Debt bondage (or bonded labour) is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.

In modern times, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia.

Debt bondage is classically defined as a situation when a person provides a loan to another who uses his or her labor or services to repay the debt; when the value of the work, as reasonably assessed, is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt, the situation becomes one of debt bondage.^{[citation needed]} See United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. This was very common in Ancient Greece. In ancient Athens, Solon forbade taking out loans using oneself as a security and ended any current such debts, ending debt bondage.

Debt bondage was "quite normal" in classical antiquity. The poor or those who had fallen irredeemably in debt might place themselves into bondage "voluntarily"—or more precisely, might be compelled by circumstances to choose debt bondage as a way to anticipate and avoid worse terms that their creditors might impose on them. In the Greco-Roman world, debt bondage was a distinct legal category into which free persons might fall, in theory temporarily, distinguished from the pervasive practice of slavery, which included enslavement as a result of defaulting on debt. Many forms of debt bondage existed in both ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

Peter Joseph is an independent filmmaker and social activist. He has written, directed, narrated, scored and produced three non-commercial, self-produced and freely-distributed documentary films called Zeitgeist: The Movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward. These films comprise what is called the "Zeitgeist Film Series". He is the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement and is also on the Steering Committee of "Project Peace on Earth."

Peter Joseph's work was the subject of articles in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Palm Beach Post, TheMarker and Globes.

He has been featured on TV a number of times regarding the solutions proposed by The Zeitgeist Movement for the economic crisis, including several interviews on RT TV along with TheMarkerTV in Israel.

Peter Joseph has also appeared on two TEDx events: TEDxO'Porto and TEDxOjai (California).

Paul Theodore Hellyer, PC (born 6 August 1923) is a Canadian engineer, politician, writer and commentator who has had a long and varied career. He is the longest serving current member of the Privy Council, just ahead of Prince Philip.

Hellyer was born and raised on a farm near Waterford, Ontario. Upon completion of high school he studied aeronautical engineering at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute of Aeronautics in Glendale, California, graduating in 1941. While studying he also obtained a private pilot's licence.

After graduation, Hellyer was employed at Fleet Aircraft in Fort Erie, Ontario, which was then making training craft for the Royal Canadian Air Force as part of Canada's war effort in World War II. He attempted to become an RCAF pilot himself, but was told no more pilots were necessary, after which he joined the Royal Canadian Artillery as a private for the duration of the war.

Hellyer earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto in 1949.

First elected as a Liberal in 1949 federal election in the riding of Davenport, he was the youngest person ever elected to that point in the Canadian House of Commons. He served a brief stint as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence, and made a good impression. He was then named Associate Minister of National Defence in the cabinet of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. This post was short-lived, though, as Hellyer lost his seat when the St. Laurent government lost the 1957 election two months later.