To stretch our legs as far
as the blanket reaches
But tell me now, please, how bad will it be?
Was it right to do what we did until now,
living in unheard of opulence (compared
to earlier times), with an incredible waste
of resources, unreasonably burdening
the environment and mortgaging the
future of our children?
Should not this stop sometime?
Of course we won’t want to lose some
of our comforts. But if we thus could
avert the total collapse of our civilization,
wouldn’t it be better for us to put up with
this restriction?
And one more thing:
If we don’t do it today and (with further
borrowing) leave it for tomorrow there
won’t it be even more difficult?
Another difficulty in thinking about the
implementation
of "Solon's patent" is that this patent is
contrary to the
principle of ownership.
In today's society, in all countries, property
owning is the cornerstone of the state and
is protected by the most basic laws.
No matter how the capital owners
acquired their money,
nobody has the right to dispute it.
Application of debt
relief
violates the sanctity of
property.
It contradicts the basic
principle of our system.
Opposing this principle
means
opposing the system itself.
Abolition of interest is equivalent
to the death of the system.
I fear that this will be the biggest
obstacle we meet if we tell a deputy:
Why donít you apply the "patent of
Solon"
to save ourselves and secure for mankind
a new permanent golden age of
culture?
The answer will be:
― I
What you say is not possible.
Debt repudiation would
mean the overthrow of capitalism,
and this is not just
the only system we have, but it’s a very good one.
We owe the prosperity
in which we live to this system. May be it is in a
temporary crisis, but
it will come through it. The system will recover and
the growth that will
follow will restore the permanent
golden age of
pleasure and comfort.
In reply to such a position, which (if it isn’t
just a mere excuse)
is rooted more in faith than in the logical analysis of
data,
what can we say?
The only thing we can do is to quote patiently
again and again
the data that will help him to understand that
capitalism has
finished its historical cycle, and that if we don’t
stop obeying it
soon, we can expect a tremendous social disaster that
will lead
us to an unprecedented cultural barbarism.
The most serious problem, however,
that a country which wishes to apply
the "patent of Solon" will face is that it
will come into confrontation
with the other countries.