essay on debth answer it
Answers
Answer:
The global justice movement of the 1990s and early 2000s focused on national debt. Its heirs should join forces with the nascent movements against micro-debt to present a challenge to the whole debt economy, argues George Caffentzis
I want to start by distinguishing between two categories of debt, micro-debt and macro-debt, and defining the notion of a debt economy. Macro-debt is not only quantitatively large but it is collectively incurred in the name of a corporate entity such as a nation. National debt, for example, is collective because all citizens are responsible for its repayment, even if many individuals openly object to the state borrowing the money.
Micro‑debt, in contrast, comprises relatively small sums lent to individuals. In my definition, it includes what economic statisticians call ‘household debt’ as well as ‘micro-credit’ debt that is incurred when individuals borrow money to carry on ‘income-generating’ activities. We should bear in mind that although micro-debt comes in small packets, when summed over millions of separate debts it can add up to many billions of dollars. Thus, aggregate household debt in the US in 2010 reached about $13 trillion.
The movements that have been involved in resistance to micro-debt in recent years have been quite separate from those resisting national debt. Consider the difference, for example, between two of the most important anti-debt movements in the 1990s: the El Barzón movement in Mexico and the global Jubilee movement.