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 examples (which could be expanded and extended to other cases) are 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.
Causes and Consequences of the Economic Downturn: Public lecture in Fairbanks, Alaska, March 18, 2009.
OLD SPEECHES (prior to 1986)
To download an MP3 audio file, control-click (Macintosh) or right-click (PC) a link.
Anarchist Defense
World War II
To listen online, click HERE.
Hat Tip: My lecture on "How an Anarchist Society Would Provide National Defense: The Solution to Libertarianism's Hardest Problem" was delivered at the University of Texas at Austin on April 7, 1980. It was recorded by Jim Cartwright, who subsequently marketed it as three audio cassettes. My lecture on "A Revisionist Look at World War II" was delivered at Dagny's Freedom Festival on July 13, 1985, at the Airport Park Hotel in Los Angeles. Both lectures were recently edited and converted into MP3 audio files with meticulous care by Bill Courtney.
See my San Jose State
University Web page HERE.