Much of the emotive language around financial debt derives from longstanding perceptions about right and wrong, sin and guilt, and more generally the reciprocal obligations of the individual and society.1 I noticed an op-ed in the Financial Times last week on this theme of the ever-shifting moral evaluation of debtors and creditors in language and literature; claiming that the stigmatisation of debtors in much current public debate (think of the way in which the entire population of Greece has often been portrayed in the media in recent years) contrasts with the way in which authors such as Goethe, Marlowe, Dickens and Shakespeare generally portrayed creditors as evil.
Judgmental language or attaching blame is usually not the most constructive way of dealing with the acute practical problems that result from the emergence of over-indebtedness. I am inclined to share the conclusion of the op-ed writer in this regard: “credit is morally neutral….