Debt is basically encoded into the universe.
In physics we have something called thermodynamic laws. They say that energy can't be created or destroyed, just moved about. They also say that nothing can be created - no commodity, order, value of profit - without a greater disorder, debt, poverty or entropic heat loss.
So when you create something, it always embodies less energy than it took to make it. And since total energy in a system remains the same, that energy has to come from somewhere else. Something has to go into energy debt for the object to be made. Something has to go into energy debt for the equation to be balanced.
To further sell the object for more energy than it is worth - money is essentially an avatar of work and so caloric energy - means you have to take more energy from elsewhere in the system. So just by selling the commodity for a profit, you're forced to draw even more energy from elsewhere to balance your equations. You're forced to place an entropic debt on something or someone else.
Capitalists don't believe this. They believe in "infinite growth". Everyone can profit. Everyone can have infinite commodities and so energy. And they are right in some respects, because we have huge stores of "free energy" (oil, sunlight etc) and because value is subjective; someone may put a 100 dollar value on something that costs very little energy to make, and no value on something that requires alot of energy.
But none of those rationalizations apply to money itself. Money literally is zero sum at any fixed point in time. And because all money is created as debt with interest, all profit measured in monetary terms creates a greater debt and so poverty elsewhere.
You can't have a money economy and not have debt and the majority eventually indebted.
Capitalists ignore this by promoting something called a binary transaction fallacy. They believe that all transactions are simple, simply between A and B, both the buyer and seller profiting. But no transaction occurs in isolation, and every transaction affects everyone else in the system. Profit here, creates debt there. Money there, creates no money there.
So then people say: okay then, let's have debt jubilees! It worked in the past! Let's cancel all debts. But you can't cancel all debt today; all money is debt, you'd have to destroy everything.
People then say: fine, let's just destroy debts owed within a certain timeframe. But this ends up only benefitting the rich; the poor are lent less money and the biggest borrowers are the state and the rich. So debt jubilees are just big wealth transfers to them. And all your savings are somebody else's debt anyway, so that gets cancelled too.
So then people say: okay, let's have a debt jubilee, but only for the poor and the middle class. Nobody pays for student loads or medical bills over the next 5 years! But then whole chunks of the economy will pack up shop and stop doing business. You will have massive inflation, soaring business rates, and everything would cost more.
In the end, debt jubilees then become a means of preserving the system and pacifying people. But because it's so complicated to implement, what is more likely is governments implementing universal basic incomes, and paying for this with savings made from cutting welfare beuracracy. Finland is already trying this. The French elections this year have 2 left wing candidates who are proposing something similar. In 100 years time this may be common place, but in the long term will be just as unsustainable as anything we're doing now.
