Debt: Humanities tax on existence

Debt has been at the forefront of Human society since the dawn of modern civilisation, in David Graeber's book "Debt: The first 5,000 Years" he outlines the various societies that had some form of Debt, some that surprised me such as many Feudal Societies and some pre-feudal societies. He mentions that, although debt existed in Feudal society, it did not exist for the same reason as Capitalistic debt. Feudal Debt was a means of intimidation towards the serfs from the Royals and Lords, Gold was given to the families of those who committed treason and the families were expected to give gold back, thus creating a 1984 style big brother is always watching you and if you don't pay back this debt you will be next on the chopping block. Capitalist society has debt, which on the front of it is not quite as severe and sinister but the outcomes of the debt not being paid can be just as catastrophic.

Debt in Capitalist society is all around us, if you look at any UK bank note and most bank notes around the world they state "I promise to pay the bearer of this note [insert denomination here]". They are Circulating IOU's, Currency is by default circulating government debt, which the public pays back by spending money on various things on the false hope that the companies who the money goes back to will pay their fair share and thus close the circuit of government debt. However, this is not the case, In fact what ends up happening is the corporations end up sitting on a mountain of revenue that almost never goes back to the government other than when those same companies end up donating money to right wing candidates and even some Social Democratic candidates that allow them to sit on that money for another 4-8 years.

Everyday we pay off debts, when you went out to buy yourself a coffee you were filling in the void of income from the Coffeeshop paying for the coffee you just bought. When you bought that car, you theoretically were paying for the labour going into the production of said car. When you are paid, you should in theory be paid for the labour you put into the company, that ended in a surplus for the company allowing the company to strive in the market, but this is not actually how Capitalism works. Capitalism thrives when 95% of Society is in debt, because Capitalists thrive in the realm of "potential currency gain", if someone owes you money, you are more likely to spend the money they owe you before they even pay you back. This is how the Student debt crisis works in the states, the more debt the people are in, the more money capitalists have to extort out of you.

Capitalistic debt still has the catastrophic end result as Feudal debt, except rather than you being put on the chopping block, you are either put into a cell and put to labour without being paid (for-profit prisons), you are forced into black market labour e.g. Drug dealing, smuggling, theft, etc OR you end up dying due to not being able to feed yourself. The big difference between Feudal debt and Capitalistic debt is that with Feudal debt the outcome of not paying it is instant, and debatably painless. With Capitalistic debt the pain is drawn out and takes many forms.

In the United Kingdom, We have the Labour party and the Conservative party (more commonly called the Tories) who are our version of the Democrats Vs the Republicans. When i became an Anarcho-Communist, My comrade Conall raised an Important point when it came to Labour vs the Conservatives, in regards to debt they are very much the same. The Labour party will spend more, thus increasing government debt but rather than making the proletariat pay more they'll ramp up the taxes on those who can afford to be taxed more E.g. Rich people or those sitting on a mountain of money such as the corporations mentioned before. The Conservatives do the same thing, but rather than getting the rich to pay it off they use Austerity of public services and higher taxes on working class people to pay of the same amount of debt, the accounting identity (the expenditure and revenue ratio) does not fluctuate that much between Labour led or Conservative led governments, all that changes is the means in which the expenditure is countered with.

As an Anarcho-communist, my goal isn't to throw my hat into the ring and say "i know how to fix this" so that it's somehow fairer for everyone. Because as someone who comes from a Left wing family of accountants and bankers (I know that's counter-intuitive but that explanation deserves a post in and of itself), i know that's not how Capitalism is designed to work, it never has been a system that will treat all fairly and there is absolutely no way to swing a system such as Capitalism in a way that actually benefits everyone equally. The only way is to change the system entirely to a more Communistic society, and as for mentioned in my other posts, i am not talking about USSR or Chinese style "Communism", Those are not Revolutionary in and of their own making, what this civilisation needs is a brand new make-over that actually paints a decent model of Communism, not the self-destructive forms that have been tried and failed with some minor successes.