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Michael Rowbotham

The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics Paperback – August 1, 1998

by Michael Rowbotham (Author)

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A lucid and original account of where money comes from and why most people and businesses are so heavily in debt. It explodes more myths than any other book this century, yet it's all about subjects very close to home: mortgages, building societies and banks, agriculture, transport, global poverty, and what's on the supermarket shelf. The author proposes a new mechanism for the supply of money, creating a supportive financial environment and a decreasing reliance on debt.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Jon Carpenter Publishing
Publication date

August 1, 1998
Dimensions

6 x 0.97 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

9781897766408
ISBN-13

978-1897766408
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1897766408
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jon Carpenter Publishing (August 1, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781897766408
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1897766408
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.97 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,114,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #502 in Credit Ratings & Repair (Books)
- #1,520 in Money & Monetary Policy (Books)
- #3,335 in Political Economy

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47 ratings

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2 star		6%
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Rocky

Out of Thin Air

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2008

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Kevin W Lomas & ClivKno are sadly mistaken about the source of the money loaned to borrowers under our current fractional reserve system.

Money deposited in banks which can be removed at any time (more properly demand deposits) only fraudulently can be loaned out. Time deposits, for which the banks agree to return the deposit at a future time with interest, become the property of the bank and could be properly loaned out. (See Murray Rothbard's The Mystery of Banking for a much more complete explanation.)

What ClivKno fails to mention in his claim that banks extend loans backed by the assests of the bank is that THE ASSESTS BACKING THE LOAN DID NOT EXIST BEFORE THE LOAN WAS CREATED! When a borrower promises to repay the loan with interest, the banks's double entry bookeeping creates an asset in the amount of the principal of the loan based on the borrower's promise to repay and a balancing liability based on the principal of the outstanding loan. It should be noted that the interest to repay the loan was NOT created along with the principal.

This is explained in Ellen Hodgson Brown's book Web of Debt, especially in her recitation of the court foreclosure case of FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF MONTGOMERY VS. DALY, in which defendant Jerome Daly argued that there was no consideration (a legal term) for the loan, i.e., that the bank had put up no real money for the loan.

When the president of the bank, Mr. Morgan came to the stand he admitted "that the bank routinely created the money it lent 'out of thin air', and that this was standard banking practice."

Much more follows, and I highly recommend the book WEB OF DEBT by Ellen Hodgson Brown, along with this book.

14 people found this helpful

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Avid_eBook_Reader

A Must Read to understand how the world really works!

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2011

This book is one of the most profound books I have ever read. After reading this book, my entire view of the world changed. I can never again listen to a politician say "there is not enough money".

Rowbotham begins this book with the very interesting question, "If every country in the world is in debt, who are they all in debt to?", and then continues in a very easy to read, logical progression, laying out the root cause of most major problems in the world today, and how they affect every sector of the economy in every country.

The key notion is that almost all modern money is *created* as debt (loans from nowwhere, with interest), and if you truly understand this, you see that this is an impossible situation. Imagine if there were a new island with no money and just a group of stranded people. The elected leader of the island allows one person to create a "bank" which prints money (this would be counterfeiting if the bank hadn't been given a license) and then lends this created money out to people with interest, lying to the people by implying they are lending out someone else's money. The catch is that the bank only printed $100 but expects that $100 to be paid back at the end of the year, along with an extra $10 as interest. But where is this extra $10 to come from? It doesn't exist. The only way to pay the extra $10 is to take out a loan, which will have its own interest due. Do you see the problem?

There are two issues:
1) At any given time, the total amount of debt (ie. principal + interest) in the world is greater than the total amount of money (principal) in the world. Every dollar in every pocket is owed by someone to some bank and along with interest for as long as you hold the dollar.

2) The only way for the economy to work is if there is a constantly growing amount of debt to pay off all the currently owed interest. This is why the news constantly says that things are good ONLY if the economy is growing 3% per year. But the world is finite. Permanent 3% growth is impossible - hence the boom and bust cycle.

All of the above and much more is covered in this book in very easy to read fashion.

I highly, highly recommend this book.

10 people found this helpful

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John Duffy

Outstanding book

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2015

The “Grip of Death” is an outstanding book. If you would like to understand the root cause of the increasingly difficult economic and social problems the global community is facing, I strongly recommend reading this book. Maybe, for the sake of future generations, we still have time to tackle the rapidly deteriorating trend of our debt-based economy and its many negative impacts on the real economy on a local and global scale.

3 people found this helpful

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BankSlave

Russell was right!

Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2010

Meaning Bertrand Russell when he said, "Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt
of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of
sheep against the practice of eating mutton." Well, I should say he is partially right , at this time. It is not by selective breeding, rather an intentional obfuscation of banking, money and economics that have the plebs ignorant of and/or defending their own slavery. The detractors of this book here are clearly blind to the debt slavery that is a consequence of banking practices. If you can't see this, with or without this book, hopefully you will, at least, enjoy your slavery.

8 people found this helpful

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Pembaca

More emotion than logic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2018

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I was very disappointed in this book. It reads like an anti-banker rant. Mr Rowbotham indulges in poorly based and emotional value judgments. For example, he describes banks as "creaming off some of the interest they charge to borrowers!" (his exclamation mark, not mine, and he puts the "creaming off" bit in italics). What does this actually mean, other than that banks make a profit on transactions? Well, of course they do - they're businesses.

He also relies heavily on quotes from eminent people - always a bad sign, because it's often a substitute for a properly reasoned argument, made worse in this case by the fact that the quotes often don't actually support what he's saying.

More fundamentally, he doesn't seem to understand that in creating money supply by granting credits, banks are taking a risk (the risk of not being repaid), and that this both acts as a restraint on the money supply and justifies them earning interest.

This system developed naturally, in response to the market. It has spread, and continues to spread, because it works - not just, as he claims, for bankers, but for society as a whole. I say this as somebody who has worked and lived not just in an old advanced economy (the UK) but also in newly-advanced one (Singapore) and an emerging one (Indonesia). In all, there have been ups and downs, but in my observation the downs have been down to government interference (notably playing around with the interest rate - on that point, I agree with him, but he adds nothing to what the Austrian School have long said), and the ups to the free market - including a free market in banking services.

Basically, this is a Marxist tract, and Marx was a false prophet.

3 people found this helpful

Mr. P. A. Gower

A disturbing book that has sent me back to the drawing board about by economic view of the world!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2015

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I found this book disturbing for two reasons. The first is that commercial banks are the prime creators of money and secondly that at the tender age of 47 I had not come across this explanation of money creation. This explanation is having quite an impact about how I view the current political/economic situation. I had studied Applied Economics for my first degree in the last 1980s, then studied a Masters' degree in Islamic Banking and Finance, I taught Economics to undergraduates (not very well I'm afraid - apologies to former students of UWE!) and my first role was within a quasi-economic job function. In my quasi-economic job role I became disenchanted with Economics as a 'science' (however dismal) and read books that incorporated developments derived from chaos theory and biological evolution models etc. that what I thought was a better explanation (I would recommend those by by Paul Omerod & Eric Beinhocke). I think Austrian economic philosophies fit these chaos theory and evolutionary models better than Marxian, Keynesian or the Neo-classical synthesis, however, I had not given much thought to 'money' which obviously underpins the price mechanism through which markets operates. I also thought the 'economic calculation' argument was the trump card against Marxist theories but with this explanation of money then this argument is not as strong as I thought. Following reading this book I have gone on to read the excellent "Where Does Money Come From?" an up-to-date and more academic (but very readable) explanation with a UK context.

I am surprised that in the current era that no political party has adopted the approach. It has certainly acted as a primer to learn more about the subject and has pricked my hubris (if that is a valid expression?) of what I knew. Having read "Where Does Money Come From" I do not feel too bad about my ignorance as it covered the way money has traditionally been taught (which I was) and how it does not fit with modern reality.

10 people found this helpful

AndrewC

Wish I had read this 10 years ago...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2015

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Not yet finished this, but can barely put it down to write this. This book seems to effortlessly and very accessibly explain the root of many of society's most pressing ailments. I'm finding it hard to believe that our debt-based economy and the creation of money through lending is the proximal cause of everything from trashy short-lived products, intrusive advertising and marketing, the growth of nebulous consultancy professions, lack of leisure, impoverished unemployment, urban sprawl, and environmental carnage wreaked by mass transportation etc. etc. but his arguments are compelling. His explanations of economic fundamentals are both refreshing and straightforward, and facilitate a critique of current politicians' economic slogans, so many of which are presented as if self-evident and tautological, which form the dubious assumptions by which our democratic assent is manipulatively sought. I will be seeking counterpoint to his arguments, but so far his hypothesis has great explanatory power. I look forward to reading how he proposes global society can escape the self-destructive vortex he describes. I will read on...

One person found this helpful

Mama and Papa Bear

One of the best Economic books out there

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2020

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A must-read!

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2017

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Exactly as described.

One person found this helpful

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The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics Paperback – August 1, 1998

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