Re:Pyrrhic Victory
by pdonis on Thursday June 18, 2020 @09:44PM
(#23570180)
> a big part of the value in the economy never gets to be an explicitly "issued" money
For an appropriate definition of "value", yes, I'll agree with this.
However, I don't see how it conflicts with anything I said.
> Different forms of debts are older than any precisely defined issued money, and all the forms of debts are what actually drove the economies.
Debt certainly plays a role in how economies develop. However, again, I don't see how that conflicts with anything I said.
> the period of democracy in Athens started only after Solon abolished the accumulated debts
First, I don't think historians are in agreement about exactly what Solon did and whether it amounted to abolishing all accumulated debts.
Second, while many historians credit Solon with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy, it did not actually start until well after Solon's death, after a considerable period of autocratic rule following the seizure of power by Peisistratos. So even if we grant that Solon abolished all accumulated debts, I don't see any clear connection between that and democracy.
> sooner or later the current world will have to accept that we need a Solon-like act to end the period we're in
Meaning, abolish the accumulated debts? That's basically what the US government is doing to its debt by continuing to print money; since all of the US government's debt, and pretty much all of US private sector debt, is denominated in dollars, printing more dollars dilutes the impact of all that debt on the debtors. It's not clear to me that this is a good thing. Of course, it's also not clear to me that continuing to accumulate debt is a good thing. But while the current financial and economic system certainly has plenty of issues, I don't see how "abolish all accumulated debts" is a good way to fix them.
For an appropriate definition of "value", yes, I'll agree with this.
However, I don't see how it conflicts with anything I said.
> Different forms of debts are older than any precisely defined issued money, and all the forms of debts are what actually drove the economies.
Debt certainly plays a role in how economies develop. However, again, I don't see how that conflicts with anything I said.
> the period of democracy in Athens started only after Solon abolished the accumulated debts
First, I don't think historians are in agreement about exactly what Solon did and whether it amounted to abolishing all accumulated debts.
Second, while many historians credit Solon with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy, it did not actually start until well after Solon's death, after a considerable period of autocratic rule following the seizure of power by Peisistratos. So even if we grant that Solon abolished all accumulated debts, I don't see any clear connection between that and democracy.
> sooner or later the current world will have to accept that we need a Solon-like act to end the period we're in
Meaning, abolish the accumulated debts? That's basically what the US government is doing to its debt by continuing to print money; since all of the US government's debt, and pretty much all of US private sector debt, is denominated in dollars, printing more dollars dilutes the impact of all that debt on the debtors. It's not clear to me that this is a good thing. Of course, it's also not clear to me that continuing to accumulate debt is a good thing. But while the current financial and economic system certainly has plenty of issues, I don't see how "abolish all accumulated debts" is a good way to fix them.