The Relationship Between Debt and Equality

There is no such thing as a genuinely unpayable debt. We call it a debt because it can be paid, even if the cost may be death by lethal injection. Exchange encourages a particular way of conceiving human relations. This is because exchange implies equality, but it also implies a separation. If you bring your creditor tomatoes from the garden, it never occurs to you that he would give something back. He might expect you to do it again, though,. But always there is the assumption that the situation is somewhat unnatural, because the debt really ought to be paid.