Alien Mediations

7/25/2019 Alien Mediations

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Alien Mediations: Critical Remarks on The Making of the Indebted Man

Alberto Toscano

http://thenewreader.org/Issues/1/AlienMediations

Those rooting around for a bleak allegory for our subprie present could do worsethan the dystopian deni!ens of e"urban spaces in #.$. %eter&s no'el (oir) the*ttingly naed indeadted. Arti*cially kept ali'e until they repay outstanding debts)they stalk the landscape of coodity refuse) sca'enging) sal'aging) recycling tosha'e o+ in*nitesial portions of their liabilities) li'ing,dead labour bothunproducti'e and pro*table. Telescoping hi,tech *nancial e"propriation and the lo,tech labour in the breakers yards of global capital) the indeadted ebody a oentin which sub-ection to capitalist iperati'es subsues life to the point that ittrespasses into death) a hyperbolic echo of the uotidian horror of phenoena likedead peasant insurance&) whose bene*ts are reaped by corporations with the

deise of their unwitting eployees.1

It is iportant to keep this thanato,political& facet of debt in ind 0 and its originsin the coodi*cation and insurance of ensla'ed) racialised bodies 0 inconsidering a palpable shift in the sensus counis of uch anti,capitalist theory.

Though soe ay wish stubbornly to hold fast to the notion that only anacceleration of the dynaics of desiring,production will unhinge capital&ssupreacy) the 'italist 'ision underlying uch theorising in the 1223s and 333ssees to ha'e been eroded) along with capitalist enthusias) by protractedrecession.4 I think it is telling) in this respect) that 5a!!arato&s inter'ention The

Making of the Indebted Man 0 in y 'iew) his ost trenchant and tiely politicalpiece to date 0 draws uch of its force fro sidelining a large portion of theconceptual and rhetorical arsenal that he shared with other iproperly naedpost,workerist& thinkers. The thesis of cogniti'e capitalis regarding thee"propriated producti'ity of knowledge and cooperati'e intelligence is gi'en shortthrift67 iaterial labour is only parenthetically alluded to) and disissed68 desire&and belief&) the ob-ect of 5a!!arato&s rich reco'ery of Tarde) no longer appear asolecular forces or 9ows) but are inde"ed to a relati'ely classical) intentional darewe say) huanist; sub-ect6


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credit as a echanis for onetising orality6 not the (iet!sche of forces andtrans'aluations) but the narrator of debt&s 'iolent incision into that anial bred toake proises&) an6 *nally) not the >eleu!e,?uattari of desire and absolutedeterritorialisation) rather the theorists of anti,production& and of the philosophicalchallenges posed by the rise of credit,oney in the crises of the 123s. This

reorientation is a real boon to those hankering for a philosophy B hauteur duCapital) as @adiou put it in his *rst Manifesto. It is also a stiulus to those for whophilosophy and the critiue of political econoy are) fro the standpoint of anti,capitalist politics) indi'isible. This is particularly true if we wish to build on5a!!arato&s copelling presentation of les deu" Mar") that of the 1D77 notes on

%aes Mill&s political econoy and that of the un*nished third 'olue of Capital6 inother words) integrating the young Mar" who disco'ers) because of his huanis&)the onetised biopolitics& of debt) with the later theorist of credit understood as akey factor in aking capital into a totality) as well as a pi'otal diension of thecapitalist state.

In what follows) I want brie9y to e"plore soe of the conceptual andethodological probles attendant on this reorientation. This will ean ignoringaltogether 5a!!arato&s history and phenoenology of the debt,econoy. Inasuchas the no'elty of The Making of the Indebted Man lies in proposing a politicalphilosophy of debt worthy of our defaulting present) I think this is warranted.Parenthetically) I would also argue that the sociologically& original diensions of thebook 0 naely the account of the echaniss whereby precarious& cultural,sectorworkers are disciplined and onitored into debt through the institutional utationsof welfare into workfare) and through the centrality of the social& 0 are uch orespeci*c to


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the opposition to the notion that capitalis fors a structure or syste6 the pi'otal)e"planatory role of class struggle6 the need to transcend the state as a politicalarena6 and lastly) perhaps crucially) the ad'ocacy of a non,econoic theory of theeconoy) or a general theory of production that would cut across the econoic) thepolitical) the social) the psychic) and so forth. 5et us consider these positions in turn.

