By: Ludorf Iyambo
I find myself pondering the nature of debt and its necessity. It’s a subject that weighs heavily on many Namibians, ensnared as they are in a cycle of indebtedness.
Much of this debt, unfortunately, is not invested in productive ventures but rather in consumption.
Moreover, it’s not just individuals; many African countries find themselves buried under a mountain of debt owed mostly to Western nations and China.
My initial theory is that after physical slavery, the elite needed a new form of shackle to enslave the global masses and countries they wanted to control. Debt came through as the best model for putting a leash on those who need control.
I know economists, bankers, and financiers will disagree with me on my hypothesis and argue that debt is one of the greatest tools or enablers as it facilitates the movement of capital from those who have no use of it to those who need it.
However, I differ at different levels as I see what debt is doing to people, repossessing, and how African countries are languishing in never-ending debt.
Most of these debts failed to achieve much in the continent, even though how the borrower uses the debt is on them, and although not all lenders have a say on how it is used, it doesn’t erase the impact of debt.
What’s great about debt is that you don’t need chains or a whip as in the old slavery approach, a person in debt will oppress themselves on your behalf, by working hard and suffocating themselves to pay the debt and its interest.
So, I go further on the interrogation of debts to ask myself why people need debt beyond economic reasoning. I hypothesise that the elite intentionally underpays them for survival while increasing the cost of living through inflation.
Thus, one has no choice but to constantly take out debt to simply survive. The debt keeps growing at a compound rate, as the time theory of money works magic for the lenders.
As for individual countries, organisations like the World Bank and the IMF will advise them to devalue their currencies to make their export competitive apparently, while giving them debt and interest payments in US dollars.
This makes it very difficult to repay US Dollar-denominated debt with devalued currencies as a result the debt cloud hangs over them.
Yes, I do think debt is the new form of slavery, and my solution might be considered backward as I think the bartering system was better with less reliance on the formal money system.
Keep value in assets rather than money and bartering of real goods and services. Because of the system of selling goods and services in superior currencies, global market values benefit just a few countries. However, getting financially literate will also help one be debt-free.
Because debt is a form of slavery with limited freedom and manoeuvring as individuals and countries spend years growing other’s money.
When you add interest, inflation, and currency depreciation to a certain extent it becomes a recipe for human rights violations perpetrated by economic theories and those who control it.
Freedom includes being debt-free, in economics debt is capital though, and with narrow lens debt is good for the economy.
Ludorf Iyambo is a journalist and content creator. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board or The Villager and its owners.
