Against the Grain

Money, War, and Slavery

The conventional economic wisdom holds that humans started to use money as an outgrowth of bartering — and that money represented a great leap forward for civilization. That couldn’t be further from the truth, argues David McNally. Money, he contends, has not been a benign development, but has since its inception been tied to warfare and slavery.

Resources:

David McNally, Blood and Money: War, Slavery, Finance, and the State Haymarket, 2020