Debt is Financial Slavery
The more we become 'social', the more our needs tend to grow. There is no end
to these needs, no end to loaning to purchase things, and hence the terms
'financial slavery'.
Materialism is the core of the debt culture, and it motivates many people’s
lifestyle choices. Today’s world is structured to seduce us into the fantasy
of promised rewards through debt. The feelings of desire and bad ideas they
arouse are the ultimate source of a debt.
People are choking in debt and all the personal problems it causes because of
inverted values that place fantasy and egotism above reality.
When you owe money to someone, you are indebted to them. They have control
over you, no matter how large or small, they have some degree of financial
control over you.
When you borrow money or you sign up for a loan, you are at the mercy of the
bank and its well-crafted fine print filled with legalese and the many ways
they can control you for the life of that money. And if you don’t play by
their rules, they have your contacts held hostage, and they don’t mind
reporting you to the credit bureaus the first time you slip up.
Why is that? Well, the present monetary system, based on credit allocation
by private institutions, is unstable and unfair. It reduces the bulk of the
population to debt slavery, whilst privileging the very few. The more the
main banks can extend new credit in exchange for our promises to repay, the
more interest they can rake in, but the harder we have to work to service
that debt.
That debt, in the form of credit cards and home loan, often comes at an
exceedingly high price.
You are in financial slavery if any of the follow symptoms describes
you:
- Couldn’t pay cash for your bills and expenses when they are due.
- Have put off the payment of one bill in order to pay another.
- Have looked for quick fixes or quick ways out of your debt.
- Worry about paying large one-time bills.
- Don’t have money left over each month for savings.
So should you ever take on debt? I am not a financial counselor or qualified
advisor, so I’ll just share with you my rule of thumb:
avoid debt when and if you can.
Debt, in one sense, assumes that you know today what you will earn tomorrow
and can therefore afford to spend it today. It also assumes that you can
afford to save tomorrow in order to pay off the debt you incurred yesterday.
These assumptions about future earnings are almost always wrong. We never
really know today if we will be able to pay off debt tomorrow; we don’t know
what challenges tomorrow may bring—whether it is some unforeseen medical
expense, a death in family, being laid off from a job, or some other
catastrophic occurrence like Coronavirus. The future is simply unpredictable.
To be clear, there is both good and bad debt. But even good debt—debt
incurred to purchase a home, invest in a business, or purchase additional
education and earnings—should be questioned.
However, when we incur debt, we give up a portion of our freedom, as we
obligate ourselves to work to benefit someone else. Whether debt should be
incurred in a specific circumstance depends upon whether the benefit of
receiving money now outweighs the costs that will result from the debt,
including the loss of some freedom. And here is the truth, as long as
you are constantly worried about paying bills, you cannot be free.
“Self-sufficiency,” wrote Epicurus, “is the greatest of all wealth.”
Epictetus added that “wealth consists not in having great possessions, but
in having few wants.”
Debt doesn’t have to be a way of life. You can choose. You were not meant to
live in bondage to debt. You were meant to live a life of financial freedom.
Decide that you will never borrow money again. If you haven’t acquired any
debt yet – Please Don’t! The “Spend now and pay later” motto might be a good
national economic policy. But it is certainly a poor personal policy.
Remember, real contentment comes from building character,
achieving worthy goals and having rich and rewarding relationships. It also
comes from the freedom of owning what is yours and being content with that.
0 comments