bankruptcy: of people and nations
The availability of bankruptcy is in today's news. Bankruptcy is counter-intuitive. Who would have thought that allowing people to default could actually be good for the economy? It took thousands of years of debtors' prisons before the world woke up to the fact. As long as there were no criminal acts, society steps in to remove any remaining assets, and the person has to start again from scratch.
Bankruptcy works. We should apply it to nations. Nations should be required to pay their debts to the world (i.e. with land rent). If they cannot pay, their assets should be removed by society (the world) and freed up for better use by the market. Of course we have a long way to go - land monopoly is so entrenched that millions of people would support first use of nuclear weapons rather than give up their stolen wealth. But we should not forget the goal, and the inevitable future: good business practices (like bankruptcy enforcement and protection) extending to everything, including land.
posted by Chris Tolworthy at 7:23 AM
2 Comments:
I keep wondering if it would not be a good idea to forgive debt in turn for the preservation of ecological areas. Brazil's rain forest, for example, provides an important public good to all of humanity. It would only be fair if the rest of us paid Brazilians to forego the development of the rain forest
Good idea. Living in Britain, it seems hypocritical that we cut down all our forests in the 1600s, and wiped out numerous wild species, then in the 1700s we began burning fossil fuel with no regard for the environment. Now we condemn other countries for doing the same thing. If we want something from them, we should stop condemning them, and just pay them.
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