INVESTIGADORES
DIMITRIU Cristian
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
The Ethics of Debt Default: Why some Debts are not binding for current generations
Autor/es:
CRISTIAN DIMITRIU
Lugar:
Manchester
Reunión:
Workshop; MANCEPT Workshops; 2014
Institución organizadora:
University of Manchester
Resumen:
In this article I will showthat many debtor countries are morally entitled to default on a big portion of theirsovereign debts. I will do this by showing that exceptions to the general claimthat governments have the obligation to repay debts incurred by governments inthe past should be made. I proceed as follows. First, I will show why currentlyexisting philosophical accounts have not been able to justify inheritanceacross generations. Second, I will propose an alternative positive account toshow why governments have the moralobligation to repay national debts incurred in the past. We can find a strong argumentin support of this account by relying on an analogy with private law. In privatelaw, lenders have priority over heirs to the funds they lent to thepredecessors, so heirs should ?discount? that debt from the inherited package.Similarly, lenders have priority over loans made to governments in the past, sosuccessor governments should bear the responsibility for these debts (by usinga portion of the national treasury to repay them). Third, I will show that thestrategy of relying in private law also shows why there are exceptions to inheritance of debts. Inprivate law, when an agent acts fraudulently in the name of the person herepresents (the principal) by embezzling the borrowed funds, and lenders are awareof possible corrupt uses of the funds, the person in whose name the loan isincurred is not ?on the hook? for the debt. Thus, the heirs of that person arefully entitled to the assets they inherit. Similarly, when governments actscorruptly and in the name of the state they represent by embezzling funds, andlenders are aware of possible corrupt uses of the funds, the state is not ?onthe hook? for the debts. Thus, successor governments do not have the obligationto use funds from the national treasury to repay these debts. These debts arenot binding on the state.
