The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender (Proverbs 22:7).

I wonder if we may yet live to see the return to slavery -- or at least indentured servitude -- in Western civilization.

It seems like most of these inequalities were put to rest some 150 years ago, in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries.  Yet I genuinely wonder if we can avoid reverting into such an arrangement.  It seems practically inevitable.  Such slavery or servitude would not necessarily be based on race or prejudice so much (as it was in its most recent incarnation during the colonization of Africa and the Americas), but rather on the basis of simple economics.  I should be careful to speak so boldly on such a subject -- since I am by no means an economist -- however, I can't help but consider the implications of our current economic tendencies, specifically our debt.

Our world is plagued by debt.  Especially in the United States of America, people are spending money that they simply do not have.  Individual households reflect the American national debt:  large, growing, and hard to imagine any end to it.  Many people have accumulated credit card debt that amounts to several times their monthly (and sometimes even their yearly) income.  So many people are floating on so much credit.  And I have to wonder what our options might really be, if it all gose downhill.  Yes, selling oneself into slavery is inhumane (and illegal in most parts of the world).  But at the same time, no one seems to be willing (or able) to pay higher taxes.  There aren't many billionaires out there who are willing to personally pay down the debt for other individuals or entities.  We're living on a planet with a limited amount of resources, not like we can just go out and discover more stuff to sustain a consistently growing population.  So where does all this money ultimately come from?  If credit card balances are climbing higher and higher (which they certainly are) -- and if bankruptcies are becoming more and more common (which they are) -- then the debt is being absorbed somewhere.  And it seems to me that there's only so much absorbancy built into the credit institutions and governments of our world.  At some point, they're going to have to break -- and the individuals who have gotten themselves into big trouble because of their debt are going to have to figure their own way out.

But if all capital resources are depleted, what options would really be left to individuals saddled with massive debts?  Slavery or servitude seems to be one of the few possibilities.

Proverbs 22:7 can be read figuratively, just as much as literally, of course.  Debt dogs us like a cloud of mosquitoes, regardless of how the payback works itself out.  But in any event, debt creates problems.  It establishes inequalities that ultimately result in some form of servitude.  The people with the money (and the promisory notes) have all the power.  The people without money (and with considerable debt) have no power -- and will end up serving their lenders, either through exhorbitant interest paid upon the loan, or through completely losing control of one's own finances through bankruptcy, or through selling themselves into some kind of slavery.  Any way you slice it, it's not a good situation.

The answer to the problem is to live in a sober way, keeping expenses below incomes, aggressively paying down whatever debt may remain against you, and bucking against the illusion of unfettered materialism.  My wife and I, for instance, have made a solemn agreement that we will immediately cut up all of our credit cards -- never to be used again -- if we ever have a month in which we can't pay off the full balance of the credit card bill.  But it really is a lifestyle change, a paradigm shift.  If you find yourself in the situation of the "borrower-servant" and don't know what else to do, seek help.  Find some trusted friends who might be able to help you sort yourself out and stay accountable to a thought-through budget.  Or get in touch with an organization such as Crown Financial Ministries or Dave Ramsay's Lampo Group, whose mission statement explains that "The Lampo Group, Inc. is providing biblically based, common-sense education and empowerment which gives HOPE to everyone from the financially secure to the financially distressed."  It's serious stuff.  And unless you want to end up in some sort of slavery, I would recommend that you take your debt very seriously.