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Debtocracy movie
Here's a link to the movie 'Debtocracy'. The movie was released under a Creative Commons license and is thus freely available online.
The production quality of the movie is quite good and the movie is easy to watch. The animated sequences are enticing and the camera work is good. As for the content, I am divided.
Critics have said that the movie is just a piece of propaganda, and it's easy to agree with those critis, especially in the first 30 minutes. After that point though, the movie picks up and describes the concept of odious debt -- debt that was incurred illegitimately by a government without investing the money into infrastructure that would be beneficial for the people. The movie presents an analysis of Iraq, and one of Ecuador. In both of these cases, part of the national debt was claimed to be illegitimate and left unpaid by the respective governments.
Towards the end, the plot comes back to address the case of Greece, and states that most of the Greek debt is probably illegitimate and will have to be cancelled. The interviewees push for an independent audit, independent of the european governments and independent of the IMF. This looks like a good idea to me.
Finally, some fleeting points are being made about the debt being illegitimate because it was incurred in a neoliberal system. Which is too vague an argument for me to absorb, but the larger point that the people should not pay for the crimes of others is clear.
I was happy to see that Debtocracy makes use of a few clips from Democracy Now!, which is of course often featured on ON.
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cawel
- 3 months ago (0 replies)
I have just watched the documentary film, and I agree with your review. It's true that there are punches on 'neoliberalism' toward the end which do not hold water.
What I'll remember from the film:
* the concept of "odious debt" which can rendered "illegitimate"
* USA managed to get rid of Iraq's debt.
* Ecuador organized an audit to investigate their public debt. And as a result of the audit, a big proportion of the debt had been wiped out for being "odious".
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fleipold
- 5 months ago (0 replies)
Their take on government debt is really interesting. The left should for once understand that government debt is redistribution from everyone to the well-off.
Unfortunately even the normally clear headed Heribert Prantl of the Sueddeutsche <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/nrw-haushalt-gekippt-ueberhebliche-richter-1.1072247">complaint bitterly</a> that forbidding the government to rack up debts would be interfering with its ability to make politics. Unfortunately debt leads to dependency and makes politics impossible for the generation to come once they are under IMF adminstration.
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