Positive debts

I still had that "starting the industrial revolution in ancient greece" thing on the back of my mind from the speculative history thread when I came across the ouverture of meditations by Marcus Aurelius, where he openly makes the joyful inventory of his debts of love, friendship and affection etc by revealing what he owes to such n such, made me think about the anti utilitarian movement in social sciences from whom I gathered that the gift, like the market, is also a way to circulate things and services between persons except that the debt in this system is invested of positive values: "I'm so in debt to X, I'll never be able to pay it off during my lifetime" is a statement of wuv and respect, it indicates an abundance rather than a poverty. I can't quite explain in details how this idea can work into a realist alternative to capitalism (tell me about it) but for the sake of alt.history I'll say the meditations of Marcus Aurelius could have been the birth of a socioeconomy that would have avoided the problems of liberalism down the line by guiding naissant industralized countries toward an altermondialisation right from the start.

So, like Marcus Aurelius, feel free to write about your debts of the heart.