Lecture Notes, Lazzarato, The Making of Indebted Man, Chapter Two

Recap of last class and the general arc of the book.

Through the creditor-debtor relation, labor as a crucially important aspect of capitalism is
joined with work on the self, or the process of becoming a certain kind of subject. Under
neoliberalism, since everything is subject to the market (remember how we talked about this last
class?), the process of becoming a person is fundamentally about becoming the kind of person
that does well on the market, that follows its rules and dictates well, that thinks in terms of the
market, according to the market, even without knowing it. Example: them making decisions
about partying late or drinking hard.
So, what Lazaratto is claiming is that the way that this process of becoming subjects, becoming
capitalist subjects is linked to the actual realm of work, labor, having a job, is through the debtcredit relation (38)
Lets take my favorite example: Facebook. Now this is a thing we all use without getting paid for
it this is our social, recreation time, yes? Okay, so we post on fb, and then, fb reminds us of our
memories 1 yr ago today, etc and in the course of posting, people begin to know you,
whatyou like, how you spend your time, wht news sites you link to, how quickly you posted a
link to the new Beyonce video, whatever. You become a kind of predictable, regular subject,
even from a far from people you dont really interact with in person that much. And then,
inevitably, you post things in order for other people to see that you posted them. Happy
Birthday on your exs page, etc. And if you dont post, if you dont go to the events, or say
happy birthday or like your friends pictures, there is a kind of guilt associated with it, or at least
the potential for your friend to say WTF mate? But here is the best part about it. The data. The
ads. The fact that people are making millions of $$ a year on being able to predict what you will
post and how quickly you will post it so they can advertise the right product, the right service,
the right vacation, the right school to you (that you will probably buy on credit). So insofar as
you are not at work, insofar as you are just doing what you do for leisure, for fun, you are, at one
and the same time, contributing to this work of becoming a self/yourself and contributing to the
credit-debt economy. And its not just facebook. Its google. Its Netflix and hulu and twitter and
okcupid and tinder and grubhub
Okay, second favorite example: youre working on yourself. Youre doing something to make
you a better person, say, learning a new language or even going to college. In which, supposedly,
youre learning all sorts of things, and meeting all sorts of people, horizons being opened,
possibilities expanded, etc etc etc. But this itself, you working on yourself, are all things you are
going to put on your resume later.
So, what is credit or debt? In its most elementary sense it is the promise of a payment.

In order for a society to be based on credit, then, promises must mean something, or else the
system breaks down. So, according to L who is drawing on Nietzsche, the task of a community
or society HAS FIRST OF ALL BEEN making a person capable of honoring his debt. 39-40
And what does this entail? It means placing social value on memory, subjectivity, and
conscience (40) in order for him to be both accountable and guilty (49)
Why these three?
To remember debts, to make time continuous. To indebt the present to the past and to make sure
that over time, over the future, the same current power relations will hold. Debt is about
possessing the future in advance (46)
to be this individual who takes the debt: to anticipate and ward off every potential deviation in
the behabior of the debtor the future might hold (45); to make people predictable, to calculate
the risk associated with them. But more than that, privatization as an economic policy demands
that one take upon oneself the costs and risks externalized by the State and corporations (51);
L argues that it is the force of capitalism lies in its ability to link economics. And the
production of subjectivity (63)
to feel guilty about not paying debts: but also, being credit-worthy, paying your debts, is itself
conceived as a moral issue. If you default, if you dont pay, youre thought of as deceitful, as a
liar, as irresponsible, as lazy, etc. But also in making offers of credit, your entire life can come
under scrutiny, with the creditor determining your moral worth through your avlity to repay:
Credit entails the creditors moral judgment of the debtor, that is, a subjective measure of
value. But not only are the skills and know-how of the worker evaluation, so too are the poor
mans actions in society that is, his lifestyle, his social behavior, his values, his very
existence (57)
If the debtor creditor relation is at the basis of society, then we have to recognize that there is a
fundamental asymmetry of power (43) that comes along with it. It is not the debtor who holds
the power, but the creditor, and if, Nietzsche and L are right, if you are as convinced right now as
you seemed to be last class that debt rules your life, that the decisions you make are structured by
debt, that the decisions everyone makes are structured by debt, then what lies at the basis of
society is a division of those with power and those without, those who are creditors and those
who are debtors. We are not all born equal or free, society is not structured on consent of the
governed or democratic principles, but rather it is structured on the uneven relationship of debt
and credit.
If more proof of this state of affairs were needed, one need only look at how neoliberalism has
imposed itself. Surely not by contract or agreement, but by theft, violence and usurpation (44)