Debt as Power

Reviews / Votes

This is economic anthropology at its best - relevant, sophisticated, and readable. The authors brilliantly show how debt has been the essential glue that holds the world economic system together, an instrument that spreads untold misery and modern forms of slavery, to the continuing benefit of creditors. A powerful anthropological answer to Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century," Debt as Power is a clear-eyed and thoroughly original dissection of capitalism, an essential guide to understanding how today's world works. This is an important book, a comprehensive and sensible guide to our economic future. Richard Wilks, Distinguished Professor, Indiana University, USA This book is a crucial introduction to the phenomenon of debt, and should be part of a standard issue survival kit for young people around the world. Those of us already in debt may also yet benefit from its insights. Debt, argue Di Muzio and Robbins, is more than an economic and social debacle: it is a technique of government for disciplining and managing people and the environment. At the same time, however, the individuation of the power to make money, by taking on debt, increasingly puts the world economy in the hands of everyday people. The realization of this power, Di Muzio and Robbins conclude, could be the key to a more equitable and ecologically sane future. Forget Foucault? I think not! James Igoe, Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, USA Meticulously researched and clearly exposited, Debt as Power makes a most convincing case that modern capitalism must be explained as political economy. An indispensible companion to understanding contemporary world affairs. Martin Weber, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Queensland, Australia