The combination of the pandemic, sharp global recession, inflation, and interest rate hikes by central banks has triggered a new debt crisis throughout the Global South. The United Nations recently released a new report that found a total of fifty-two countries, nearly 40 percent of the developing world, in “serious debt trouble.” Already, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are renegotiating their debt—not to abolish it, but to grant more loans and reschedule their loan payments—all to preserve the debt system that keeps the Global South in hock to Western capital.
Ashley Smith interviews Éric Toussaint about the history of this debt system and the new debt crisis. Toussaint is a historian and political scientist, the spokesperson of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, and part of the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He received his PhD from the Universities of Paris VIII and Liège and is the author of many books, including The Debt System: A History of Sovereign Debts and Their Repudiation and the newly released The World Bank: A Critical History.
Sovereign debt has long been a critical issue for the Global South. What are the causes and history of this problem? How have the Western imperialist powers and their international financial institutions used the debt crisis to advance their interests? What impact has this had?
Imperialist states have used debt throughout the history of capitalism to subordinate countries. Several Marxists analyzed this, beginning with Karl Marx himself and followed
— source spectrejournal.com | Ashley Smith | Jul 28, 2023