Download or read book The Philosophy of Debt written by Alexander X. Douglas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I owe you a dinner invitation, you owe ten years on your mortgage, and the government owes billions. We speak confidently about these cases of debt, but is that concept clear in its meaning? This book aims to clarify the concept of debt so we can find better answers to important moral and political questions. This book seeks to accomplish two things. The first is to clarify the concept of debt by examining how the word is used in language. The second is to develop a general, principled account of how debts generate genuine obligations. This allows us to avoid settling each case by a bare appeal to moral intuitions, which is what we seem to currently do. It requires a close examination of many institutions, e.g. money, contract law, profit-driven finance, government fiscal operations, and central banking. To properly understand the moral and political nature of debt, we must understand how these institutions have worked, how they do work, and how they might be made to work. There have been many excellent anthropological and sociological studies of debt and its related institutions. Philosophy can contribute to the emerging discussion and help us to keep our language precise and to identify the implicit principles contained in our intuitions.
Download or read book Debt and Guilt written by Elettra Stimilli and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The issue of debt and how it affects our lives is becoming more and more urgent. The "Austerity" model has been the prevalent European economic policies of recent years led by the "German model". Elettra Stimilli draws upon contemporary philosophy, psychology and theology to argue that austerity is built on the idea that we somehow deserve to be punished and need to experience guilt in order to take full account of our economic sins. Following thinkers such as Max Weber, Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault, Debt and Guilt provides a startling examination of the relationship between contemporary politics and economics and how we structure our inner lives. The first English translation of Debito e Colpa, this book provokes new ways of thinking about how we experience both debt and guilt in contemporary society.
Download or read book The Politics of Debt written by Sjoerd van Tuinen and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Debt brings together philosophers, political scientists, and economists and sets them the task of reflecting on the political role played by debt. Focusing on the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, particularly in the United States and Europe, the book is split into groups. It contains six essays and five interviews that aim to fully comprehend the political consequences of the economic crisis and specifically of debt.
Download or read book Just Debt written by Ilsup Ahn and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: .".. We [have] come to have a delimited and skewed view on debt and its economy ... In this book, I argue, a more holistic social ethics of debt is established by reintegrating these two essential elements of debt: logic and story. From the perspective of a more holistic ethics of debt, neoliberal concept of debt is problematic because by neglecting the story aspect of debt, it has enervated the moral ethos of debt rendering it as a matter of mere contract and mechanical calculation"--Introduction.
Download or read book The Debt of the Living written by Elettra Stimilli and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes theological and philosophical understandings of debt and its role in contemporary capitalism. Max Webers account of the rise of capitalism focused on his concept of a Protestant ethic, valuing diligence in earning and saving money but restraint in spending it. However, such individual restraint is foreign to contemporary understandings of finance, which treat ever-increasing consumption and debt as natural, almost essential, for maintaining the economic cycle of buying and selling. In The Debt of the Living, Elettra Stimilli returns to this idea of restraint as ascesis, by analyzing theological and philosophical understandings of debt drawn from a range of figures, including Saint Paul, Schmitt and Agamben, Benjamin and Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, and Foucault. Central to this analysis is the logic of profit for profits sakean aspect of Webers work that Stimilli believes has been given insufficient attention. Following Foucault, she identifies this as the original mechanism of a capitalist dispositif that feeds not on a goal-directed rationality, but on the self-determining character of human agency. Ascesis is fundamental not because it is characterized by renunciation, but because the self-discipline it imposes converts the properly human quality of action without a predetermined goal into a lack, a fault, or a state of guilt: a debt that cannot be settled. Stimilli argues that this lack, which is impossible to fill, should be seen as the basis of the economy of hedonism and consumption that has governed global economies in recent years and as the premise of the current economy of debt.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Public Debt written by Richard M. Salsman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? That important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike.
