Philip Pilkington: Debt, public or private?: The necessity of debt for economic growth
By Philip Pilkington. Journalist, writer, economic anti-moralist and aficionado of political theatre
‘Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before
his day. What need I be so forward with him that
calls not on me? – Falstaff, ‘Henry VII’
The Anxieties of Government and Debt
Apart from debt, there is perhaps one other economic phenomenon that generates exceptionally large amounts of emotive nonsense both on the internet and in real life – and that is government. So it’s quite unsurprising that when government debt is the discussion of the day, passions flare, accusations are hurled and the coming apocalypse is invoked.
It would be interesting to undertake a psychological study of modern man’s aversion to government and to debt. If I were to guess I would say that many people tend to associate government with authority and debt with obligation. Authority and obligation – surely in our era of selfish hedonism no other potential restraints are so terrifying to so many. These phenomena intrude rudely on one of our most cherished contemporary ideological myths: individualism. More specifically, that outlandish individualism conjured up by marketing men to flog their wares and crystallised in novels and narratives written by lonely and isolated individuals like Ayn Rand. It is, of course, a fantasy individualism; one that few truly adhere to in their day-to-day lives – but it is, like the religions of days gone by, an important determinate in the messages people choose to accept and those they choose to reject.
To put the questions of individualism and of liberty aside though, from an economic point-of-view debt is inevitable.
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