Tim Di Muzio is Senior This is economic anthropology at its best relevant, sophisticated, and

Lecturer in the School of readable. The authors brilliantly show how debt has been the essential
Law, Humanities and the glue that holds the world economic system together, an instrument that spreads
Arts at the University of untold misery and modern forms of slavery, to the continuing benefit of creditors.
Wollongong, Australia A powerful anthropological answer to Pikettys Capital in the Twenty-First
Century, Debt as Power is a clear-eyed and thoroughly original dissection of

debt as power
Richard H. Robbins capitalism, an essential guide to understanding how todays world works
is Distinguished Teaching Richard Wilk, Distinguished Professor, Indiana University, USA
Professor in Anthropology
This book is a crucial introduction to the phenomenon of debt, and should be
at Plattsburg State
part of a standard issue survival kit for young people around the world. Those
University of New York,
of us already in debt may also yet benefit from its insights. Debt, argue Di Muzio tim di muzio and
USA
and Robbins, is more than an economic and social debacle: it is a technique of richard H. robbins
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 could be the key to a more equitable and
ecologically sane future.
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 indispensable companion to understanding contemporary
world affairs.
Martin Weber, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of
debt as
tim di muzio and richard H. robbins
Queensland, Australia

Debt as Power is a timely and innovative contribution to our understanding

of one of the most prescient issues of our time: the explosion of debt across
the global economy and the related requirement of political leaders to pursue
exponential growth to meet the demands of creditors and investors.

The book is distinctive in offering a historically sensitive and comprehensive

analysis of debt as an interconnected and global phenomenon. Rather
power
than focusing on the historical emergence of debt as a moral obligation,
the authors argue that debt under capitalism can be conceived of as a technology
of power, intimately tied up with the requirement for perpetual growth and the
differential capitalization that benefits the 1%.

Since debt under capitalism is increasingly ubiquitous at all levels of

society, and economic growth is now the sole mantra of dominant political
parties around the world, the authors argue that tracing the evolution and
transformation of debt as a technology of power is crucial for understanding
the destruction of our ecosystem, the continued growth of inequality, and the
increased centralization of political power. They outline a series of proposals to
address these issues, beginning with the establishment of a Party of the 99%
and a strategy to counter the power of capital by the selective withholding of
debt payments.

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
 Debt as Power

9781472584861.indd 1 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 THEORY FOR GLOBAL AGE
Series Editor: Gurminder K. Bhambra

Globalization is widely viewed as a current condition of the world, but there is little
engagement with how this changes the way we understand it. The Theory for a Global
Age series addresses the impact of globalization on the social sciences and humanities.
Each title will focus on a particular theoretical issue or topic of empirical controversy
and debate, addressing theory in a more global and interconnected manner. With
contributions from scholars across the globe, the series will explore different perspectives
to examine globalization from a global viewpoint. True to its global character, the Theory
for a Global Age series will be available for online access worldwide via Creative Commons
licensing, aiming to stimulate wide debate within academia and beyond.

Also in the series: Forthcoming titles:

Connected Sociologies Subjects of Modernity
Gurminder K. Bhambra Saurabh Dube

Eurafrica: The Untold History of John Dewey: The Global Public

EuropeanIntegration and Colonialism andItsProblems
Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson John Narayan

On Sovereignty and Other

PoliticalDelusions
Joan Cocks

Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and

Cultural Production in the Global South
Edited by Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz

The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial

Strugglesand Oceanic Connections
Robbie Shilliam

Democracy and Revolutionary Politics

Neera Chandhoke

9781472584861.indd 2 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 Debt as Power

Tim Di Muzio and Richard H. Robbins

Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

L ON DON N E W DE L H I N E W Y OR K SY DN EY

9781472584861.indd 3 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury

Publishing Plc

First published 2015

Richard H. Robbins and Tim Di Muzio, 2015

This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution

Non-commercial No Derivatives Licence. You may share this work
for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to
the copyright holder and the publisher. For permission to publish
commercial versions, please contact Bloomsbury Academic.

Richard H. Robbins and Tim Di Muzio have asserted their right under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as
Authors of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting

on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-8485-4

PB: 978-1-4725-8486-1
ePDF: 978-1-4725-8488-5
ePub: 978-1-4725-8487-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Series: Theory for a Global Age

Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

Printed and bound in India

9781472584861.indd 4 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 For Vernica

9781472584861.indd 5 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 The Debt

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (18721906)

This is the debt I pay

Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end

Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,

Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best
God! but the interest!

9781472584861.indd 6 22/04/15 4:37 PM

 Contents

Series Editors Foreword viii

1 Toward a Stark Utopia 1

2 Origins: War, National Debt, and the Capitalized State 23
3 Intensification: War, Debt, and Colonial Power 47
4 Consequences: The DebtGrowthInequality Nexus 87
5 Solutions: A Party of the 99% and the Power of Debt 125

Appendix A 143
Appendix B 145
Notes 148
Bibliography 159
Index186

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 Series Editors Foreword

Debt is a seemingly universal and constant aspect of human

experience and history. However, the social practices and economic
structures that are involved need to be understood through the
global interconnections that give form to its historical instantiations
as well as its contemporary manifestations. This is the compelling
claim of Tim Di Muzio and Richard H. Robbins book Debt as
Power and, as such, fits perfectly into the Theory for a Global Age
series that seeks to take global interconnections as the basis from
which to rethink both conceptual frameworks and commonly held
understandings.
In Debt as Power, Di Muzio and Robbins present a historical
account of the modern origins of capitalist debt by looking at how
commercial money is produced as debt in the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries. They expertly demonstrate their key
contentionthat debt is a technology of powerand identify the
ways in which the control, production, and distribution of money,
as interest-bearing debt, are used to discipline populations. Their
sharp analysis brings together histories of the development of the
Bank of England and the establishment of permanent national debt
with the intensification and expansion of debt, as a technology of
power, under colonialism in a global context. The latter part of the
book addresses the consequences of modern regimes of debt and puts
forward proposals of what needs to be done, politically, to reverse
the problems generated by debt-based economies. The final chapter
presents a convincing case for the 99% to use the power of debt to
challenge present inequalities and outlines a platform for action
suggesting possible alternatives.
This ambitious book is both a diagnosis of our current social and
economic global condition structured by the debtcredit nexus and
a clarion call to action. Action is necessary if we are to overturn the

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 Series Editors Foreword ix

manifold miseries associated with debt and bring about a more equal
distribution, not only of wealth, but also of societal well-being. It
is possible, as Di Muzio and Robbins forcefully argue, that the very
survival of humanity depends on it.
Gurminder K Bhambra

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