Summary: <p>"History is a battle between creditors and debtors," Philip Coggan says on today's show. "Every so often these two clash, there is a crisis and the whole system is remade."</p><p>Coggan, who writes the <a href="http://www.economist.com/search/apachesolr_search/buttonwood?filters=type%3Aarticle" target="_blank">Buttonwood</a> column for the Economist, is author of the book <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/titles/146489652/paper-promises-debt-money-and-the-new-world-order" target="_blank">Paper Promises: Debt, Money, and the New World Order</a>.</p><p>"We had a crisis in the 1930s, in the 1970s and we've got another one now."</p><p>We're not even close to resolving the latest crisis, according to Coggan. The debate over debt is "what politics and economics are going to be about for the next 10 years," he says.</p>
