Debt began life as one strand of reciprocity, socialization, co-dependence. Every friendship came entangled in bonds of mutual indebtedness. When a stranger’s helping hand elicited the response ‘I am in your debt’, this alluded to the intimate connections between solidarity, obligation, gratitude and reciprocity. Paying back a debt could be anything from a benign inner need to a legal obligation that could land someone in permanent bondage.
As with every human emotion, product or relation, debt was depersonalized, commodified and utterly transformed by capitalism and, in the process, shaped the modern world.
