The Question of Debt in Capitalism
El sobrante
AUG 18, 2026
By Ezequiel Gil Lezama
The issue of debt, financial capital and the role it plays in the capitalist mode of production has generated rivers of ink in the political field of the left and even of progressivism or nationalism.
Almost in their entirety, both Marxism and the nationalist sectors tend to agree on the role of debt because both start from two different theories that, in essence, they share: the theory of imperialism, the former, and the theory of dependence, the latter.
In this reading, international credits are conceived as a mechanism by which the powers subjugate the emerging countries and, even more, as a way by which the former plunder the latter.
We will see, therefore, in the light of the incipient world debt crisis, which threatens to unravel, what the role of debt in the accumulation of capital really is, and whether the thesis of Marxism and nationalism is true.
Debt as the basis of imperialism and domination
If we talk about debt and how Marxism understands it, we have to go to Lenin (who relies on Hilferding), where, in his work Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (1), he states that debt or, as he calls it, the export of capital, is a central axis of imperialism that allows the consolidation of domination, as can be read here:
‘The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, further isolates the rentiers from production and highlights with the stamp of parasitism the whole country which lives off the exploitation of the labour of a few overseas countries and colonies.’ (2)
In fact, the appearance of the export of capital, according to the Russian revolutionary, is the expression of the imperialist phase, while «old capitalism» is characterised by the export of commodities.
Therefore, the export of capital, as a mechanism, allows, first, a fracture of the world:
«The world has been divided into a handful of usurious states and a gigantic majority of debtor states.» (3)
And, also, it operates as an obligation for debtor countries to import goods from the creditor country:
«The loan is granted on one condition: to spend a part of it on the purchase of products from the creditor country» (4)
In short, it is understandable why Marxism considers international debt and credit as a tool of geopolitical domination and colonial extraction of surplus value.
Credit and debt in Marx
Now let’s see what Marx says about the role of debt and credit in the cycle of capital accumulation, in Capital (5).
Far from the idea that Marxism has promoted, debt, as part of credit, has a different approach in Marx. Namely, credit is not the abstract opposition to production or an anomaly or an independent sphere, but a fundamental part of the accumulation of capital.
Nor are they mechanisms of domination between states, but a resource for financing them.
In this sense, credit operates as a mechanism that allows capital to be advanced to accelerate the production and circulation of goods by financing both investment in constant capital (machinery, inputs) and in variable capital (labour power), allowing capitalists to operate beyond their immediate resources.
And debt, therefore, is the obligation to repay the borrowed advance plus interest. In turn, it operates as an expansion of accumulation by allowing capital, via debt, to grow beyond its own limits, for example, when a capitalist takes on debt to increase his scale of production.
That is, credit and production are intimately linked in the accumulation of capital; they do not exist as independent spheres and, most importantly, the so-called financial capital exists and expands based on the existence and expansion of the so-called productive capital.
Why? Because the benefit of financial capital is given by charging interest on the advanced capital that arises from a greater appropriation of surplus value by the debtor productive capital, from which it follows that the credit requested by the latter was intended to produce more value.
That is why all private debt is a promise of greater production of surplus value; therefore, it proves the close link that unites financial and productive capital.
Now, if we move forward to state debt, public debt, we find that Marx describes it as an instrument of financing the state, whether for state spending, infrastructure, war, etc., allowing it to operate beyond its present revenues.
But since, unlike private capital, public debt is not a promise of greater production of surplus value, but of future taxes, Marx asserts that public debt, instruments such as bonds or securities, are a form of fictitious capital.
State debt, for example, generates bonds that capitalists buy and sell, creating a mass of fictitious capital that seems to grow independently of production (6).
In short, it is evident that Marx’s developments have a very different conclusion on debt and credit than Marxism did.
To resolve this dichotomy, let’s look at the situation of world debt, its composition, and whothe most indebted countries ares.
The club of debtor and dominated countries
According to the site Visual Capitalist (7), in 2025, the total global debt of states amounted to 110 trillion dollars (110 trillion dollars according to the North American system), that is, the equivalent of 95% of global GDP.
However, the two most indebted countries are the United States and China, with 38 and 18 trillion dollars, respectively;y, that is, both powers account for 50.9% of the total world debt.
Then follow Japan (9.8 trillion), the United Kingdom (4.1 trillion) and France (3.9 trillion). Thus, the top five hold 67% of the global debt. And among the top ten countries with the highest debt, 81% of the world’s total is concentrated.
Who completes the list? Italy, India, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Singapore, Korea and Australia.
Therefore, even taking Brazil (10th) and Mexico (12th) as the only peripheral countries of the 15 main debtors, between them they have 2.9% of the world’s total debt.
Moreover, the top ten most indebted countries are the same as the ranking of the top ten economies in the world, except Brazil, which is ranked 11th.
Therefore, unless the central countries or powers dominate themselves, Lenin’s definition of a world where the powers are usurious states that exploit a majority of debtor countries is revealed to be false: 9 of the 10 most developed countries own 80% of the world’s total debt.
