Abstract

A complementary approach might invoke the old-fashioned idea that responsibility falls upon those who borrow and lend. The money was not borrowed by campesinos, assembly plant workers, or slum-dwellers. The mass of the population gained little from the borrowing, indeed often suffered grievously from its effects. But they are to bear the burdens of repayment, along with taxpayers in the West -- not the banks who made bad loans or the economic and military elites who enriched themselves while transferring wealth abroad and taking over the resources of their own countries.