Whatever else it may signify, the brutal connotations of “debt” make forgiveness sound much more demanding and consequential than “trespass” would imply. (Awkward recollection: Learning the prayer as a little kid, I pictured God being unhappy that people were ignoring a sign on His lawn.)

Homo economicus never spent all that much time on moral accounting. But at least the old bourgeois virtues included restraint and a residual belief that self-interest was justified insofar as it served a larger good. The issues that concern Andrew Ross in his new book Creditocracy (discussed in last week’s column) unfold in a world where debt itself is a kind of demigod, answerable to no higher power of any kind — and certainly not to the state.

Read the full essay on Inside Higher Ed.