If we count up to the 15th most indebted country, which also occupies these positions as the main economies, we have 86% of the global debt. In other words, the remaining 14% of the total debt is distributed among the remaining 180 countries.
Private debt
But we are not including the private sector, as anyone can point out. Good. If we add private debt, the concentration is even greater in the powers.
According to the latest monitoring(8), as of the first four months of 2026, by the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the total global debt of private individuals and governments climbs to 352 trillion dollars (305% of global GDP).
Here, the United States and China also reach 50%, while Japan and the main countries of Europe account for 27%. In other words, among seven central countries, we have 77% of the total debt, leaving the remaining 188 countries with 23% of the debt of private companies and governments.
Again, the thesis of Marxism is not corroborated.
The debt with the IMF
And the external debt with the IMF? There, if the creditor countries are peripheral, another may say.
In fact, the first ten debtor countries of the Fund are peripheral,l and the top five (Argentina, Ukraine, Pakistan, Egypt and Ecuador) concentrate 80% of all the IMF’s credit. (9)
However, combined with the first ten debtor countries of the IMF, the figure reaches 128 billion dollars, that is, 0.1% of the total world debt.
But there is more: no amount of debt of these countries exceeds 10% of their respective GDP (Argentina is the first with 9% and Ghana the last with 0.8%) or 15%, except Ukraine (25%), of their respective total public debts.
In short, neither the debt with the IMF is a relevant figure in terms of GDP, much less as a percentage of the total debts of these peripheral countries.
Finally, a not minor issue: the IMF, moreover, is an association of countries with a closed fund; that is, no member, not even the US as the main shareholder, withdraws money from the organisation.
On the contrary, each country that joins the IMF pays a quota; in the case of the United States, it is the largest shareholder and has 16% of the votes because its contribution to the Fund was about 117,000 million dollars, precisely 17% of the total quotas (10).
In addition, the US, as support in the face of a global crisis, commits another 39,000 million dollars to the organisation. (11)
That is, payments to the IMF from the peripheral countries do not go to any member country of the organisation, so there is no appropriation of surplus value by the powers either.
Well, but, in truth, the debt with the IMF gives the United States, for example, control of the economy of the debtor country and, as Lenin said, forces it to buy its products.
Of the countries most indebted to the IMF, the one that imports the most products from the US is Argentina (12), but it ranks 35th among export destinations and represents 0.4% of the total products that the US sells to the world. It is followed by Egypt (37th and 0.39%) and Ecuador (41st and 0.2%).
The other 7 countries are ranked beyond 60th place among the destinations of North American exports.
In other words, it is also not verified that the US authorises loans from the Fund in exchange for debtor countries buying its products.
The role of debt
Finally, as we have just seen, the thesis of Marxism pointed out by Lenin does not verify itself in reality.
Neither the powers are creditor states nor the peripheral countries the most indebted.
Since most of the world’s total debt is in the hands of the world’s major economies, everything indicates that the role that debt plays in the accumulation of capital is what Marx points out.
Therefore, given that debt does not behave as a mechanism of plunder and oppression nor does it operate as a tool in exchange for buying products from the creditor country, it is essential to characterize debt as a substantial part of the process of capital accumulation, not only to advance in the conscious knowledge of the reality that is intended to be transformed but also not to reproduce the ideology of junk nationalism.
Notes:
1.- See Lenin, Imperialism, Highest Stage of Capitalism, in: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/
2.- Op. Cit., Chapter VIII: «Parasitism and the Decadence of Capitalism»
3- Op. Cit, Chapter V: «The division of the world among the associations of capitalists»
4.+ Op. Cit, Chapter VI: The division of the world among the great powers.
5- See Marx, Capital, Volume III, Section Five,
in: https://www.marxists.org/espanol/m-e/1867/elcapital/
Chapter 21: Interest-bearing capital.
+Chapter 25: Credit and fictitious capital
+Chapter 27: The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production
Chapter 30: Money-Capital and Real Capital
6.- Fictitious capital is a monetary value that represents a promise of income
futures (such as interest or dividends), but which does not correspond to real capital
invested in the production of commodities. It arises in the financial and credit system,
where securities, bonds or shares are traded as if they were productive capital, although their value depends on speculative expectations and not on the direct production of surplus value.
Unlike real capital (machinery, labour-power), fictitious capital does not participate
directly in the production of surplus value. Its value depends on the capacity of the issuer
(State or company) to meet the promised payments, which in turn depends on the
Extraction of surplus value in the real economy: for example, the price of a stock can
rise by speculation, without increasing the productive capacity of the company.
For further development, see chapters 25 (Credit and fictitious capital) and 29 (Elements of the
Banking Capital) in Capital. Volume III. Section Five
7.+ Ver https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-countries-with-the-most-government-debt-in-2025/
9.- See https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/tad/extcred4.aspx
11.- See
https://www.imf.org/en/about/factsheets/where-the-imf-gets-its-money
12.-Ver https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/argentina
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