In fact, voluntary slavery seems a contradictory concept, but in Mesopotamia free citizens could work as slaves in a time to pay off their debts. And in the time of Babylon, when debt became a serious problem, this option was used a lot, too much. Before, in the Sumerian era, the main lenders were religious temples, but when more unstable and fragmented times came, most lenders were deprived. As written in tablets, temples received a maximum interest of 3%, while new lenders reached 22%. The deadlines were very tight, and those under two months have been recorded in the writings. Despite the lower interests of the rich and the longer periods of up to five years, smaller indebted citizens had no choice but to resort to slavery.

It was a pagotx for lenders who could easily obtain large interests and free labour. In addition, to increase the weight of portfolios, debts were sold to intermediaries or third parties, usually wealthy citizens or other providers. In this way a bubble formed through what we today call “debt packages”. They also had so-called “junk debts,” as it was impossible to pay a lot of debts. For example, volunteer slaves had the opportunity to re-borrow for freedom, and so it was getting harder and harder to get out of the crazy wheel.

Between 1922 and 1934, archaeologist Sir Leonard Wolley excavated in the city of Ur. In the layer that corresponded to the end of Sumer and the beginning of the Babylonian era, he found a new neighborhood, separated from the old city by a canal. There was no beautiful palace of the royal family or nobility, but there were buildings of various floors, toilets and other luxuries that were not found in the slums. It was the neighborhood of the “new rich”. Businessman Dumuzi-Gamil and partner Shumi-Abiya lived there. In addition to the bakeries and wheat supply business, they also borrowed. In the house of the first one they found the accounting of the business and a lot of cards, collected in tablets, from where most of the data mentioned here are extracted.

Debt forgiveness system

What for the new bankers was a good manga, was very bad for the Babylonian economy. Indebted volunteer slaves had to leave their usual work: the peasants left the land uncultivated, the artisans did not produce and the small traders broke the business… and also the debts were unpaid. A few were artificially enriched to the detriment of the majority. And like today, the economic bubble couldn't last forever.

As already mentioned in the portal, Hammurabi took steps to control the situation, limiting the period of voluntary slavery. But the authorities also took tougher measures until debts were cancelled. Thus did, for example, the king Rim-Sin of Larsa, who controlled several cities of Babylon, until Hammurabi himself conquered it. Rim-Sine established a rigorous debt forgiveness system, with immediate consequences for the new “bankers”. The rich neighborhood discovered by Wolley a century ago in U suffered a significant decline, as evidenced by archaeological remains. Despite the differences, the bubble of ancient Babylon has similar characteristics to the present, but also
a significant difference: the response of the authorities. Those old kings four millennia ago were not rescued from the bankers.