For those of us living in declining capitalist societies, the idea of solving economic problems by cancelling debt is hard to imagine. But in ancient Mesopotamia, this is exactly how they dealt with growing inequality. The economic strategy of cancelling debts was not the result of a revolution. Rather, it was the economic policy of the elites. These elites understood far better than ours do that the consequences of not cancelling debts destabilizes a society.
Read Michael Hudson
