Tightening Our Belts
(from David Graeber, 'Debt: The First 5000 Years')
At the same time, there is something profoundly deceptive going on here. All these moral dramas start from the assumption that personal debt is ultimately a matter of self-indulgence, a sin against one's loved ones--and therefore, that redemption must necessarily be a matter of purging and restoration of ascetic self-denial. What's being shunted out of sight here is first of all the fact that everyone is now in debt (U.S. household debt is now estimated at on average 130 percent of income), and that very little of this debt was accrued by those determined to find money to bet on the horses or toss away on fripperies. Insofar as it was borrowed for what economists like to call discretionary spending, it was mainly to be given to children, to share with friends, or otherwise to be able to build and maintain relations with other human beings that are based on something other than sheer material calculation.31 One must go into debt to achieve a life that goes in any way beyond sheer survival.
Insofar as there is a politics, here, it seems a variation on a theme seen since the dawn of capitalism. Ultimately, it's sociality itself that's treated as abusive, criminal, demonic. To this, most ordinary Americans--including Black and Latino Americans, recent immigrants, and others who were formerly excluded from credit--have responded with a stubborn insistence on continuing to love one another. They continue to acquire houses for their families, liquor and sound systems for parties, gifts for friends; they even insist on continuing to hold weddings and funerals, regardless of whether this is likely to send them skirting default or bankruptcy--apparently figuring that, as long as everyone now has to remake themselves as miniature capitalists, why shouldn't they be allowed to create money out of nothing too?
At the same time, there is something profoundly deceptive going on here. All these moral dramas start from the assumption that personal debt is ultimately a matter of self-indulgence, a sin against one's loved ones--and therefore, that redemption must necessarily be a matter of purging and restoration of ascetic self-denial. What's being shunted out of sight here is first of all the fact that everyone is now in debt (U.S. household debt is now estimated at on average 130 percent of income), and that very little of this debt was accrued by those determined to find money to bet on the horses or toss away on fripperies. Insofar as it was borrowed for what economists like to call discretionary spending, it was mainly to be given to children, to share with friends, or otherwise to be able to build and maintain relations with other human beings that are based on something other than sheer material calculation.31 One must go into debt to achieve a life that goes in any way beyond sheer survival.
Insofar as there is a politics, here, it seems a variation on a theme seen since the dawn of capitalism. Ultimately, it's sociality itself that's treated as abusive, criminal, demonic. To this, most ordinary Americans--including Black and Latino Americans, recent immigrants, and others who were formerly excluded from credit--have responded with a stubborn insistence on continuing to love one another. They continue to acquire houses for their families, liquor and sound systems for parties, gifts for friends; they even insist on continuing to hold weddings and funerals, regardless of whether this is likely to send them skirting default or bankruptcy--apparently figuring that, as long as everyone now has to remake themselves as miniature capitalists, why shouldn't they be allowed to create money out of nothing too?