Debt (Quotes)

David Graeber said a few significant things about debt  that somewhat changed my perspective on lending, owing, and paying debts.


"Surely, one has to pay one's debts." (pg. 4)

This seemed obvious to me before.  I knew about the immorality of some debt lenders and how unfair interest rates are, but this fact still seemed fairly obvious: if you owe a debt, it is only right to repay that debt to the lender.  I might still partially think this- after all, this is how the world works.  But I never thought to pick apart the actual practice of paying back debts itself and the morality that I have unintentionally attached to it.  So sure, it is typical practice to pay back debts.  However, is it "morally right"?  In some cases, it may be.  In others, (such as in specific situations that Graeber described) not so much.


"One might think it would be hard to make a case that the
loss  of  ten  thousand  human  lives  is  really  justified  in  order  to  ensure
that Citibank  wouldn't  have to  cut its  losses on one  irresponsible  loan
that  wasn't  particularly  important  to  its  balance  sheet anyway. But
here was  a perfectly decent woman-one who worked for  a  charitable
organization,  no  less-who took it as self-evident that it was.  After all,
they owed the money,  and  surely one has to pay one's debts." (pg. 4)

Graeber makes this remark about a certain situation in Madagascar.  Madagascar owed money to IMF-imposed programs and consequently, they had to cut spending to the monitoring of mosquitos and malaria, which caused more than ten thousand people to die.  This is one of those specific cases that I was talking about.  Here, we can compare two moral facts and determine immediately which seems less ethical.  First, it is immoral for Madagascar to not pay back their debt to IMF-imposed programs.  Secondly, it is immoral for IMF to continue to impose these debts on Madagascar even though they are in a tight financial situation that prevents them from saving thousands of lives due to the obligation of paying back these debts.  When viewing the situation in this light, it seems blatant that the former moral fact does not come close to expressing a situation as immoral as the latter.

"The crucial element would still seem to be the gun." (pg. 7)

And all of this is partially due to power; who is in charge?  A war debt, Graeber claims, would surely be looked at differently if the country paying the debt suddenly gained more world power than the debtor country.  The "gun" (the power- more specifically, a power than instills fear) is in the debtor's hands.  As soon as the subject in debt gets a bigger gun of his own, the dynamic changes.  No longer is the debt a problem that the subject fears- it is now more of a liability.