Economic and theological approaches to debt cancellation

Paper argues that it is not possible to demonstrate the superiority of one economic/theological approach to debt cancellation over the other. It says that practitioners in one are likely to continue to find it difficult to respond meaningfully to arguments from the other.

Paper keeps returning to the problem of commensurability. Economists consider this to be a period of "normal science," in which they are gradually working out responses to a series of policy questions. The theological seeking of justice does not challenge the positive arguments of economics, but their application to a normative purpose, the defence of social arrangements that benefit those of us who live in wealthy countries. Economists believe that in the long run market oriented systems will eradicate absolute poverty. Theologians seem to share Keynes' attitude to that distant horizon.