Precepts about forgiveness for the maintenance of peace usually follow situations where long standing injustices have been corrected or atrocities have taken place. Forgiveness might also be necessary in many more cases where it is never mentioned and it could do some good.
Officials and finance ministers of wealthy countries grant debt forgiveness. They might also like to see it practiced by others. Others might like to see it carried out by those who promised it. In Central and Eastern European Countries, S.America, the Middle East and South Africa leaders had to consider how to balance and reconcile past and present after years of oppression. If forgiveness and reconciliation are overlooked or ignored aggression and fear might again become the only motives and force the only effective instrument of the state. Exiles would become the symbol of the country.
Forgiveness is traditonally other-regarding. Economic behaviour is self-regarding. It may of course be in a person's best interest to forgive. The self interest of Schopenhauer with his theory of malice and sympathy and hostility to criticism, Hobbes' belief that any regard for others is purely secondary to self interest and Mandeville's disregard for any good but his own are in contrast to Lockean enlightened self interest, the public interest and the social contract. Servants should not become the slaves of power and wealth but consider forgiveness for the common good.
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