...and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (THE TYRANNY OF DEBT Book 1)
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...and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (THE TYRANNY OF DEBT Book 1)
In ...and forgive them their debts, renowned economist Michael Hudson – one of the few who could see the 2008 financial crisis coming – takes us on an epic journey through the economies of ancient civilizations and reveals their relevance for us today. For the past 40 years, in conjunction with Harvard’s Peabody Museum, he and his colleagues have documented how interest-bearing debt was invented in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and then disseminated to the ancient world. What the Bronze Age rulers understood was that avoiding economic instability required regular royal debt cancellations. Professor Hudson documents dozens of these these royal edicts and traces the archeological record and history of debt, and how societies have dealt with (or failed to deal with) the proliferation of debts that cannot be paid – and their consequences. In the pages of …and forgive them their debts, readers will discover how debt played a central role in shaping ancient societies, and how it continues to shape our world – often destructively.
The Big Question: What happens when debts cannot be paid? Will there be a writedown in favor of debtors (as is routinely done for large corporations), or will creditors be allowed to foreclose (as is done to personal debtors and mortgagees), leading to the creditors' political takeover of the economy’s assets – and ultimately the government itself? Historically, the remedy of record was the royal Clean Slate proclamation, or biblical Jubilee Year of debt forgiveness.
The Real Message of Jesus: Jesus’s first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim a Clean Slate debt cancellation (the Jubilee Year), as was first described in the Bible (Leviticus 25), and had been used in Babylonia since Hammurabi’s dynasty. This message – more than any other religious claim – is what threatened his enemies, and is why he was put to death. This interpretation has been all but expunged from our contemporary understanding of the phrase, “… and forgive them their debts,†in The Lord’s Prayer. It has been changed to “…and forgive them their trespasses (or sins),†depending on the particular religious tradition that influenced the translation from the Greek opheilēma/opheiletēs (debts/debtors). Contrary to the message of Jesus, the religion-approved sanctification and mystification of debt is now used as a way of moralizing claims against borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize personal and public assets – especially in hard times.
Contrary to the message of Jesus, debt forgiveness has been undermined by subsequent generations and creditor interests by religion-approved sanctification and mystification of debt as a way of moralizing claims against borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize personal and public assets – especially in hard times.
The real “lesson of history†is that no monarchy or government has survived takeover by creditor elites and oligarchs (viz: Rome), and remedies for predatory debt are to be found in ancient history. In addition and perhaps most striking is that – according to a nearly complete consensus of Assyriologists and biblical scholars – the Bible is preoccupied with debt forgiveness more than with sin.
Included is an astounding list of historic ancient debt crises and debt cancellations (many with their associated letters and accounting records) that chronicle the ensuing peace and prosperity – or the chaos and destruction when debt cancellations were not implemented. The list of good kings and emperors, bad kings and emperors (and their heirs), and the names of predatory creditor and oligarch interests is a long-needed reckoning of the historical record.
In a time of increasing economic and political polarization, and a global economy deeper in debt than at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, ...and forgive them their debts documents what individuals,
