ABSTRACT
This chapter looks debt as the price paid for domination, underscoring its impact in terms of power grabbing and the control of dependents subjected to debt and even alienated by it. It also looks at the obverse of this: debt as the price of freedom. Cancellation of debt serves as the foundation of many social dynamics. The chapter also quests for 'anthropological fundamentals' which takes us back to cargo cult studies made in the 1970s in Vanuatu, a Franco-British condominium then in the throes of decolonisation. Today, the most obvious domination is that of the Market and its financial doppelganger. This domination by the ultimate 'creditor', the Market, leads us to the other face of debt, its obverse: debt as the price of freedom. In the chapter, we develop one which is based on Melanesian trade cycles, of which the kula studied by Malinowski is an example.
