Latest News on Progress Towards Creating the World’s First Museum of Debt

Mad folks and proverbs reveal many truths – American Proverbs (1992)

This book is a collection of proverbs and aphorisms about debt, gathered from online sources and arranged alphabetically. It offers readers a glimpse into the diverse cultural attitudes surrounding debt, highlighting the complex and often contradictory views that societies hold toward borrowing and lending.

The majority of the proverbs are anonymous or have been repeated so often that their original sources are unknown. While most sayings are rooted in Western traditions, the collection also includes proverbs from China, India, and the Middle East, reflecting the universal relevance of debt across cultures. Additionally, several proverbs are attributed to Shakespeare, underscoring how the theme of debt has long permeated literature and thought.

The collection highlights the moral ambiguity associated with debt, a tension also discussed in David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years. Both creditors and debtors are often criticized in equal measure, revealing society’s conflicted relationship with financial obligation. On one hand, debt is seen as a burden that can lead to shame or moral failure. On the other hand, lending is not without reproach, as creditors are sometimes portrayed as exploitative or unforgiving.
By compiling these sayings, the Museum of Debt offers a nuanced view of how different societies navigate the moral complexities of debt. It invites readers to reflect on the wisdom (or folly) embedded in these time-honored proverbs, exposing the underlying values and contradictions that continue to shape modern financial relationships. Whether humorous, cynical, or cautionary, the sayings collected in this book serve as timeless reminders of the cultural and ethical dilemmas that accompany the exchange of money.

Available from bookstores as part of the Museum of Debt series.

How the greed of banks and the ineptitude of regulators took us to the brink of Armageddon – requiring a bail-out we are still paying for, and where we’ve learned almost no lessons.

We’re all set to repeat the whole process with potentially worse consequences.
Our story is told with the help of William Hogarth’s series of images called The Rake’s Progress.

This compelling book is an unflinching account of how greed, ambition, and incompetence within the banking industry—enabled by lax regulation—led the global economy to the brink of collapse. Using the artwork and the obvious parallels to William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, it chronicles the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as a microcosm of broader systemic failure, offering a sobering reflection on how little we’ve learned from the crisis and the risks we still face.

The story begins with The Heir, where George Mathewson dreams of transforming RBS into a financial superpower. He hires Fred Goodwin, “Fred the Shred,” whose aggressive leadership sparks rapid growth, though neither fully grasps the risks. The echoes of Scotland’s failed Darien Scheme foreshadow RBS’s eventual downfall.

In The Levee, Goodwin’s authoritarian culture takes hold, driving an audacious takeover of NatWest. Praised by the press and knighted for his success, Goodwin becomes a darling of government ministers enjoying the bank’s booming profits.
The Orgy follows RBS on a reckless acquisition spree, buying foreign banks riddled with toxic assets. The bank accumulates risky financial products—like credit swaps and subprime mortgages—that it barely understands.

As the cracks in the global economy appear, The Arrest describes how RBS outbids Barclays to acquire ABN Amro, despite mounting financial instability. Regulators fail to intervene, leaving RBS burdened with worthless assets.

In The Gambling House, RBS tries to stay afloat with a risky rights issue, but the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggers panic. Prison follows RBS’s desperate plea to the UK Treasury, leading to a £50 billion taxpayer bailout.

The book closes with The Madhouse, showing how little has changed. Lavish salaries and bonuses persist, and state-backed banks still dominate the economy. A Bank’s Progress warns that without meaningful reform, the conditions for another financial disaster remain in place.

The Museum of Debt is planning a month long pop-up exhibition to be held at an undisclosed location in Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, London’s shining capitalist out-growth.

Ten years ago, David Graeber pointed out that we’re confused about debt.  What it is and what to do about it.  The Museum of Debt aims to help us understand debt from an anthropological, etymological, psychological and social perspective. The museum will feature artifacts and documents which explore the many dimensions of debt. From its origins as relations between people, the network of obligations that bound communities together to the impersonal and exploitative burden it has become.