The *rst) (iet!schean) hypothesis) is one that) understandably) *nds an apleaudience today) as the unra'elling of credit&s aHuence,e+ect brings to the forephenoena that initially appear ata'istic 0 the return of debtors& prisons) sayD 0 butwhich soon ake us suspect that certain in'ariant) or at least recurrent) fors ofdoination are at work. The success of >a'id ?raeber&s epochal panoraa) >ebt:

The


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Money) which elsewhere in the te"t Mar" calls the alien ediator&) has not beentranscended in an within the credit syste) but an is hiself transfored intooney) or) in other words) oney is incarnate in hi. Kuan indi'iduality) huanorality) ha'e becoe articles of coerce and the aterial which oneyinhabits. The substance) the body clothing the spirit of oney is not oney) paper)

but instead is y personal e"istence) y 9esh and blood) y social worth andstatus&.11 Today) there&s alost no need to gloss these lines) though 5a!!aratopro'ides a powerful account of the crucial conteporary role played by agencies ofassessent and e'aluation) with their insidious oral discourses) across the wholegaut fro credit agencies to workfare institutions. @ut they do bring hoe) in away that is only further corroborated by attention to the 'icissitudes of the debt,econoy) that the conteporary 'iolence of the creditor,debtor ne"us) as ane"tension and 'ariant of the capital,labour relation) is not only the asyetrical'iolence of (iet!schean doination but represents the 'iolence of abstraction) the'iolence of eui'alence. $ithout the legal) *nancial) atheatical; echaniss ofcoensuration and coodi*cation that ake debts di'isible into tranches) andallow their circulation through the *nancial syste to be indi+erently reote froits social and e"istential referents) the subprie ortgage crisis) for instance) wouldreain incoprehensible.

The e"tree abstraction of the originate and distribute odel1 has to be thoughttogether with the predatory racialised logic of re'erse redlining)14 for instance) inorder to begin to ap the ulti,diensionality of the crisis) which is both atheoretical and a political iperati'e.17 To treat the asyetry as prior toeui'alence akes the speci*city of capitalist 'iolence) and of our political,econoic oent) unintelligible. To propose that credit is our socio,econoic

archetype&)18 rather than e"change) is to obscure how relations of obligation arespeci*cally shaped by onetisation. Eiewed through the wide,angle lens ofanthropology) debt ay be such an archetype of social relations 0 but the currentuestion is how is it orphed by onetisation and abstraction. In this regard) I thinkit is isguided to seek the di+erentials of power in debt) rather than in uneuale"change and surplus 'alue as speci*cally capitalist) if con-uncturally utable)echaniss. Though transhistorical inuiries into debt are fecund with insights) tounderstand debt&s conteporary con*guration we ust think of it as an ingredientof capitalist logics which are siultaneously eui'alential and e"ploitati'e)operating) as (eil Gith showed in Lne'en >e'elopent) through a production ofsaeness and di+erence. In this conte"t) the function of oney is paraount6 but

we can&t think of oney siply as oney,debt created e" nihilo) otherwise theproduction of 'alue becoes unthinkable.

F'errating the Gub-ect


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Giilar uestions can be asked of the second hypothesis 0 soe of which) in thisinstance) are answered) or at least helpfully probleatised) by 5a!!arato hiself. Inspite of his cautions about the


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aOration) in conteporary debt,phenoena here) $alter @en-ain&s fragent oncapitalis as religion could ha'e pro'ed inspiring;.

