Pol Pot Abolished Money in an Entire Country

When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh in April 1975, Cambodia was transformed under the leadership of Pol Pot. The regime sought to create a radical agrarian communist society and rapidly dismantled much of the country’s existing economic system. Money was abolished, markets were suppressed, banks were closed, and private property was largely eliminated. The National Bank in Phnom Penh was even destroyed with explosives, becoming a powerful symbol of the regime’s rejection of the previous economic order.

Without functioning currency, ordinary Cambodians could no longer rely on wages or personal savings. Instead, the Khmer Rouge organized people into state-controlled agricultural collectives where food and other necessities were distributed by authorities. Some informal barter and exchange continued despite official restrictions.

The experiment was part of a much broader transformation imposed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, during which forced labor, starvation, disease and mass executions contributed to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people.

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