You owe this one a listen. In episode 94 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss everything debt, from student loans and bank bailouts to the importance of honoring one’s intellectual forebears. Did Shakespeare’s Antonio really pay Shylock with “a pound of flesh”? Why does Nietzsche say that the Christian God is a creditor of infinite debt? Who really benefits from bailouts under capitalism today? And might it be time to bring back good old “jubilees,” i.e., sanctioned acts of collective debt cancellation? As they talk through these questions, your hosts explore how debt has structured social, family, and religious bonds across history, from Vedic India, to Plato’s Athens, and how the notion of being “indebted” to one’s cultural past conditions the experience of immigrants in America today.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed

Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism
Jeffery R. Di Leo, "Corporate Humanities in Higher Education"
David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings
Geoffery Ingham, The Nature of Money
Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals
Plato, Republic
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Shatapatha Brahmana
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
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Debt