Book review: Payback

Review by ALLAN MASSIE

WITH THE CREDIT CRUNCH, BANKS in difficulties, stock markets in turmoil, mortgage foreclosures, government spending and borrowing out of control, and recession imminent, a little book with the subtitle "Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" could scarcely be more timely. Nevertheless it is unlikely that many readers will find their understanding of the nature of debt and its relationship with wealth improved by Margaret Atwood's canter over the ground. There is certainly a good deal to interest one in what she has to say, though the style, veering uncomfortably between the academic and the jokily colloquial, is tiresome, but some of her writing is pretentious, much obvious and platitudinous.

She writes of concepts of justice and fairness, drawing on work done on chimpanzees and on the legal codes of Ancient Egypt and Biblical Israel (Deuteronomy). She considers the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors", remarking that the Aramaic word means sin as well as monetary debt. Then there are debts of honour, which, strictly speaking, I suppose, have no creditor, since the concept of such a debt is primarily subjective, no matter what society may expect. If you don't feel you owe a debt of honour, can it be said to exist? Certainly not in the same way as a debt owed to a bank. On the other hand, there have been societies, or groups within societies, in which debts of honour – incurred, for example, in a card game – are held to be more serious than debts to tradesmen.

This is also a very literary examination of the subject, with long disquisitions on the Faust story, The Merchant of Venice – she has more sympathy for Shylock than for Antonio – and on Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Interesting though these are in themselves, they scarcely advance any argument.

That's not surprising, for her argument, in so far as there is any coherent one – stalls time and again. Is a tax a debt incurred by government or is it a legitimate charge? That is a question worth exploring. What we get is this: "What the subjects want is to have the services without paying the taxes, and what the rulers want is to have the taxes without rendering the services – these conflicting wants appear to be a constant in human history, ever since there have been food surpluses and social hierarchies, and armies, and taxes – so there's always bound to be some grumbling." This is neither well-said nor true. All the evidence suggests that in general people are prepared to pay taxes to what they consider a reasonable level in order to get certain services, and that governments – democratic ones anyway – attempt to provide these services, even if they often do so incompetently.

As for the relation between creditor and debtor, this takes the form of a contract, which is usually voluntary. Doubtless many creditors exploit debtors and many debtors try to escape paying up, but – again in general – incurring debt is a contract voluntarily entered on and honoured.

Nor does Atwood pay as much attention as she should to the beneficial role of credit, though this has been recognised by sensible people for a long time. Witness Bailie Nicol Jarvie's defence of commercial morality: "But I maun hear naething about honour – we ken naething here but about credit. Honour is a homicide and a blood spiller, that gangs about making frays in the street, but Credit is a decent, honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play."

The last part of the book, about an imaginary "Scrooge Nouveau", draws heavily on the Club of Rome's 1972 prophecy of imminent doom: "Our technological system is the mill that grinds anything you wish to order up, but no-one knows how to turn it off. The end result of a totally efficient technological exploitation of Nature would be a lifeless desert: all natural capital would be exhausted, having been devoured by the mills of production, and the resulting debt to Nature would be infinite. But long before then, payback time will come for Mankind."

This is the message of the "Spirit of Earth Day Future" to poor little rich man Scrooge Nouveau, and it's not a new message but one that has been with us for a long time, at least since Malthus published his Essay on Population two hundred years ago. There is always a market for doleful prophecy, and of course the fact that Malthus has been wrong so far doesn't prove he won't some day be right. So far, however, optimists may argue that we are still capable of paying the interest on her debt to Nature, and that our ingenuity will enable us to continue to do so. At the end, Atwood has her chastened Scrooge Nouveau reflecting that the world "used to look solid, but now it appears fragile, like a reflection on water: a breath of wind would ripple it, and it would vanish".

This is an eminently politically correct conclusion. A more daring one would have been more interesting. For my part I would put more confidence in Bailie Nicol Jarvie.