
Cross posted from La Tribune Diplomatic International. French version Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Your analysis of Mesopotamian times and the wise rule of Emperors embodied by the practice of the Jubilee (compared to the predation of oligarchies) resonate with the Islamic economic theory which forbids riba (meaning usury) and imposes that banks and creditors share the risk of investment or debt. It also seems something deeply rooted in our Arabic and North African traditions of equality and justice where it is socially unacceptable to leave part of the community in dire poverty. As an anthropologist, have you related the success or failure of modern finance to anthropological factors like the structures of the rural families, theories developed by some like Emmanuel Todd? Michael Hudson: I have written a long article on Ibn Khaldun, ...