Solving the National Debt

[Diogenes]

I don't really know where this post belongs, so if its not in the right place could an admin move it?

Anyway, I've been thinking recently about how the left would solve the national debt in the US. I was wondering if you all could maybe help me better understand what the lefts strategy is for solving the debt (other than revolution, not like I want to sound reactionary:D).

[Victus Mortuum]

Having a very large national deficit may cause some inflation. Inflation makes saving bad and taking out loans good. It encourages people to spend and not to hoard - which is a great way to boost an economy.

That's sort of a Post-Keynesian perspective. They'd argue that a country MUST have a deficit to prevent it from running into another crisis (it's interesting to note that every time the U.S. government has ever run a surplus we have gone into a crisis following).

The thing is, if you don't have a growing currency and you have a growing GDP (which obviously the U.S. has) then you have currency deflation - which is a really bad thing. So, a government must run a deficit to prevent economic crisis if you have a national bank.

Just to clarify: Governments cannot default on "debt" if they have an associated bank - they just continue to inflate the currency. Particular sub-governments of a national bank can default because they can't print money themselves (though the national government/bank could bail them out) - this is what happened to the states in Europe that defaulted on their debt. Their national bank for the Euro is the European Central Bank (i.e. the European Union can't default on "debt").

The above is just a hasty summary of some of the perspectives within left economics.

[ZeroNowhere]

"If, for instance, the petty bourgeoisie propose the purchase of the railways and factories, the workers must demand that these railways and factories simply be confiscated by the state without compensation as the property of reactionaries. If the democrats propose a proportional tax, then the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the democrats themselves propose a moderate progressive tax, then the workers must insist on a tax whose rates rise so steeply that big capital is ruined by it; if the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy."

[Jose Gracchus]

Daniel De Leon?

[theblackmask]

Abolishing money is the only real way to solve this. Seeking answers to questions like this is to firmly plant oneself in the left-wing of capital, and not look any further to a real classless society. Revolution or bust, bro :D

[William Howe]

I doubt there's really any way the debt can be paid. I mean, the US still owes money to countries like France and Britain from loans taken in the early 1800s. With the budget well-entrenched in a deficit and the national debt skyrocketing, it'd take some sort of divine miracle to solve this debt.

A revolution wouldn't help in the least, because communist societies focus on the well-being of all society, not on profit. This isn't a bad thing at all, but I'm just saying it'd be horribly unfit to solve a debt, since to solve a debt, you must make an expenential profit.

[theblackmask]

Debt is not a problem to be solved...it is a symptom of capitalism. Factories, farms, and production in general do not run on money, but on the exploited power of the working class.

[Adil3tr]

If I recall correctly, the soviet republic dropped the debt of the capitalists.

[Comrade_Stalin]

If I recall correctly, the soviet republic dropped the debt of the capitalists.

And they still hated us any way. May be we can ask China to forgive are part of the debt, but the right will just hate them, for not being for a profit motive.

The National Debt, no matter how you look at it, is because we in the US have Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. It should be no shock to any on that we are in debt when we privatize profits and socialize losses. The best way to fix the problem is to stop privatize profits, so when the state has a surplus we just don't lose it because of tax cuts. The next thing is to stop paying for all the rich mistakes, like the bank bail out. How much did we add, to the debt when we bailed out bank, that failed themselves, only to give bounes to there CEO.

[HalPhilipWalker]

Most of the U.S. debt is held by U.S. bondholders. Don't let all this talk of Americans being in debt to China fool you; this is preying on old Cold War paranoias. Americans have been taught to hate China, and capitalist propaganda (you'll notice it's the same people who own much of our debt who are complaining about being paid) is simply building on already existing prejudices.

[Rusty Shackleford]

overthrowing capitalism.