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First, and obviously, the article is talking about capital when they say 'money'. Not all capital is borrowed. Second, not all money is created via borrowing
by eru 3mo ago
First, and obviously, the article is talking about capital when they say 'money'. Not all capital is borrowed.
Second, not all money is created via borrowing (but the vast majority is!)
And the YouTube video you linked to is very confused even about the money that is created via borrowing.
Government debt is not required to create money. The Bank of Japan bought stock ETFs to get 'freshly printed' money into circulation. ('Freshly printed' in scare quotes, because these days it's just entries in a database.) Another example: Singapore's central bank (MAS) does not use Singapore government debt to create Singapore dollars; I'm not even quite sure they would even be allowed to.
You can say that money itself is a debt of the central bank; and that's sort-of true, but it's not what David Graeber talks about.
A bit of a pedantic last point: silver coins or bitcoin also require no borrowing to create. Silver coins have been used as money, bitcoin could conceivably be used as money. (There are other problems with these options, but that's besides the narrow point.)
- mempko 3mo agoWhen you mentioned silver coins and bitcoin that helped me understand your position. All modern money is debt. Bitcoin is NOT a form of money. Silver coins do require a debt, which is taxes people owe which they can use the silver coins to pay. Graeber wrote about money in great detail in Debt the First 5000 years.