Paul Mills on a Debt Jubilee

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online here (from where a pdf can be downloaded here), this one by Paul Mills:

Paul Mills, ‘After the Virus: Is it Time for a Debt ‘Jubilee’?’, Cambridge Papers 30, 1 (March 2021).

Here is the summary:

‘The concept of a societal cancellation of debt has an ancient heritage that includes the seven-year cycle of debt elimination found in biblical law. Given the virus-induced economic slump of 2020-21, the idea of substantive debt relief is being revived as a way to alleviate financial burdens on stressed households, companies and governments. The benefits of these proposals need to be weighed against the costs and injustices of changing the “rules of the financial game” retrospectively. But without a principled stance against the bondage of debt finance itself, such relief would only act as a temporary fix. The true lesson from Deuteronomy is that debt should remain short-term, with a “clean slate” within everyone’s grasp, thereby embodying gospel hope within the financial system.’