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BBC News, 29th July 2003: Britons rack up record debts.

Apparently, Britain has the highest level of personal borrowing in Europe, and we certainly seem eager, even enthusiastic to throw ourselves into a position of financial debt, from which very few of us escape until perhaps the final quarter of our lives. And yet everyone either complains of the amount of money they owe, or takes to heart the oft-mythical, eventual outcome of some kind of complete ownership of their lives.

Why is there a culture of permanent borrowship in this country? Why do we insist upon holding a possible point in the future as a sacrosant reward for putting ourselves through a caged life of capitalist slavery?

Possible reasons...

1. The sheeple effect. The constant bombardment of advertising and pressure, combined with a capitalist system, means that we feel that unless we don't take advantage of low interest rates and good offers, then we will somehow be left out, pushed aside by those with more "sense" than us. This is the normative fear that manifests so often in our culture - we are afraid of standing out and of thinking for ourselves, so it is far easier to follow the accepted action.
3. We want to. A bizarre circumspection from one point of view, but one that makes sense in relation the rest of our lives, the path of which is controlled by the system that we are born into and raised by. From birth, we are trained to work within this system given to us. At any single point, our motivations are inspired by our dreams of eventual freedom - to own a house, a car, and to do what we want to. Placing ourselves into debt is merely a symptom of this way of life, one that helps to console ourselves that we are on the right path, and that suffering in the present will some day be worth it.

In reality, this constant state of debt keeps us from ever achieving something other than continually trying to pay it back. Once we are swept up in the system's machinery, we are bound to its rules as it binds itself to those of survival. By the time we do pay our lives back to some mystical piggy bank, we have squandered the best parts of it, and must be content to stay out of further debt until we wither away. Debt is a cage, a quagmire that occupies our fears.

I hereby denounce debt. I refuse to acknowledge that we are promised emotional salvation through long-term investment and the deliberate handing over of power to those who do not have our interests at their heart. My current debts hold me like shackles, and they only solace I get from them is that I may pay them off and break free of them before I turn too old to enjoy my freedom. I spit on the system that forces me into its own will from such a naive age, and hold it to ransom in my motives. May all bankers perish.

2003-07-31 The Guardian reports that both spending and debt are up and, bizarrely boardroom pay is also up, although share prices are down. Truly a case of the sheep sacrificing themselves for the good of the gods.

2005-05-06 BBC News reports that Bankruptcies reach another record, although suggests this is because of new laws that make it more favourable to declare bankruptcy.

(See also: We The Sheeple )