Less attention has been paid to how the expansion of household debt has been changing workers’ position in the workplace. Situated at the intersection of political economy and labour studies, Giorgos Gouzoulis’ Debt and the Future of Workers: Financialisation as Exploitation in the 21st Century takes up this question by arguing that personal debt has become a key mechanism of labour discipline . Instead of mortgage, student, and medical debt simply reflecting stagnant wages and insecurity, Gouzoulis argues that they actively reinforce them by making workers more dependent on continued employment. With more to pay, they have more to lose, and are less willing to risk strikes, union activity, or confrontation with employers. Gouzoulis offers a distinctive way of thinking about exploitation in the 21 st century. Capital’s power over workers does not end at the factory gate or office door, but extends into the household through debt.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51