3/7🌎The Duty to Write Off Odious Debts

In an era when government debt is exploding while being presented as inevitable, an old and uncomfortable question is resurfacing: When are debts not merely economically unsustainable, but also morally and legally illegitimate? The American constitutional principle of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and the derived maxim “no taxation without representation” are not mere historical slogans. They demand scrutiny of the origin and ownership of debt instruments. Who is entitled to incur debts in the name of a people, and who must ultimately repay them?

This question becomes particularly sharp when the rulers themselves undermine the principle of representation. How can a nation that considers itself free and democratic profit from payments collected in the name of peoples whose political elites no longer represent their own populations? German government debt, in particular, invites this examination—not out of anti-German resentment, but from the consistent application of its own principles.

The Symbol of Alienation

One does not have to look far to see the gulf between rulers and ruled. Until recently, a contemporary sculpture titled “Eva” stood in Schloss Bellevue, the official residence of the German Federal President. It depicted a female body in a pose that some observers described as presenting her buttocks toward the viewer—an installation that caused a stir in the formal setting of a state palace. Deutsche Welle reported in euphemistic terms about “tension” and “questions regarding the representation of bodies in society.”

"This is how the German Federal President receives visitors to his official residence in 2026."

The real question, however, is different: Can a political elite that displays such symbols in its official spaces still seriously claim to represent the people? Here, governance is no longer exercised as service to the common good, but as the staging of arbitrary, often ideologically charged values. It is the expression of a left-wing cult of guilt, in which moral superiority is constantly invoked while the actual interests of the population—security, prosperity, and freedom of expression—are increasingly sidelined.

This alienation is not an isolated case. Since at least 2015, Germany has undergone a process that can, without exaggeration, be described as a creeping coup by a political-media elite against its own people. The instruments were not tanks or street battles, but laws regulating speech, mechanisms of censorship, and a systematic narrowing of public discourse. Anyone who has followed this development critically knows: It was never only about “hate speech.” It was about securing a form of rule that was becoming increasingly independent of the consent of the governed.

Odious Debts – The Doctrine of Repugnant Debts

The idea that certain government debts do not have to be repaid is neither new nor revolutionary. As early as the 1920s, the Russian jurist Alexander Nahum Sack developed the doctrine of odious debts. According to this theory, government debts are illegitimate and unenforceable when three conditions are met:

The debts were incurred without the consent of the population because the government was not legitimized by free and fair elections.

The funds raised served to oppress the population or demonstrably harmed it.

The creditors knew this or could have known it with reasonable due diligence.

These criteria are deliberately formulated strictly. They are not meant to retroactively invalidate every failed policy, but to capture clear cases of abuse. There are sufficient historical precedents:

After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States refused to assume Cuba’s debts to Spain. The debts had been incurred to fight the Cuban independence movement—i.e., directed against the Cuban people themselves.

In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Costa Rica case that the debts left by dictator Federico Tinoco were personal debts of the dictator and not of the population.

After the Iraq War in 2003, the United States largely canceled Iraq’s debts on this principle.

In 2008, Ecuador conducted a debt audit and declared parts of its debt “odious.”

In all these cases, the issue was not insolvency, but the moral and legal illegitimacy of the claims.

German Debts as “Actor Debts”

Applying these standards to the Federal Republic of Germany makes the situation uncomfortable. Since at least 2015—the year of the large-scale border opening and the subsequent legislative reactions—German government debt can no longer be regarded exclusively as debt of the German people. To a significant extent, it has become actor debt: debt incurred by a political caste in its own interest or to secure its power position.

The funds did not primarily flow into infrastructure or future investments that benefited the people. They served to finance policies that large parts of the population rejected—and whose criticism was systematically made more difficult or sanctioned. The backing this caste received from the media, the judiciary, and international institutions made the coup possible. The true bearers of these debts are therefore not the taxpayers, but those who profited from this system and supported it.

The matter becomes especially piquant when one considers the asset structure of this elite. Many of them—due to the lack of attractive alternatives in their own country—hold up to 70 percent of their wealth in American stocks. These assets constitute the actual, silent collateral for German debt. Whoever holds German government bonds today is indirectly financing a system whose beneficiaries have long since moved their capital to the United States.

The Question of Conscience for the Free World

This raises the real moral question for the United States and the rest of the free world: Can a nation that fought in 1776 for the principle of self-government still justify, in the 250th year of its existence, profiting from payments collected through taxes from people who suffer under increasing suppression of opinion? Or is it not rather the duty of a free society to hold the perpetrators, not the victims, accountable?

The question of conscience is this: Should American (and other Western) taxpayers and investors continue to profit from a system that undermines the foundations of freedom in its own country? Or should one instead access the assets of those who actively supported this system and profited from it?

Ultimately, only the American people themselves can answer this question. One thing, however, is certain: The longer the free world turns a blind eye to the doctrine of odious debts, the more it encourages new forms of arbitrary rule. Whoever is willing today to finance the debts of governments that restrict freedom of expression, manipulate elections, or replace them with censorship makes themselves complicit.

Democratic elections alone are no longer sufficient as legitimation. What matters is the environment in which they take place. An environment in which dissenting opinions are systematically marginalized, defamed, or prosecuted legally no longer meets the requirements of genuine representation. Many states that are still democratic on paper have long since crossed this threshold.

Conclusion

The duty to write off odious debts is not a radical invention. It is the consistent application of a principle that the free world has claimed for itself for over two centuries. Whoever applies this principle only when it is directed against dictatorships in distant countries, but turns a blind eye when it concerns one’s own allies or oneself, is not practicing the rule of law but hypocrisy.

The civilizational danger posed by new forms of rule based on arbitrary principles will not diminish as long as they are kept alive with fresh money. Whoever takes the doctrine of odious debts seriously understands: It is not about revenge or retribution. It is about restoring elementary justice—that those who incur debts in the name of the people are also the ones who must be held liable when the people are no longer represented.

The free world faces a choice. It can continue to let the bills of an alienated elite be paid by others—or it can finally draw the consequences from its own principles. The sooner it does so, the sooner it will prevent “odious debts” from one day becoming odious systems of rule that can only be confronted with weapons instead of accounting.

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