Interestingly, Saudi Arabia also did something similar (alongside many other measures) to boost public support for the new king: http://www.arabnews.com/news/696661
Totally random aside: does it talk about the evolution of debtor's prisons after slavery was no longer an option? I always wondered why people thought it made sense to lock someone up with no economic recourse to pay down a debt. There were probably much better options to deal with the potential moral hazard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors'_prison
Labor was one form. I imagine being sent to prison moved families to action to bail out the debtor when possible.
Finally, consider all the debts paid to avoid going to debtors prison.
I don't know anything about the evolution of the system. Just pointing out that it wasn't an insane way to acheive the goal of debt payment. (Though a totally inhumane way)
https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform-racial-justice...
In many cases the person retained as peon is not the debtor but a relative, typically the daughter. The creditor may also let the peon believe that she will be able to pay her debt with the pay he gives her, like pimps do to prostitutes they've "helped" crossing a border.
By the way, I don't think we need to use past tense when discussing this topic.
On the one hand, the debtor pretty much ends up stealing. And on the other hand, the creditor took a too-risky loan without considering the repayment ability of the person he was giving it to. We're conditioned to think this as some sort of cruel injustice (and it is indeed a sad situation), while completely ignoring the actions of the debtor.
You could go one step further and say that perhaps the debtor was committing fraud by tricking the creditor into giving out the loan when he knew the chance of repayment was low. (Assuming debt-slavery wasn't the goal of the creditor in the first place). Also exclude accidents and life-altering events (corner case). I'd imagine that after a few of these horrible incidents came to light in a connected world (i.e. modern times, not centuries past) creditors would start adding clauses into their contracts about possible re-payment plans/options, etc. Hell, they might not even offer to give the loans out if they were too risky.
If there is one thing I'd like individuals to take from this comment, it's that laws and regulations aren't the only solution to society's problems. I'd argue that they merely "mask" away the problems, without ever giving individuals a chance to resolve it amongst themselves in peaceful and non-barbaric ways. This is true now more than it has ever been in the history of our world, with the advent of modern communications and the internet. At least, give it a brainstorm/thought next time you jump to government intervention for any perceived injustice in this world.
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. "
Fascinating issue. Graeber explains that poor farmers would borrow from the landlord, be unable to pay, and would end up sold into slavery. Eventually not enough farmers were available to work the land. An economic crisis would ensue. Hence the bit about returning men to their families (to restore the labour force).
That's part of the symbolism of Jesus. He is the Redeemer because he is freeing people from the debt of sin. The Gospels are using language that would have been very familiar to Jews who followed the law in Leviticus.
Graeber's big point, which he articulates at the books's outset, is that we have been brainwashed into thinking that paying off a debt is a moral obligation. If you step back a bit from that idea, it suddenly seems strange and artificial to mix the concept of a financial obligation with that of a moral obligation. But that's what a lot of people do: they mix those two things together.
A lender always takes a risk that the borrower won't repay the loan. That's why, for example, credit card debt, which is not backed by collateral, has high interest rates: the lender is covering his risk. Lender and borrower are always conscious of the odds that the loan will go bad.
But when morality gets added to the equation, it distorts reality in favour of the lender, who can now appeal to a sense of duty or sin to confuse the debtor, and make him forget that the two parties in the loan are making a coldblooded calculation of the odds that the loan will be repaid.
Graeber's other big point is that debt has, throughout history, been a means of creating slaves. But that's kind of another issue.
Great read.