[...] Buying Time treats state debt as a phenomenon of political economy: not merely one of democracy but also one of capitalism. Capitalism is about the expansion of expandable capital in the form of private property; this entails the danger of a withdrawal of cooperation by those who are needed for accumulation but will not own what is accumulated. Since capitalism is not a state of nature, it can only exist on the basis of reciprocity in some form or other; if this is not present, the question then unavoidably arises as to why one kind of people should work forty and more hours a week for the enrichment of the other kind. This implies that problems of justice and distributional fairness in capitalism are not the discovery of irresponsible political troublemakers, but lie in the nature of a capitalist social order itself. They are mastered to some extent as long as high growth makes it easier for the owners of capital to cede a part of the collectively produced increase to the non-owners. When growth declines, as after the end of the reconstruction phase in the 1970s, distributional conflict sharpens, and it becomes correspondingly more difficult for governments to secure social peace. [...]