c/david-graeber
Lectures, interviews, and talks by David Graeber — anthropologist, anarchist, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Bullshit Jobs, and The Dawn of Everything.
…are assumed to be just essentially money, and money is assumed to be a natural thing, ends really only in 1971, when Nixon goes off the gold standard. And so everybody talks about virtual or net entering this phase of virtual money and most transactions…
…balance of trade. One way it does that is that U.S. dollars are the reserve currency, and this has been true since Nixon went off the gold standard. Essentially, treasury bonds have substituted for gold as the basic reserve currency that central banks use,…
…considered possible. I mean, it's clear that, you know, Obama's way to the right of Clinton and Clinton's way to the right of Nixon on economic issues. Maybe not on social issues. All right, so much for stacking. In the center of above there. All right,…
…to get concessions from Vietnam in the 70s by offering the Madman Doctrine. You can do a deal. Or, you know, President Nixon is a madman. He might resort to nuclear bombs. But they are also working to evade democratic scrutiny by Parliament, the courts…
…debt and money, The past 30 years, only time when we've seen 100% fiat currency backed by just more debt. Post-1971 Nixon gold window closing. Now, fiat currencies weren't there. Weren't they usually backed before this by gold or something? There was…
…take the view, that one of the most significant dates in capital's history was August the 15th, 1971. Because on that date, Nixon took the dollar away from the gold standard. Now, throughout the history of capital before that, gold had always been the…
…of really put our minds to it there have to be some Now, what do we do this time around? 1971, Nixon goes off the gold standard. Money becomes a free-floating credit instrument. Quickly, you see plastic emerge. Everybody's doing credit transactions. You…
…don't have everybody becoming enslaved and the system breaking down. This time around, ever since 71, we've been moving back since Nixon went off the gold standard. What happens instead, they create the IMF and institutions like that to make sure, not to…
…Ages back to credit money. You have a shift back to bullion. It's turning again. We just passed the 40th anniversary of Nixon. Exactly. And in 71, officially, the dollar was completely detached from gold. And since then, it's been happening to break gold.…
…capitalism. And I guess to conclude this part, since we're thinking in the long view, it's been 40 years and a week since Nixon shut the gold window and we've been living in this world of perfect credit, pure credit money. We have another 460 years to…
…then my own political hero when I was a kid, Richard Nixon. No lie. Don't tell anybody. So... Tell us how Bryan and Nixon affected the dollar in their own times. Richard Nixon would roll over in his grave to be compared to William Jennings Bryan. But…
…when Richard Nixon did what William Jennings Bryan had advocated by cutting the United States off from the international gold standard. Nixon would be greatly chagrined to be compared with Brian, but there it is. Okay. I have a question about that,…
…the answer a bit because probably it will come up again in questions. Fast forward, 1971, we moved to a virtual economy. Nixon takes us off the gold standard. We build this financial structure. We barrel forward to the crisis of 2007, 2008. Everyone's in…
…And that's the period that's ending now. 1971 is the date that most people set for when we go off the gold standard. And Nixon sort of takes a dollar off the gold standard as a sort of key point of transition. And very rapidly after that, you see…