From Clay Tablets to Credit Cards, Debt’s Long Shadow

October 29, 2025 (MLN): Before money existed, there was debt. Long before coins and cash, people kept track of promises not of gold or silver, but of obligations.

In ancient Mesopotamia, around 3000 BCE, merchants and farmers recorded their transactions on clay tablets. These were the earliest financial documents in history, focusing on trust rather than wealth. Temples served as the main centers of credit, not banks.

A farmer could borrow seeds or livestock from the temple, agreeing to repay after the harvest. Those clay tablets acted as proof of trust and social order. Over time, these records grew, connecting entire communities through unseen ties of responsibility.

By 1750 BCE, Hammurabi, the ruler of Babylon, had to take action. His well-known Code of Hammurabi not only established penalties for theft and violence but also set rules for interest rates and repayments.

The rulers quickly learned that excessive debt could lead to societal collapse. Every few decades, Babylonian kings announced “Debt Jubilees,” erasing debts to restore balance. This was mercy codified into law, reminding everyone that credit could either uplift or ruin.

Centuries later, the Greeks and Romans transformed debt into a moral and political issue. In Athens, those who failed to pay could be enslaved.

When this system became too harsh, the reformer Solon introduced “Seisachtheia”, meaning “the shaking off of burdens.” He liberated debtors and banned debt slavery. A bold move that redefined justice.

Rome took a darker approach. There, a citizen who couldn’t pay could be bound in Nexum, a ritual contract that linked their body to their creditor’s control.

Roman uprisings often revolved around debt rather than freedom, as owing meant belonging and defaulting meant disappearing.

Long before modern banks, the concept of debt held moral significance. In Judaism, it was viewed through an ethical lens. The Torah mandated a Sabbatical Year every seventh year, during which debts were forgiven to prevent society from exploiting its weakest members.

Christianity adopted this moral perspective, condemning usury, the practice of charging interest, as a sin against the community. Islam later prohibited interest altogether, replacing it with systems based on profit-sharing and shared risk.

Across all three Abrahamic faiths, the message was clear: unchecked debt corrupts not only economies but human conscience.

But faith eventually gave way to finance. In Renaissance Europe, the Medici banks of Florence began to monetize trust.

Credit, once a moral question, became a technical one. The invention of double-entry bookkeeping turned obligation into arithmetic. And when England founded the Bank of England in 1694 to fund its wars, the national debt was born, a promise signed not by farmers or merchants, but by entire nations.

Even literature began to feel the weight. Around that same era, William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice took debt as moral theatre. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, demands a “pound of flesh” as collateral for a loan.

A ridiculous yet symbolic image of what happens when contracts replace kindness. It wasn’t merely a story about greed or cruelty; it was a warning that money, once divorced from mercy, could turn civilization into a courtroom.

Debt soon became the backbone of power. It built empires, fueled wars, and later, industries and cities. By the twentieth century, the world was running entirely on borrowed money.

The Bretton Woods system of 1944 formalized this arrangement, creating a global web of obligations with the IMF, the World Bank, and the U.S. dollar at its center.

Today, that web is tattering. Global debt has climbed beyond $325 trillion, three times the world’s total income.

Every mortgage, government bond, and credit card swipe is a modern clay tablet of trust but the balance is breaking. Efforts are underway to sway it by decoupling from the others.

The signs are everywhere. The United States, struggling under its own mountain of debt, uses tariffs and trade barriers as tools to protect its economy and sustain its borrowing. France has been downgraded by Fitch.

China, despite its foreign exchange reserves finding it difficult to support its ailing real estate industry. Sri Lanka witnessed its worst political and economic collapse in decades. The fact is that more than fifty countries are in or near debt distress.

A recent Debt Jubilee Report tried to reopen the dog-eared pages of history, reminding the world that unchecked borrowing is not new and that once, societies had the wisdom to hit reset before the system consumed them.

Pakistan, in many ways, stands out. Its Sharia court debated the issue of debt for thirty years and ultimately ordered the economy to shift from borrowed money to a model based on sharing.

The constitutional amendment imposes its own time-bound framework on the decision. Yet instead of embracing this moment, stakeholders continue to cling to the comfort of the old cycle: borrow, survive, repeat.

The clay tablets may have turned into credit cards, but the lesson remains the same. Debt, if left unbalanced, will always demand its “pound of flesh.”

Disclaimer: The views and analysis in this article are the opinions of the author and are for informational purposes only.