Debt has an odd function within modern capitalist societies. On the one hand, the economy cannot function without debt; it provides the oil that eases the friction of production, circulation, and consumption. On the other hand, there is a lot of moral language surrounding debt. In many languages, the word for debt is related to or even the same as the word for guilt or sin. During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, it was not uncommon to hear reprobation for those who took out mortgages that they couldn’t afford. And there was a lot of beating up of people who “walked away” from their “obligations.”

This same mixture of morality and economics is exposed by Marx in relation to both debt and to the moral value of saving money. Marx points out that the Friday payday, or even bi-weekly payday, is the first advance of credit in a capitalist economy. Labor works before they are paid, thereby lending their labor power, and the value it produces, to the capitalist. This form of debt is never seen as morally suspect, nor are the bankruptcies that capitalists like Donald Trump have gone through. A lower class, blue collar worker finds that they are no longer able to afford to pay back their debt, and that is somehow a “sin.” A billionaire walks away from their obligations and that is seen as “good business.”

Why do we have this weird, dual relationship to debt? Is debt a moral obligation? Should we all walk away from our debts? Why does that seem more catastrophic than global climate change?!

In this episode, we discuss the following thinkers/ideas/texts/etc.:

• Real Life Magazine
• The Criterion Channel
• The Criterion Collection
• The 2008 U.S. financial crisis
• Karl Marx on debt (Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 31: “Genesis of the Industrialist Capitalist”)
• usury in the Christian Bible
• riba in the Qur’an
• bankruptcies in the United States
• Former President Donald Trump’s bankruptcies
• grace and redemption in the Christian faith
• St. Anselm of Canterbury’s “satisfaction theory of redemption”
• charity in Islam
• charity in Christianity
• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011)
• Venmo
• Google Maps
• Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
• The U.S. Consumer Debt Crisis
• A history of U.S. student loan debt
• Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World (2023)
• The student loan forgiveness debate in the U.S.
• Compounding interest and student loans
• Student loans are costing the U.S. government billions
• the looming student loan servicers crisis
• the cost of the 2008 “bailouts”
• new (2023) student loan bankruptcy guidelines

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