The Collapse of Antiquity, the sequel to Michael Hudson’s …and forgive them their debts, is the latest in his trilogy on the history of debt. It describes how the dynamics of interest-bearing debt led to the rise of rentier oligarchies in classical Greece and Rome. This caused economic polarization, widespread austerity, revolts, wars and ultimately the collapse of Rome into serfdom and feudalism. That collapse was bequeathed to the subsequent Western civilization. How many of the same processes are in place in Mordor today?
