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


  • Freedom Rider: The End of Low Wage Work
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The End of Low Wage Work
    12 May 2021
    The combination of unemployment and additional stimulus support has made staying home a better economic decision than working for peanuts under stressful conditions.
  • Democrats Give an “A” Grade to Joe Biden’s Brand of Corporate Rule. Should the Left?
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Democrats Give an “A” Grade to Joe Biden’s Brand of Corporate Rule. Should the Left?
    12 May 2021
    Biden’s policies thus far represent the bare minimum response of a social order mired in total decay.
  • The Mother’s Day Massacre:  Mumia Abu-Jamal, 1985
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    The Mother’s Day Massacre:  Mumia Abu-Jamal, 1985
    12 May 2021
    Four years into his own ordeal as a political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal charged Philadelphia’s government with premeditated mass murder in the slaughter of MOVE men, women and children.
  • Open Letter to Superstar Rapper J. Cole about Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Open Letter to Superstar Rapper J. Cole about Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    12 May 2021
    Dear Mr. Cole:
  • From Palestine to Colombia: The End of the White World Colonial/Capitalist Project?
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    From Palestine to Colombia: The End of the White World Colonial/Capitalist Project?
    12 May 2021
    Despite the quickening decline of the “West,” the US and its junior partners in imperialism are determined to hold humanity hostage to terminal capitalist greed and violence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us