The Words of Public Debts: A Political Repertoire

In contemporary debates, historical precedents and timeworn arguments are commonplace, and it seems easy to conjure some timeless truth from eighteenth-century writings to guide our thinking about public debt today. This chapter historicizes political and economic arguments on public debt by viewing them as part of a repertoire—a set of ready-made, time-tested ideas actors could draw from when issues of public debt arose. It proposes that analyzing historical debates requires understanding why people chose some arguments in this repertoire while shunning others. Four major registers are identified historically within this repertoire: morality, justice, power, and expertise. They give us the key to evaluate power relations within public debt politics today, but also the potential to uncover new pathways toward a better-informed debate on public debt, and on political economy.