The advantages of slavery by debt over “chattel” slavery—ownership of humans as a property right—were set out in an infamous document called the Hazard Circular, reportedly circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts during the American Civil War. It read in part:
Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages.
Slaves had to be housed, fed and cared for. “Free” men housed and fed themselves. For the more dangerous jobs, such as mining, Irish immigrants were used rather than black slaves, because the Irish were expendable. Free men could be kept enslaved by debt, by paying wages insufficient to meet their costs of living. The Hazard Circular explained how to control wages:
This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. … It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.
The government, too, had to be enslaved by debt. It could not be allowed to simply issue the money it needed to meet its budget, as Abraham Lincoln’s government did with its greenbacks (government-issued U.S. notes). The greenback program was terminated after the war, forcing the government to borrow from banks—banks that created the money themselves, just as the government had been doing. Only about 10 percent of the “bank notes” then issued by banks were actually backed by gold. The rest were effectively counterfeit. The difference between government-created and bank-created money was that the government issued it and spent it on the federal budget, creating demand and stimulating the economy. Banks issued money and lent it, at interest. More had to be paid back than was lent, keeping the supply of money tight and keeping both workers and the government in debt.
Student Debt Peonage
Slavery by debt has continued to this day, and it is particularly evident in the plight of students. Graduates leave college with a diploma and a massive debt on their backs, averaging more than $37,000 in 2016. The government’s student loan portfolio now totals $1.37 trillion, making it the second highest consumer debt category, behind only mortgage debt. Student debt has risen nearly 164 percent in 25 years, while median wages have increased only 1.6 percent.
Unlike mortgage debt, student debt must be paid. Students cannot just turn in their diplomas and walk away, as homeowners can with their keys. Wages, unemployment benefits, tax refunds and even Social Security checks can be tapped to ensure repayment. In 1998, Sallie Mae (the Student Loan Marketing Association) was privatized, and Congress removed the dischargeability of federal student debt in bankruptcy, absent exceptional circumstances. In 2005, this lender protection was extended to private student loans. Because lenders know that their debts cannot be discharged, they have little incentive to consider a student borrower’s ability to repay. Most students are granted a nearly unlimited line of credit. This, in turn, has led to skyrocketing tuition rates—because universities know the money is available to pay them—and that has created the need for students to borrow even more.
Students take on a huge debt load with the promise that their degrees will be the doorway to jobs that allow them to pay it back, but ....
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/stude ... cks-young/
The Hazard Circular - Documentary Evidence
https://www.scribd.com/doc/240517700/Th ... y-Evidence
I've included the Hazard Circular link mentioned in the first paragraph and where the quotes came from as well as original link.
A look in to something that was dicussed in another thread, education and the way it has become a vehicle for debt rather than something to benefit society. It's an American view but as is evident, we seem to follow America rather than Europe. Or do we control America (through banking) rather than Europe?
As the article states:
Meanwhile, university tuition is still free in many countries in Europe, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Norway, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and Turkey. But providing an affordable education for the next generation is evidently not a priority with our government. Only 3 percent of the federal budget is spent on education—not just for college loans, but for school programs of all sorts, from kindergarten through graduate school.
The Neo Liberal privatise and monetise everything ideology for the last 40 yeas or so has destroyed public services and communities. No matter what people say, public services are not well suited to private interests. There are many things that wealthy countries should provide for their citizens out of the taxes they pay. Instead we have far more given to private concerns on the pretence that private is efficient and public is inefficient. The only think public services are inefficient at is lining the pockets of the rich. That includes the greedy corporate types installed as managers, CEO's or directors to oversea what remains of public services. It's all about enriching the few and their operatives than providing for society.
(see health, schools, universities, transport, utilities, house building, the whole damn nine yards)
