I started a reply, but honestly, I just don't feel like it's worth the energy to follow up with the replies I'd get. Probably because of the tone of the respon

I started a reply, but honestly, I just don't feel like it's worth the energy to follow up with the replies I'd get. Probably because of the tone of the response. I don't see debt as all that much different than insurance. Sure, society can get by without it, and you may never need it, but society in general benefits. If I run a business any large expenses would be amortized over the lifetime of that thing. I could pay for it upfront, but that might never happen and if I could it wouldn't be the best use of my resources. Ideally, I'd "pay rent" in order to borrow money upfront, now that I have that machine it's easier to pay back since that fixed cost will benefit me for the next 20 years. That's the scenario where all debt is never paid back. Financial tools, like anything else can be good or bad depending on the circumstances and motivations at play. Payday loans (generally seen as bad) aren't all that different from micro-loans lauded in third-world countries. Let's say there's an older woman who walks out of town to buy goods and carries them back to town every day to sell (arbitrage). If she gets a small loan to buy more goods up front, invest in a wheelbarrow, or a booth at the market she can do more business and more easily pay off that loan benefiting; her, the person offering the loan, the sellers and the buyers--society in general. If she cannot pay back the loan she can get into a debit spiral. There are situations where that is beneficial to the person giving her the loan at the expense of her and the rest of society.