A (on,conoistic Theory of the conoyQ

I think the blind spots in these two guiding hypotheses also account for what isuncon'incing about the au"iliary theores. Thus) it is only if we accept the idea thatthere ust be a doinant paradig of sub-ecti'ity that we are led to think) alongwith 5a!!arato) that the crisis or crises; that began in 33 in'ol'es a failure of theneoliberal pro-ect. As Philip Mirowski has shown) neoliberalis 0 which cannot bereduced to its hold o'er hearts and inds) though this hardly shows signs of

collapse either 0 has weathered through the crisis rearkably well) fro itse'eryday fors to its hegeony o'er econoic theory) thus re'ealing the delusionsand strategic iscalculations behind countless leftist declarations of its deise.1D

Though 5a!!arato appears to recognise the intensi*cation of the debt, econoy incrisis conditions) his philosophical o'erdeterination of neoliberalis) euating itore or less with a paradig of sub-ecti'ity) underines the analysis.

Giilarly) though he is coendably thorough in docuenting the role of the statein iposing the regie of debt) in particular through the hollowing out andrefunctioning of welfare and the social into echaniss of sub-ection) and adaant

that the notion of neoliberalis as a triuph of arkets is a sokescreen)5a!!arato&s attachent to the thesis 0 shared with Kardt and (egri 0 of the nation,state&s deise leads to a self,defeating contention that struggles against capital&sdoination as debt ust essentially bypass the state. In spite of 5a!!arato&s correctestiation that no new (ew >eals are on the hori!on) that reforis as we knew itis sterile) and his abiding suspicions about fantasies of econoic autarky) it reainse'ident that conteporary struggles about debt are struggles in and against thestate at a 'ariety of le'els) fro local authorities to central banks;. It is self,defeating to iagine that we get to choose the terrain of our struggles6 thecon-uncture of so'ereign debt crises) austerity) workfare and the refunctioning ofthe social& as an instruent of discipline and dispossession eans that the state is

indeed a crucial coponent of that terrain 0 which need not iply any nostalgia forthe post,war boo and its social copact.

Concerning struggles) though 5a!!arato&s ephasis on class con9ict in the debt,econoy is 'ital) it runs the risk of perpetuating the ultiately optiistic politicaletaphysics and philosophy of history dri'ing uch of Rpost,workeris&: thepostulating of positi'e collecti'e powers or energies which are not only poised on


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the edge of liberation) or already ebody it) but ha'e been brought closer tocounis by the obsolescence of pre'ious *gures or paradigs of class struggleeleu!e and ?uattari&s Anti,Fedipus) @audrillard&s


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essays The Mirror of Production& and Mar"is and the Gyste of Political conoy&in the -ournal of radical urbanis and architecture Ltopies) later collected in thebook The Mirror of Production;) and %ean,


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5ogic of Gla'ery: >ebt) Technology and Pain in Aerican 5iterature) Cabridge)Cabridge Lni'ersity Press) 31. U

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oing the Math: Xe9ections on the AllegedFbsolescence of the 5aw of Ealue Lnder Post,


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Kardt and (egri&s Theory of Iaterial 5abour&) Kistorical Materialis) 18;) 33)1,8. U

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#arl Mar") "cerpts fro %aes Mill&s leents of Political conoy&) arly $ritings)trans. X. 5i'ingstone and ?. @enton) 5ondon) Penguin) 122) =7. U

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Y@Zeginning in the 12D3s) and e'en ore so in the 1223s) banks shifted to anoriginate and distributeN) or F[>) odel. $ith F[>) banks issue loans and thenpool the together for sale) 'ia the now,notorious securitisation process. Y\Z Theresulting securities o+ered lots of opportunities for high returns) oney cae froall o'er the world to purchase the) and securitisation e"panded accordingly&. ?eo+

Mann) >isassebly Xeuired: A enise


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Ibid.) 4D. U

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Ibid.) 17=. U

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Philip Mirowski) (e'er 5et a ?ood Crisis ?o to $aste: Kow (eoliberalis Gur'i'edthe isassebly Xeuired) which also contains an illuinating encapsulation

of the capitalist logic of the subprie crisis. U

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Ibid.) 13. U

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Pro'ing how ipossible it is to hold to this tenet while e"plaining the crisis)5a!!arato elsewhere rightly; contends that Capitalis is not only a syste that

continuously e"pands its liits) it is also an apparatus that in*nitely reproduces)independently of the le'el of wealth achie'ed) conditions of e"ploitation anddoination) that is) conditions of lackN&. 187; U

The Making of the Indebted Man) 7 and . U

Alien Mediations

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