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depends on what you see as the role of the state in modern capitalism, really. for the neo-liberal set, which has been persuaded (against all historical reality) that the state is somehow The Problem, the question of debt looks one way because their political assumptions prevent them from seeing any productive uses---resource reallocation becomes a form of punishing the john galts for their individual gumption and all that. in reality that other people know about, the state can operate as a steering mechanism that directs resources to help enable goals that are understood as politically desirable. in that general framework, debt is not the same kind of problem. in some situations---like that of crisis---it can be necessary to accumulate a quite considerable amount in order to provide resources for capitalist activity to use in order to address basic problems. or to expend considerable resources in addressing system-level problems. but the neo-liberal set can't get their minds around that because their theory of the state is both incoherent, historically false and not amenable to argument because it's an a priori.
so things grind to a halt around surreal differends. that's what we're seeing.
this is a pretty basic divergence between neo-liberalism and more sane conceptions of what capitalism is and how it operates.
where conservatives like to squander their money is on weapons systems, a massive and useless surveillance apparatus, on the expansion of prison systems and the accompanying concentration camp model fobbed off as ok because of some dickensian notion that exploitation has a moral uplift to it.
where conservatives don't like to spend money is on political objectives that involve job creation or wage increases or creating a more humane society.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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