Money: The Oldest Debt

We use money every day. We organize huge parts of our lives around it. But what exactly is it?

A coin isn’t especially useful on its own. A number in a bank account is even stranger. And yet both can determine where we live, what we can do, and what we owe one another.
Most of us learned a simple story: first people bartered, then came coins, then paper money, and eventually digital money and crypto. But some of the oldest writing we have isn’t about buying and selling things. It’s about debt: who owed what to whom.

That changes the story.

So let’s get together and talk about money not just as an object, but as a relationship. Why are some debts treated as sacred while others are forgiven? What happens between two people when one starts keeping score? Why can owing someone money feel so different from owing them a favor? And if money is something humans invented together, why does it so often feel like a law of nature?

No prior reading needed. David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years will be our loose backbone if you want a head start.