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I have no idea how to accomplish this in our current political structures, but the way cultures have historically solved this is through periodic debt forgivene
by gemstones 4y ago
I have no idea how to accomplish this in our current political structures, but the way cultures have historically solved this is through periodic debt forgiveness.
(Every 7 years in the Torah, Babylon did it at the discretion of the king, etc.)
- vineyardmike 4y agoOr through large inflation that devalues existing debt
- Rury 4y agoDebt forgiveness can help reduce inequality, but so can holding people to their debt obligations. And either can also increase inequality. It entirely depends on the circumstances surrounding the debt.
- dragonwriter 4y agoIt is true that many historical cultures have had a traditiom of periodic or irregular debt forgiveness. I think it is far less clear that the effect of such traditions was to constrain inequalities of wealth or income, or even that, lacking the ability for a narrow elite to organize extractive systems at the scale possible in the modern world, historical societies even had anything meaningfully comparable to modern problems in that domain to address.
- imtringued 4y agoThere wasn't much economic growth at the time so paying interest was pretty much a literal debt trap. Forgiving debts definitively helped with poverty back then.