“As it turns out, we don't "all" have to pay our debts. Only some of us do.”

This week's book was "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graber. In this book, the author argues that money wasn't invented to facilitate complex bartering systems. In fact, throughout history, there have always been elaborate credit systems and units of account. 

What was interesting to learn was historically people didn't really trade as such, it was all done through credit systems, and those credit systems very rarely carried any interest. It was really the introduction of money (a measure of debt or IOU), interest-bearing loans (a way of paying for wars), and the rise of capitalism (accumulate as much wealth as possible) that caused the biggest challenges to society. 

It remains to be seen what the financial system will look like in the future- one thing for sure, something has to change.