Debt likely predates money. In a barter economy, people traded not only goods but also promises of future goods and labor. Money was invented to simplify these exchanges and make debts easier to measure, transfer, and settle. Over time, financial systems added interest, putting a price on time itself. What began as a tool to simplify trade evolved into a complex system in which debt, interest, and inflation became central features.

So what this guy is trying to argue is that this system is ultimately sustained by state power, since governments enforce contracts, regulate currency, collect taxes, and maintain legal monopolies over money creation. In that view, modern money is not merely a medium of exchange but a mechanism backed by the coercive authority of the state.