Money and Dominance Questions

How might an anthropologist argue that the current US (now global) monetary system is based upon manipulation of the many by the few?

• 1. How do people bring money into existence in most places today?
• 2. What is the relationship between the amount of money and the amount interest and principal owed on debt?
• 3. In what two ways do those who control the money supply address challenges inherent in the relationship described in question 2?
• 4. Name one result of each of these two ways that entails loss, and for whom.
• 5. What are two ways that those who control the current system of money creation guarantee that people must work for money and will accept it as payment?
• 6. What are two reasons that in our system power to bring money into existence is so great?
• 7. What has been the fate of every fiat currency to date?
• 8. What is one explanation from the readings for why we give so little attention in school to the underpinnings of the monetary system?
• 9. What are the four components of "the system," which we've argued in this course has characterized most societies since widespread adoption of agriculture thousands of years ago and identify one group associated with each component in contemporary U.S. society?
• 10. People in which component dominate all others?
• 11. How might we argue that ideas about money, work, growth, patriotism, God, sin, and afterlife are interwoven by "explainers" to justify a current order where people are reproducing beyond replacement rate, a small minority wield a very disproportionate amount of power and possess a very disproportionate amount of wealth, and we are accelerating environmental degradation by depleting resource and proliferating hazard at increasing rates?