questions on 'Odious Debt'...?

Question

why is it ethically wrong to collect odious debt? why would lead lenders cancel a country's debt on the rounds that the the lending transaction was unethical or unjust in the first place? what would utilitarians, riht-based ethics or other ethical principles conclude?

Answer 1

The only context that I have ever heard the phrase "odious dept" used in is international.

If a revolutionary power succeeds in toppling a government and then itself assumes the role and responsibilities of a legitimate govt. it can refuse to pay debts incurred by the previous govt. in its efforts to suppress the revolutionaries. The ethics, so far as I know have never been challenged and don't seem to me to be easily or logically contestable.

The Russian Soviet rejected claims by the European powers for restitution of debts owed by the Tsarist government on the grounds that Western powers had funded the Whites and the Tsars had used the money they borrowed to stuff reeking jails and work camps with the revolutionaries. None of those debts were ever collected.

Ask Col. North and the survivors of Reagan's monomaniacal support of the "Contras," or about the U.S. loans to the Batista cleptocracy in Cuba in John Foster Dulles's efforts to eradicate Castro's revo. I wish I had a check for that amount.

When ya meddle in revolutions, ya pays yer money and takes yer chances.