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There's a reason ancient Judaism included a "Year of Jubilee", where all debts were forgiven every 50 years.
by ctdonath 8y ago
There's a reason ancient Judaism included a "Year of Jubilee", where all debts were forgiven every 50 years.
- digianarchist 8y agoWhen is the next one?
- dv_dt 8y agoWell the last one was post-2008, and if you didn't get your share, then perhaps you weren't one of corporate entities helped out by a Quantitative Easing program.
- dragonwriter 8y agoDebt jubilees have been replaced with other institutions, most notably, in the modern world, bankruptcy (which is need-based rather than regularly scheduled.)
- lotsofpulp 8y agoIf all debt was forgiven every 50 years, why would any lender lend money with a term going past the year before the jubilee?
- maxxxxx 8y agoThey wouldn't and maybe it's a bad idea to enter debt that last more than 50 years. It pretty much means to borrow money that the next generation has to pay off.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI understood the original comment to mean everyone’s debt is zeroed at 50 year intervals, e.g. 1900, 1950, 2000, etc. regardless of when it started. What you are suggesting is all debt is zeroed out 50 years after it’s issued? Then why would any borrower pay off any principle at all? This whole jubilee thing makes no sense, may be a little bit if the jubilee happens unexpectedly so that people can’t just plan around it. But that kind of sort of happens after a war.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoJubilee only applies to debt owed between two Jews. Any costs or consequences of the jubilee are absorbed by gentiles downstream. The 2008 financial crisis is a good example of this.
- CoolGuySteve 8y agoIf debtor's prison can't work past the jubilee year, wouldn't violence in-lieu of collections spike right before the jubilee too?
- mamcx 8y agoWell, in part the ideas was not get into big debts. People could self-sustain much more easily in the past. No need to buy iPhone each year help on that. Is important to note that the jubilee was a measure against the worst case scenarios: Persons that sell themselves as slaves (or sons of slaves), people that lost the hereditary land and things like that. This also means the society was based around this expectations.
- paulddraper 8y ago> People could self-sustain much more easily in the past. Why? Why has the ability for debt-free self-sustaining decreased?
- Spooky23 8y agoThere’s 25x more people, and increased specialization required to do almost all essential things.
- mamcx 8y agoPeople live form the land or livestock. Even without much money you could get food. Plus, was part of the Law that anyone could harvest from any field after the first pass from the owners, as measure against starvation. If you live in a rural area, even today, you will see that is normal and easy to share and get food free or very cheap (in fact, a lot of food will not get in the supermarket for lack of ways to fully utilize the capacity!). Is kind of simply to maintain a live if your are friendly in the community.
- recycledmatt 8y ago>> No need to buy iPhone each year help on that. 89K per person - means we could buy them all an iPhone with 88.5K left over. Corporations and Governments have a huge role to play in this.
- zeroname 8y agoYou're thinking too much in terms of modern debt. In ancient (and not-so-ancient) times, the ordinary peasant always owed something to the landowner/sovereign for the privilege of dwelling on their land. Sometimes, that debt would be higher than what could reasonably be paid back and so the debt would accumulate. In other words, they'd rig the game from the start and then loosen the thumbscrews along the way.
- goto11 8y agoWell it was also illegal to charge interests, so in theory it would not be economically rational to lend money except for safekeeping. Lending was probably more about lending land. The rationale of the jubilee-rule was probably to avoid multi-generational debt-slavery.
- madeofmeat 8y agoThey wouldn't, and that was intended. It's obvious this law would restrict economic development, but the Hebrews made that tradeoff for social stability. The main feature of the Jubilee law was that land could not be permanently sold, it could only be leased for up to 50 years. This together with their inheritance laws guaranteed that each clan or family group would have an economic base in perpetuity.
- prostoalex 8y agoHow active were their bond and mortgage market in the year 49, though?
- robertAngst 8y agoRight? I suppose that is why it doesnt exist anymore.
- maxerickson 8y agoCompare and contrast with bankruptcy.