Debt and Discipline

Abstract

Neoliberal restructuring of the economy created a symbiosis of debt and discipline. New policies displaced Keynesian welfare, facilitated financialization of the economy, broke the power of organized labor, and expanded debt to sustain aggregate demand. Ever-increasing sections of the working classes were brought within the ambit of the credit economy. Constructs of individual responsibility and human capital were refashioned to facilitate assemblage of subjects who would engage the financialized economy as risk-taking entrepreneurs. Engulfment in debt induced self-discipline and conformity with the logic of the financialized economy and precarious labor markets.

An Army of Debt

“…Financial readiness materials often emphasize the importance of paying down outstanding balances, and implicitly suggest that the elimination of debt is the primary marker of economic success. Once again, debt works to the military's advantage, this time performing the disciplinary function of turning enlisted personnel into docile bodies easily integrated into war efforts (Mahmud 2012). At other moments, the US Department of Defense (2006, p. 23) seems uninterested in thwarting consumer desires, and professes an interest in teaching servicemembers how to 'use credit wisely'.…”

Categorizing Competence: Consumer debt and the reproduction of gender-based status differences

“…The financial realm is a critical aspect of socio-economic life for most people (see Dymski, Hernandez, & Mohanty, 2013; Espino, 2013; Floro & Dymski, 2000; Fukuda-Parr, Heintz, & Seguino, 2013; Lee, 2014; Roberts, 2015). Research in the area suggests that in an increasingly “financialized” economy (Davis & Kim, 2015), understanding how inequality is manifested in the financial realm—including spending, credit, and debt—can offer substantial insights into inequality’s persistence (Fligstein & Goldstein, 2015; Mahmud, 2012; Rajan, 2012). In particular, consumer debt is a focal point for studying issues of inequality because terms of debt contracts and access to debt are closely linked to underlying societal inequalities (LeBaron, 2014; Riaz, 2016; Roberts, 2014).…”

Platform labor: on the gendered and racialized exploitation of low-income service work in the ‘on-demand’ economy

“…In that year, Paul Volcker, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, enacted a radical tight-money policy and raised interest rates to hitherto unseen levels. As is well documented, this induced an inflow of capitalin the form of foreign investments in U.S. government securities -as well as a deep recession that repressed wages and exacerbated already dismal unemployment rates, thereby breaking the power of organized labor and inaugurating an era of 'rollback neoliberalism' marked by fiscal austerity, labor market restructuring, and the growing dominance of finance capital (Harvey, 2007;Mahmud, 2012;Peck & Tickell, 2002). As Peck and Theodore (2012, p. 746) have noted, the logic driving this era was crystallized in the Reagan administration's economic program, which not only authorized wide ranging welfare retrenchments, while taking the fight to organized labor in the form of antiunion stances and policies, but also articulated a normatively positive discourse of labor market 'flexibility,' while (directly and indirectly) sanctioning the expansion of contingent labor practices.…”