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In fact, our standard account of monetary history is precisely backwards. We did not begin with barter, discover money, and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around.

— David Graeber

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More quotes by David Graeber

It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor.

Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all the social relationships that make one a human being.

Before we can apply the tools of anthropology to reconstruct the real history of money, we need to understand what's wrong with the conventional account.

Exchange is all about equivalence.

Honor is the same as credit; it's one's ability to keep ones promises, but also, in the case of a wrong, to "get even".

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: David Graeber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.