Article published for the first time at Phàsis. European journal of philosophy

by Marios Emmanouilidis

(The Folding of the Indebted Subjectivity. Outline of a Derivative Govermentality of Debt)

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In the present paper¹ we embark on an effort to discuss the relation between the temporal modality of financialization and the production of an indebted subjectivity. Capitalism with derivatives² introduces a different temporal modality, it constitutes a different regime of historicity which is related to a different –special- process of indebted subjectivation. We embark on an effort to research some basic lines of the ways in which the financial practices, and the growing reliance on financial systems of calculation in all facets of social and personal life, are changing the relations between credit, debt and subjectivity. The plasticity, fluidity, horizontality of the modern “surplus’ subject according to the imperatives of neoliberalism (a victory of the spirit of May ‘68³), at first glance have nothing to do with the anchored, obedient indebted subject. The flexibility of the subjects, and the possibility of undertaking diversified tactics, constitutes a complicated procedure of freedom and submission. This is a tense cohabitation of two contradictory/ conflicting processes of subjectivation: Συνέχεια →