as an avatar of anti-Jewish sentiment. This tactic will not…
  • Poster of Al Fatah through the streets of Algiers. Palestine Poster Project
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MESSAGE: The Palestine National Liberation Movement AL-FATEH to Africa
    06 Dec 2023
    Al-Fateh’s communique at the 1969 Festival of Pan-African Culture offered a brilliant analysis of the overlapping histories of European colonialism and white supremacy in Africa and Palestine.
  • More than 6 million Congolese now shelter in IDP camps.
    Maurice Carney
    D.R. Congo’s Challenges: Elections, Rwanda’s War of Aggression and Critical Minerals for Green Transition
    06 Dec 2023
    The ongoing crisis is a result of converging forces determined to pursue their own interests by controlling the affairs within the Congo and subjecting the masses to inhumane conditions.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us