Human civilization did not begin in the last 100,000 years but long before that along with the history. As the world as we know it comes to an end, its last 5,000 years are reviewed not its first.Debt: The First 5000 Years
Greece is among many European nations struggling with a debt that grew out of the gambits of global banksters. But the entire concept of "debt" has a strange and unknown history.The solution to Greece’s debt crisis continues to confound leaders. Euro Zone officials have been pressuring Greek leaders to accept a $171 billion bailout and all the accompanying spending cuts ("austerity measures").
Pacifica Radio hostess Sonali Kolhatkar and American anthropologist, author, and activist Prof. David Graeber (Goldsmiths, University of London) examine the concept and logic of debt -- its political, societal, and religious history. (In many languages the word for "debt" is "guilt").
Together they examine how debt has been used since the beginning of civilization as a tool of the rich against the poor. Money did NOT replace the bulky barter system, as we are all taught. A system of indebtedness was instituted that eventually enslaved many by design.
The new American republic was not originally a democracy, a fearful idea of popular rule. It was a landowners’ experiment that may have not been as good a choice as anarchism: any system of governance that does not require violent enforcement by soldiers and government agents.
