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: “Feet to the Fire” and Other Lies
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: “Feet to the Fire” and Other Lies
    19 Aug 2020
    When the Democratic Party ends its charade of a primary process and spits out the person most closely aligned with neo-liberal policies, the gas lighting begins.
  • Trump is Wrong, Joe Biden is not the “Radical Left.” He is an Enemy of Humanity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Trump is Wrong, Joe Biden is not the “Radical Left.” He is an Enemy of Humanity
    19 Aug 2020
    Both candidates are jockeying for who can best gaslight the U.S. public into remaining loyal to one side of the two-party corporate duopoly or the other.
  • Biden’s Philly Headquarters Rents a Fence to Stop the Poor People’s Army
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Biden’s Philly Headquarters Rents a Fence to Stop the Poor People’s Army
    19 Aug 2020
    Cheri Honkala tells Ann Garrison that the Biden campaign headquarters threw up a rent-a-fence when they heard the Poor People’s Army was coming.
  • Beirut BOOM
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Beirut BOOM
    19 Aug 2020
    A big BOOM— 27,000 tons of ammonium nitrate… chemical compound for agricultural  Fertilizer…  ‘stored’ 6 years at the port of Beirut 220 dead 5,000 injured
  • Kopmala’s Padlocks and the Games Politicians Play
    Paul Street
    Kopmala’s Padlocks and the Games Politicians Play
    19 Aug 2020
    The Big Business-backed Harris earned a reputation as a friend of the police and an agent of racially disparate mass incarceration.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us