Not All Debts Will Be Repaid

History is doomed to repeat itself. Since the dawn of time, the enrichment of some has always come at the expense of others. Inequality is often described as a quasi-mechanical side effect of prosperity and innovation, which are nonetheless supposed to benefit the whole community. Yet these advances usually come at the cost of the most vulnerable.

Among the tools used throughout the ages to inflate the wealth of a tiny minority, debt holds a privileged position. Since antiquity, the inability of debtors to repay has served as a pretext to seize their possessions, their homes, their fields—ultimately, their freedom. David Graeber (Debt: The First 5,000 Years) reminds us that the first word for “freedom” was amargi in Sumerian—meaning “freedom from debt.”

The placing under guardianship—or even outright slavery—of those who, throughout human history, failed to repay their debts has been one of the surest ways for others to build wealth and consolidate power. Even states have often had to bow—not only in ancient times—to inflexible creditors. Many nations have been forced to privatize public assets and smother their citizens under the iron weight of austerity—whose combined effects have enabled the rise of obscene private fortunes. The sheer mass of indebtedness consistently confers power and wealth to a select few.

Maybe it’s time to reintroduce a notion that terrifies modern societies—a concept they find intellectually unbearable? History—Babylonian, Sumerian, Greek, Roman—has taught it to us time and again: not all debts will be paid.

Four general debt cancellations occurred under the reign of Hammurabi (1792, 1780, 1771, and 1762 BCE). They even occurred six centuries earlier in the city of Lagash (Sumer). Roughly thirty general debt cancellations took place in Mesopotamia between 2400 and 1400 BCE. The Rosetta Stone—written in hieroglyphics, demotic script, and Greek—contains a decree dated March 27, 196 BCE, from Pharaoh Ptolemy V, announcing a debt amnesty.

Jewish tradition regularly proclaimed the cancellation of debts owed by some Jews to their wealthier compatriots. Deuteronomy, chapter 15, states: “Every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts. Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it from his neighbor, his brother.” Let’s also remember the Jewish tradition of the Jubilee, a special year celebrated every 50 years, marked by rest for the land, the cancellation of debts, and the liberation of slaves (Leviticus 25).

The Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus, returning to Nazareth, opening the Great Scroll of Isaiah at chapter 61 to proclaim a Jubilee for the poor—much to the dismay of the Pharisees, who held financial power at the time.

These concrete acts brought relief to the people and allowed ruling princes to strengthen their positions against the creditors of the day—who, unsurprisingly, resisted these periodic debt cancellations by every possible means, as they hindered further enrichment.

How is it that most of Jesus’s parables about debt are no longer taught? Why was “debt” replaced by “sin” in “Forgive us our trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer? In the Gospel according to Matthew (6:12), the original Greek word is opheilēmata, which literally means “debts”.

In the 2025 context—where almost all global debt is owed to less than 1% of the world’s population—it’s hardly surprising that these crucial episodes of debt cancellation throughout human history have been erased or denied. It is clearly not in the interest of some to lighten the burden. One thing is clear: capitalism cannot thrive without the lure of profit. Yet it is heading straight toward self-destruction if it insists on making 99% of us its sacrificial victims.