Hume predicted foreign-held debt would eventually undo political liberty.

Evidence

When this issuance of debt eventually hits a ceiling, governments will need to sell more of it to foreigners, and that will result in foreigners possessing “a great share of our national funds [which will] render the pubic … tributary to them.” And if all this comes to pass, as it inevitably must according to Hume, liberty is undone. With taxes at their limits paying interest on the debt, there is no room to absorb any kind of financial shock. Consequently, even more debt will be issued, “a continual taxation of the annuitants,” which results in a government that has “mortgaged all its revenues [and that will] sink into a state of languor, inactivity and impotence.” — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 288

Categorization

• XREF: An early form of the ‘debt as sovereignty loss / foreign tribute’ critique that prefigures later colonial and dependency-theory framing; connects to the same arguments Hirschman noted recur unchanged. — connects to: Hume argued governments abuse debt because its costs are hidden and intergenerational. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 287; Hume and Smith’s debt skepticism was shaped by witnessed financial collapses — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 306
• QUESTION: Worth checking whether Hume’s foreigners-own-debt-deepends-liberty argument survives contact with Britain’s subsequent experience where a large public debt coexisted with liberal politics.

Broader Connections

• Hume argued governments abuse debt because its costs are hidden and intergenerational. #expands (0.90) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 287
• Hume and Smith’s debt skepticism was shaped by witnessed financial collapses #qualifies (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 306