The trillion dollar question: Should the national debt be repudiated?
I have been predicting that the U.S. government would default on its debt since 1993. But I have been advocating total repudiation of the government’s debt for much longer. This article is from the August-September 1981 issue of Caliber (publication of the Libertarian Party of California). If I were writing it today, the article would be a little less strident, and my discussion of the economic consequences of repudiation would be more sophisticated. I would tone down some minor hyperbole in the article’s opening section. In particular, the 2007-08 financial crisis has convinced me that I was much too blasé about the short-run consequences of a U.S. repudiation. But I still think my long-run economic analysis is correct, that my moral case for repudiation is justified, and that my historical analysis (which could be expanded and extended to other examples) is telling.
Lest anyone think my position a bit extreme, let me quote someone who was far more radical in his condemnation of loaning money to the State, the great anarchist abolitionist, Lysander Spooner: “This business of lending blood-money is one of the most thoroughly sordid, cold-blooded, and criminal that was ever carried on, to any considerable extent, among human beings. It is like lending money to slave traders, or to common robbers and pirates, to be repaid out of their plunder. And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.”
Hat Tip: I would like to thank Less Antman for originally publishing and editing this article, and Ross Levatter and Buzz Grafe for helping me create this pdf copy to post online.
RECENT TALKS
Five lectures at the Foundation for Economic Education, summer of 2009.
OLD SPEECHES (prior to 1985)
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Anarchist Defense
World War II
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