Uprising Radio welcomes American anthropologist, teacher, author, and activist David Graeber. His book, Debt: The First Five Thousand Years, shows how debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates across the world.
They have given rise to innumerable uprisings. But the exploration much further back through the history of money and credit and the division of societies into creditors (1%) and debtors (99%).
Most Americans know the injustice between homeowners facing foreclosure and debt ridden banks who caused the problem being bailed out. That unequal application of help to regain solvency has angered so many Americans that it gave rise to a nationwide Occupy Movement.
(PBS) Are we slaves? Wage slaves, debt slaves, people who do work they do not want
to because they owe more money than they can pay (debtors)? Need To Know's Alison
Stewart talks with Graeber about our misconceptions about debt and its role in history.
David Graeber is one of the first activists to get Occupy Wall Street off the ground last year. His earlier books include Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. He also writes for Harper's magazine, The Nation, and The New Left Review.
