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


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 11, 2025
    11 Apr 2025
    In this week’s segment, we hear about a new effort to have an independent, socialist candidate on the ballot in New York City’s upcoming mayoral race. But first, we speak to an academic about the…
  • Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Palestine Solidarity Under Attack: A Conversation with Helyeh Doutaghi
    11 Apr 2025
    Our guest is Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi. She was Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale University Law School until she was targeted by Zionist groups dedicated to silencing anyone…
  • The Break
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Break NYC and the Need for a Socialist, Independent Mayoral Candidate in New York City
    11 Apr 2025
    A new organization, The Break NYC, has recently formed and is dedicated to finding and endorsing an independent leftist committed to staying in the race and appearing on the ballot. Two members of…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Cory Booker, Confused Liberals, Obama's Reappearance, and the Dangers of a Fake Movement
    09 Apr 2025
    Any “movement” that leads protest back to the Democratic Party is, by definition, dangerous. Criticism of Donald Trump cannot be a defining feature of change. 
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: White Supremacy in U.S. History, Theodore W. Allen April 28, 1973
    09 Apr 2025
    “The principal aspect of United States capitalist society is not merely bourgeois domination but bourgeois white supremacist domination.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us