Human society is unimaginable without debt - the give and take that allowed our forebears access to a wider range of skills and goods than they could have provided individually. But it wasn't all happy reciprocity then either. Debt slavery was pretty literal in ancient Rome.

Today we are much more sophisticated. After decades of debt traps being sprung on some of the poorest people in the Majority World through no fault of their own, debt now riddles and corrodes the entire world's financial system. To what purpose other than concentrating the wealth of a small élite and striking at the heart of social cohesion?

Why are our politicians so keen to force-feed us austerity while paying lip service to the overarching problem of inequality?

And if we're all waiting for growth to rescue us, who will give a damn about sustainability?