On sovereign debt and taking back control.

 

The leading candidate in Argentina's election this month wants to avoid defaulting on the country's debt at all costs. But back in 2001, after a mass revolt, Argentina reneged on its debts – one of the very rare cases over the past 70 years of unilateral default. 

 

Why are nations so eager to pay back creditors nowadays, especially when it means endless austerity and little prospect of economic development?

 

We talk to scholar Jerome Roos about his book, Why Not Default? and discuss a range of cases: Mexico, Greece, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Ghana - and of course Argentina. We find that the old free market system used to accept that reneging on your debts was a risk creditors had to take. No longer: transnational institutions make sure that creditors get paid every time. 

 

How might countries free themselves from international financial dictatorship?

 

For part two of the interview and the After Party, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Links:

Why Not Default?: The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt, Jerome Roos

Memoria del saqueo (Social Genocide), film on 2001 debt crisis and uprising in Argentina (many versions available online)

/83/ Now It’s Syrizous (episode on Syriza's defeat in Greece)

The World in One Country: Greece, Jonas Kyratzes (part of ep.200)