We want to hear what artists have to say about this change. There is no fee for submissions and the best will feature on the Museum’s online gallery and if selected may feature in the exhibition itself.

You can submit existing work or propose new work. However, no funding is available for the production of new work. It can be in any media – digital, 2D, 3D or other. It can be written word, spoken word, video, sound, drawing, painting, sculpture, performance…anything. You can submit your own response to debt as an issue or experience, but we would particularly like to receive submissions that respond to the following statement.

5000 years of debt: How we took ‘Thank you’ and turned it into ‘Screw You’.

Further Information

A central theme of David Graeber’s analysis is that we are confused about debt, and that without greater clarity about debt we are unlikely to find the right solution. Graeber proposed a new way of thinking about debt in terms of three modes of exchange: communism (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need); direct exchange (between a creditor and a debtor, entered into on the basis of equality and volition); and hierarchy (relations between people where there is no equality and an uneven distribution of power). This suggests that problems are likely to arise at the boundaries between these modes.  Importantly his work suggests that the moral confusion we suffer is likely to mean we are unable to solve these problems without greater thought. He believed that it was time for the debt relationships between people in society to be fundamentally renegotiated. This means taking an objective look at the facts.  Considering the problem from more than one perspective.

The Museum of Debt wants to contribute to this renegotiation by providing access to, and insights about, some of the material and ideas discussed in Graeber’s book. It aims to do this in a provocative way using humour and satire rather than data and polemics. It aims to provide an artistic, absurdist and anarchic take on the question of debt.

The team behind the museum have previously delivered numerous visitor experiences including Circus of the Mind (a three ringed circus featuring metaphysical betting, a court of moral ambiguity and a confessional for modern (cognitive) sins) and Cornershop (an apocalyptic version of the traditional British corner shop where nothing is quite what it seems).

A short presentation about the bloated UK banking sector and the practice of ‘taking a haircut.’

 

Dear UK Government Investments

I am seeking further information on the divestiture of government shares in the banking sector arising from the 2008 bank bail out.

In Budget 2017 2/3 of the investment was supposed to be sold during 2018-19.

In 2018 it was announced that full disposal would take place by 2023-24.

In 2020 it was announced that full divestiture would take place by 2024-25

In the 2021 Budget this was apparently put back until 2025-26.

Each year therefore it seems that the date gets put back further and further.  I realise that given that the intention is to sell only when such a sales represents value for money, and to reward the taxpayer for its investment, that market conditions mean that the timetable needs to be altered.  However, in that regard it seems sensible to have some clarity on what VFM represents. In particular to address the question as to whether to be VFM 1) the eventual receipts from disposal need to be greater than the cost of acquisition, or whether 2) account should be taken of the cost to the taxpayer of financing this investment.

As a taxpayer I am interested in understanding the return on investment that the bail out package will eventually realise and in my view that means taking account of the cost of borrowing this money to give it to the banks. Hence, I would not consider it VFM if the shares were sold back before the price had risen sufficiently to cover the cost of financing the investment.

Your website notes the existence of a Trading Plan – is this a publicly available document? I note commentary by Reuters that all deals so far struck have been below the bailout share price of 502 pence per share.  If this continues to be the practice, I cannot see how the investment in the banks will return a profit, never mind cover the cost of financing the investment.

The latest OBR economic and fiscal outlook (March 2022) seems to suggest that the current return is very negative – a loss of 31 billion on the 137 billion invested. Is this expected to be reversed before the 2025-26 deadline?

I would therefore be very grateful for a statement from yourselves about what ‘VFM for the taxpayer’ means in terms of the work of the UKGI.

Many thanks

Museum of Debt

Sent in April 2022. No reply recieved.

Latest news (November 2024).

A flyer produced and distributed at the Globe Theatre’s production of Shakespears remarkable play about debt…

 

A set of cards designed to stimulate debate about debt.