Sovereign Debt Repudiations: Stepping Stones in History
27 October 2017 by Eric Toussaint
From the beginning of the 19th century, many States, from Latin America to Tunisia, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, among other countries, as well as Greece, have lost their autonomy. Debt has been a weapon for domination and spoliation.
Contrary to popular belief, the peripheral indebted countries are not responsible for sovereign debt crises, which most frequently have their origin in the most powerful capitalist countries, and in turn result in large-scale crises in peripheral indebted countries. It is not excessive public spending but rather the conditions enforced by creditors that cause unsustainable debts. Debt crises and their outcomes are always monitored by the major banks and the governments ruling over the most powerful economies, that support them.
Over the last two centuries, several States have successfully repudiated their public debt. Éric Toussaint analyses several examples such as in Mexico, the United States, Cuba, Russia or Costa Rica. The questioning of debt repayment has led to the development of the legal doctrine of odious debt, which permits odious debt to be identified and repudiated.
This fascinating and well documented chronology provides the necessary elements to understanding the unrelenting mechanism of the debt system and how the capitalist world has used it for two hundred years.
See also: Eric Toussaint, The Debt System, A History of Sovereign Debts and their Repudiation, Haymarket Books, 2019.
Some articles on those topics :
RUSSIA:
MEDITERRANEAN:
- Greece and debt: two centuries of interference from creditors
- Debt as an instrument of the colonial conquest of Egypt
- Debt: how France appropriated Tunisia
- Greece: Preliminary Report of the Truth Committee on Public Debt
LATIN AMERICA:
- Latin America: How the South paid for the Northern crises and for its own subjugation
- Simón Bolívar in the Debt Labyrinth
- Mexico proved that debt can be repudiated
- What other countries can learn from Costa Rica’s debt repudiation
UNITED STATES:
- History: the Policies of the United States toward its Neighbours in the Americas in the 19th and early 20th Centuries
- Three Waves of Public-Debt Repudiations in the USA during the 19th Century
EUROPE:
LEGAL ASPECTS:
is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.
Other articles in English by Eric Toussaint (612)
When President Joe Biden says that the US never denounced any debt obligation it’s a lie to convince people that there is no alternative to a bad bi-partisan agreement
Debt ceiling: Radio Silence Concerning United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s Repudiation of Debts28 May, by Eric Toussaint
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Ukraine: Resisting creditors
23 May, by Eric Toussaint , Sushovan Dhar
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Debt : Eric Toussaint at Université Paris Cité on January 31, 2023
20 May, by Eric Toussaint
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Resisting the Shock Doctrine: Ukraine, Debt, and Reconstruction
12 May, by Eric Toussaint , Sushovan Dhar , Ashley Smith , Yuliya Yurchenko
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The urgent need to repudiate debt
6 April, by Eric Toussaint , Anaïs Carton
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The Paris Commune of 1871, banks and debt
20 March, by Eric Toussaint
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ABC of Debt System
6 March, by Eric Toussaint
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The 1953 London Debt Agreement on Germany’s debt
26 February, by Eric Toussaint
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From Lebanon to Sri Lanka through Latin America and Egypt: Public debt today and in the history of capitalism
26 February, by Eric Toussaint , Anis Germany
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The World Bank and IMF have set their sights on East Timor, a state officially born in May 2002
11 January, by Eric Toussaint
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