Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Multi-Trillion Dollar Question: How Much of Our Debt Is Odious?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, October 14, 2013

Multi-Trillion Dollar Question: How Much of Our Debt Is Odious?

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit.

In international law, odious debt is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation shouldn’t be enforceable. Such debts are hence regarded as personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state.

This sort of argument to abrogate many sovereign debts is a part of a broader movement to solve the many debt crises popping up all over the world, and thus to reform and save the capitalist system. The most outspoken exponent of this movement appears to be the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM).

Another exponent of cancellation of sovereign debts as a solution to correct the dysfunctional capitalist system is Michael Hudson who nevertheless offers some useful insights on how debts are used as weapons. Read my July posting of his article entitled "The Weaponization of Economic Theory" in which I quote an excerpt from his article.

I think such proponents of sovereign debt cancellation are entirely sincere about creating some measure of social justice in the world, but their goal of abolishing debts to impoverished countries can be realized at best for only the most extreme cases given the existing system of global capitalist rule.

Debts, especially sovereign debts is one of the main instruments of imperial control for the US Empire and a major source of wealth for the Empire's One Percent in a world of diminishing resources and ever increasing costs of fossil fuels to drive capitalist economies.