Bonds of Debt

The credit crisis has pushed the whole world so far into the red that the gigantic sums involved defy understanding. On a human level, what does such an enormous degree of debt and insolvency mean? In this timely book, cultural critic Richard Dienst considers the financial crisis, global poverty, media politics and radical theory to parse the various implications of a world where man is born free but everywhere is in debt.

Written with humor and verve, Bonds of Debt ranges across subjects--such as Obama's national security strategy, the architecture of Prada stores, press photos of Bono, and a fairy tale told by Karl Marx--to capture a modern condition founded on fiscal imprudence. Moving beyond the dominant pieties and widespread anxieties surrounding the topic, Dienst re-conceives the world's massive financial obligations as a social, economic, and political bond, where the crushing weight of objectified wealth comes face to face with new demands for equality and solidarity. For this inspired analysis, we are indebted to him.

I spend my life studying the financial markets and I often wonder what it all ‘means.' Dienst takes up that question in a thoroughly admirable way in this book. And as a bonus, it also includes a wonderful takedown of the odious Bono. --Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY

Dienst throws new light on what it means for humanity to be tied up in the golden skeins of debt: we're only now realizing what a huge change to human life, psychology and the fabric of everyday experience is involved in the creation of a financialized economy. --Doug Henwood

Richard Dienst’s most radical proposition in this wonderfully clear and provocative little book is that we are burdened not by too much debt but by too little. Yes, we must discover ways to refuse and escape the regime of debt to the figures of power and institutions that rule over us, but we must also, and perhaps more importantly, recognize indebtedness as a basic human condition and create social ties that at once bind us to each other and free us. The combination of these two tasks is an exciting, even revolutionary, project. --Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth

[An] astute portrait of the recession ... on one rich canvas.I spend my life studying the financial markets and I often wonder what it all ‘means.’ Dienst takes up that question in a thoroughly admirable way in this book. And as a bonus, it also includes a wonderful takedown of the odious Bono. --Doug Henwood

The most original thing about Dienst's reading of debt, a reading that is very close to the truth, is that it locates it at the very center of human sociality.Dienst throws new light on what it means for humanity to be tied up in the golden skeins of debt: we’re only now realizing what a huge change to human life, psychology and the fabric of everyday experience is involved in the creation of a financialized economy. --Paul Mason, author of Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed

"Man is born free and is everywhere in debt," declared the Economist in the summer of 2010, a cheeky admission that indebtedness and liberation are once again on the agenda across the globe. In this timely book, cultural critic Richard Dienst examines the current condition of indebtedness from a variety of angles, ranging from the financial crisis and global poverty to media politics and radical theory. Written in an engaging and forceful style, the book draws upon a surprising array of materials, including Obama's national security strategy, the architecture of Prada stores, press photos of Bono, and a fairy tale told by Karl Marx.

Moving beyond the dominant pieties and widespread anxieties surrounding the topic, Dienst reconceives indebtedness as a social, economic, and political bond, where the crushing weight of objectified wealth comes face to face with new demands for equality and solidarity.

Indebtedness as the universal condition of modern life.

Richard Dienst is the author of Still Life in Real Time: Theory after Television and The Bonds of Debt, and a co-editor of Reading the Shape of the World. He teaches in the Department of English at Rutgers University.