Download or read book Between Debt and the Devil written by Adair Turner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our addiction to debt caused the global financial crisis and is the root of our financial woes Adair Turner became chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority just as the global financial crisis struck in 2008, and he played a leading role in redesigning global financial regulation. In this eye-opening book, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn’t happen because banks are too big to fail—our addiction to private debt is to blame. Between Debt and the Devil challenges the belief that we need credit growth to fuel economic growth, and that rising debt is okay as long as inflation remains low. In fact, most credit is not needed for economic growth—but it drives real estate booms and busts and leads to financial crisis and depression. Turner explains why public policy needs to manage the growth and allocation of credit creation, and why debt needs to be taxed as a form of economic pollution. Banks need far more capital, real estate lending must be restricted, and we need to tackle inequality and mitigate the relentless rise of real estate prices. Turner also debunks the big myth about fiat money—the erroneous notion that printing money will lead to harmful inflation. To escape the mess created by past policy errors, we sometimes need to monetize government debt and finance fiscal deficits with central-bank money. Between Debt and the Devil shows why we need to reject the assumptions that private credit is essential to growth and fiat money is inevitably dangerous. Each has its advantages, and each creates risks that public policy must consciously balance.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Debt written by Alexander X. Douglas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I owe you a dinner invitation, you owe ten years on your mortgage, and the government owes billions. We speak confidently about these cases of debt, but is that concept clear in its meaning? This book aims to clarify the concept of debt so we can find better answers to important moral and political questions. This book seeks to accomplish two things. The first is to clarify the concept of debt by examining how the word is used in language. The second is to develop a general, principled account of how debts generate genuine obligations. This allows us to avoid settling each case by a bare appeal to moral intuitions, which is what we seem to currently do. It requires a close examination of many institutions, e.g. money, contract law, profit-driven finance, government fiscal operations, and central banking. To properly understand the moral and political nature of debt, we must understand how these institutions have worked, how they do work, and how they might be made to work. There have been many excellent anthropological and sociological studies of debt and its related institutions. Philosophy can contribute to the emerging discussion and help us to keep our language precise and to identify the implicit principles contained in our intuitions.
Download or read book Republic of Debtors written by Bruce H Mann and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debt was an inescapable fact of life in early America. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, its sinfulness was preached by ministers and the right to imprison debtors was unquestioned. By 1800, imprisonment for debt was under attack and insolvency was no longer seen as a moral failure, merely an economic setback. In Republic of Debtors, authorBruce H. Mann illuminates this crucial transformation in early American society.
Download or read book Public Debt and the Common Good written by James Odom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American national debt stands at $20.49 trillion as of January 2018, or roughly $63,000 for every person in the United States. The national debt has grown six-fold in the past 25 years, and borrowing only has accelerated in recent administrations. What are the factors driving such unrestrained borrowing? Is American fiscal policy different now than in an earlier era? Is there a moral dimension to public debt and, if so, how can that dimension be measured? Public Debt and the Common Good addresses these and other questions by looking to the fiscal policy of the American states. Drawing on classical themes and the longest quantitative review of state debt in the literature, James Odom expertly integrates institutional analysis with dimensions of culture to define the parameters of political freedom in a theoretically coherent way. In doing so, Odom argues that centralization and injustice, or the incapacity for the common good, can help explain state indebtedness. Contributing to ongoing scholarly debates on public debt theory, this book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners who work at the intersection of political philosophy and economics, as well as those who specialize in state public policy, state politics, and federalism more generally.
Download or read book Politics of Debt and Europe s Relations with the South written by Stefan Nygard and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining a discussion of the multi-layered European and global North-South divide with an effort to retrieve alternatives to the dominant divisive use of debt as staking out claims against another party, this text explores the consequences of the erasure of historical temporality in the recent period of 'globalization' and 'individualization' as well as new registers for political uses of the past under current conditions. It draws on socio-political, moral-philosophical and literary-artistic analyses, tracing the genealogy of debt through European history.
Download or read book Debt written by David Graeber and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber’s “fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely” (Financial Times) history of debt Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.
Download or read book The Reality of Money written by Eyja M. Brynjarsdóttir and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is money and how does it acquire its value? How do we assign a measurable monetary value to human goods that do not seem quantifiable? What role does money play in the structure of society? Is money an illusion or is it real? Despite the enormous impact of money on the structure of human society, as well as its effect on our daily decision-making, surprisingly little philosophical work has been done on money to date. This book examines the metaphysical foundations of money as well as the power structures that characterize the world of finance, connecting the ontology of money to considerations about inequality and other real-life issues. By throwing light on the metaphysical structure of money and financial value, Eyja M. Brynjarsdóttir seeks to further the philosophical discussion of money and contribute to a broader critique of the monetary system.
Download or read book Payback written by Margaret Atwood and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2008 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores debt as a central historical component of religion, literature, and societal structure, while examining the idea of humanity's debt to the natural world.
Download or read book Debt and Taxes written by John H. Makin and published by American Enterprise Institute. This book was released on 1994 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, two hundred years after the founding of the republic, the United States finds itself burdened by the highest taxes and largest debts in its history. The crisis presented by these Siamese twins symbolizes the country's inability to govern itself.
Download or read book The Sociology of Debt written by Featherstone, Mark and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of the last ten years the issue of debt has become a serious problem that threatens to destroy the global socio-economic system and ruin the everyday lives of millions of people. This collection brings together a range of perspectives of key thinkers on debt to provide a sociological analysis focused upon the social, political, economic, and cultural meanings of indebtedness. The contributors to the book consider both the lived experience of debt and the more abstract processes of financialisation taking place globally. Showing how debt functions on the level of both macro- and microeconomics, the book also provides a more holistic perspective, with accounts that span sociological, cultural, and economic forms of analysis.
Download or read book Rethinking Sovereign Debt written by Odette Lienau and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.
