Debt has always been a defining social construct of power, starting with that of the gods to whom we owe everything. How do you repay an entity that already owns everything? Humans have never provided a clear answer to this paradox, choosing instead to distance themselves from the accounting gods. More concretely, the responsibility for creating and cancelling debts lies as much with the lender as with the borrower, which brings us to the world of finance and its strategic importance...
Money has no smell, especially when it comes to bits. The amoral tendency of financial institutions comes into play every time a lender offers a loan on terms he knows the borrower won't be able to meet. This amorality leads to misery, which is why regulations are necessary. Can a population living under the threat of guns bought on credit and at high cost by its leaders be held responsible for a loan granted to these leaders by a bank, even a world bank?
By relying on value-regulating bodies, we can manage to exchange production equivalents in terms of energy, potential and labor. Crypto-currencies take us to another level, that of deregulation. Decentralized finance, or "DeFi" in English, is the new concept! We don't know what's in store for the eternal debts of states, the century-old mortgages of individuals and the colossal fortunes of disconnected oligarchs, but we do know that it will indeed be a challenge. Trust and responsibility go hand in hand, and in some cases, social responsibility seems to be lacking. Finance is indeed a social construct; it can be a formidable tool for development as well as a source of misfortune.
Educational institutions are timidly tackling the "financial challenge", but a certain momentum is building as students take hold of financial technologies (fintech) in a way their ancestors never could. In the absence of expertise and tradition, schools are starting to get involved. The subject is a concrete one, drawing as much on mathematics and technology as on the social sciences, from philosophy to economics and politics. How can we equip students to deal with financial issues and sharks? How can we influence economic policies? How can we envisage a future free from the excesses of inequality?
A fine educational program in prospect, which business schools are struggling to consider.
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
Illustration: Sergei Tokmakov - Pixabay
