On BBC Radio’s Moral Maze this week, we discussed the ethics of debt. With soaring inflation and astronomical levels of personal debt, a charity has warned that money borrowed by British households to pay for Christmas could take years to repay. Meanwhile, a research study suggests that the British public are the worst in the developed world at saving.
Is getting into debt a failure of personal responsibility, an absence of prudence and an inability to discern between “wants” and “needs”? Or are borrowers victims of a consumerist society that both exploits and stigmatises the poorest?
Pragmatists argue that debt itself is morally neutral. Free market libertarians view it as a democratising force, giving people greater personal agency. But various religious and philosophical traditions have long believed that there is something intrinsically immoral about charging interest on lending.
Is debt a moral failing? If so, whose?
My co-panellists were Giles Fraser, Tim Stanley and Ash Sarkar. Our witnesses were Alexander Brown, associate professor in political and legal theory at the University of East Anglia and author of Personal Responsibility: Why it Matters; Gary Stevenson, economist and former interest rate trader in London and Tokyo; Stephen Haddrill,Director General of the Finance and Leasing Association; and Dr Mohammed Kroessin, head of Islamic finance at Islamic Relief UK.
If you can access BBC Sounds, you can listen to the show here.
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