Social Meanings and Uses of Money

In Graeber's chapter, Games with Sex and Money, he makes a distinction between Human Economies and Commercial Economies in a bid to distinguish between different kinds of debts. Money “can be seen, in human economies, as first and foremost the acknowledgment of the existence of a debt that cannot be paid” (136). What I liked about the chapter was Graeber's efforts at showing how societies transition form one kind of economic system to the other (i.e from human economies to commercial economies) and how this transition, or replacement, of the human economy system also affects the social structure and social relations. Graeber's assertion that violence plays a major role in the shift to a more commercial economy is something that particularly interested me. Why is it that commercial economies thrive even with all the evidenced problems brought about by violence? And with commercial economies thriving, can it be argued that people being removed violently (and sometimes voluntarily and willing) from their context to further the commercial economies is perhaps the new context?