Huang Zhijun: A Study of Debt and Human Modes of Existence from the Perspective of the Critique of Political Economy
What is debt? Debt arises when a creditor transfers their own property (including funds, bonds, etc.) to another person. Debt and credit are intimately linked. In the relationship between creditor and debtor, credit refers to the creditor transferring a certain social power belonging to themselves to the debtor, endowing the latter with the actual power to command others. Debt, meanwhile, refers to the consequences arising from the debtor’s inability to settle the account when the creditor seeks to reclaim the social power they once transferred. Furthermore, debt is a product of the social intercourse that occurs in people’s material production and life; it characterizes a specific form of social relations. As Marx said: "the existence of men is their actual life-process." [1] Once debt occurs, it exerts various influences on people's actual lives and has a substantive impact on the human mode of existence. In this regard, David Graeber's identification of "human relations defined by debt" (Graeber, p. 6) is no empty statement. If the understanding of debt is limited to the above scope, then the grasp of the relationship between debt and the human mode of existence ought to be sought within the critique of political economy. This is because viewing debt solely from the moral sphere directs all attention toward the moral scrutiny of the creditor and debtor, while ignoring the actual power that debt possesses as a specific form of objective social relations in human development. In economics, meanwhile, the understanding of debt often lacks a critical dimension, treating debt merely as a concept in the sense of accounting or lending and failing to see its practical effects on human existence. This article will show through analysis that, from the perspective of the critique of political economy, the impact of debt on the human mode of existence is primarily manifested in its influence on man’s moral and economic existence, as well as on the perceived texture of human existence [2]. Thus, we can transform the previous purely moral critiques or purely economic understandings of debt, grasping it through a perspective that is more pragmatic and closer to the perception of the actual life-process.
I. Debt and the Moral Existence of Man
In discussions regarding primordial debt, one theory holds that debt, as the essence of society, is expressed through religion; its gist lies in viewing the debt relationship as the secular foundation of human morality. Hindu texts, such as the Vedas and Brahmanas, contain hymns, prayers, and poems reflecting the nature of debt. In these records, debt is regarded as a synonym for sin. Religious prayers manifest the desire of people to be liberated from the shackles of debt. Some commentators even believe that human existence itself is a form of debt. Correspondingly, some scholars have pointed out that in all Indo-European languages, debt is synonymous with original sin and guilt; for instance, in German, Schuld carries the meaning of both culpability and debt. These terms indicate an internal connection between religion, repayment, and sacred/profane money, which can be indirectly confirmed through linguistic evidence: words like money (German Geld), compensation or sacrifice (Old English Geild), tax (Gothic Gild), and guilt share interconnected roots. (For related discussion, see the study on "primordial debt" in Chapter 3 of Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years.) It is evident that this interpretation of primordial debt is not fabricated; it demonstrates the internal logic between debt and man's moral existence—that is, debt, as a manifestation of social relations, defines the moral mode of human existence.
Nietzsche explained this even more incisively, arguing that within the conceptual world of morality, categories such as "guilt" (Schuld), "conscience," "duty," and the "sacredness of duty" originated in the domain of the law of obligations (debt-law). "In order to inspire confidence in his promise to repay, in order to give a guarantee of the seriousness and sanctity of his promise, in order to drum into his conscience the repayment as a duty and obligation, the debtor—by virtue of a contract—pledges to the creditor something that he still 'possesses,' something over which he still has control, as a security against non-payment..." (Nietzsche, p. 65). Here, Nietzsche infers the moral situation of the debtor before the creditor based on conjecture: the degree to which they fulfill their promise to repay the debt determines the degree to which they bear duty and responsibility. If the promise to repay cannot be fulfilled, then the debtor’s body, woman, freedom, life, and even soul shall serve as collateral to guarantee the realization of this promise. From this, Nietzsche draws a basic conclusion on the relationship between debt and man's moral existence: the origin of feelings of guilt and personal obligation lies in the oldest and most primordial personal relationships—namely, in the relationship between buyer and seller, creditor and debtor. In this relationship, people measure themselves by setting prices, estimating value, conceiving equivalents, and exchanging. Based on the principle that "everything has its price; everything can be paid for" (Nietzsche, p. 74), the oldest and most naive moral law of justice is revealed: that between those of roughly equal power, there can be mutual compensation, while those of lesser power are forced to make a "goodwill gesture" of repayment before them.
Clearly, Nietzsche's inference that morality originates from debt is merely a theoretical hypothesis. Even if some anthropological evidence proves that certain details indeed existed, we find it difficult to fully agree with Nietzsche’s conjectures on debt based on an egoistic theory of human nature. Because Nietzsche assumes that people in social relations are all rational calculating machines—beings capable of estimating their own value and using it to estimate the value of others—he inevitably concludes that debt is the essence of society and the origin of its morality. However, as Graeber states, this assumption of Nietzsche’s is mad, for his inference "is performed under the boundary conditions of bourgeois thought and does not involve anything existing outside of those boundary conditions" (Graeber, p. 86). The implication here is that Nietzsche’s inference is an extreme conclusion derived from the assumptions of bourgeois human nature. In fact, based on anthropological experience, not everyone would agree that man becomes man because he possesses the capacity for economic calculation. On one hand, throughout the long course of human history, primordial communities that rejected calculation and operated on egalitarian principles did not define human nature in this way; on the other hand, the so-called egoistic view of human nature is itself a product of the development of human society. Therefore, although Nietzsche provided a profound analysis of the relationship between debt and morality in modern bourgeois society from a critical perspective, we must be wary of his attempt to extend this to the entirety of human history. In other words, he had actually touched upon a critical grasp of the foundation of human morality.
Marx and Nietzsche share considerable consistency in viewing debt and man’s moral existence, in that both examine debt in connection with the moral alienation of man, and subsequently level a ruthless critique against the moral state of bourgeois society. However, unlike Nietzsche, Marx stands on the horizon of the critique of political economy, relying on credit as a modern economic element to profoundly elucidate the relationship between debt and man's moral existence within the logic of alienated intercourse (Verkehr). In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx points out: "Credit is the economic judgment on the morality of a man" (Marx, p. 169). This judgment indicates at the very least that man's moral existence is not itself a metaphysical existence; in modern society, it takes the credit relationship between the rich and the poor as its yardstick. In this way, Marx rejects Nietzsche's metaphysical assumptions about human nature and accurately sets the range of discussion within modern bourgeois social relations. Marx points out that the rich man's loan to the poor man is guaranteed by the poor man's industry and credit; the poor man's life itself, his laboring talents, and his diligent efforts are all guarantees for his repayment. "All the social virtues of the poor man, the whole content of his life-activity, his existence itself, represent for the rich man the guarantee of the repayment of his capital with the usual interest" (Marx, p. 168). Here, man's moral existence becomes both a medium for the debtor's promise of repayment to the creditor and a prerequisite element for the creditor to lend to the debtor. Of course, in the other case—lending between the rich—such guarantees do not exist, because the content of credit is money itself; it is merely a medium of exchange, existing as a purely conceptual form.
Furthermore, Marx believes that in the credit industry, the relationship between creditor and debtor is not, as the Saint-Simonians [3] argued, a sublation (Aufheben) of the alienation of human relations—a gradual sublation of the separation of man from object, capital from labor, private property from money, and money from man. On the contrary, he believes this credit relationship is an even more base and extreme self-alienation, because the so-called content of credit has become man's moral existence, social existence, and inner life. Man's moral existence becomes the medium of economic intercourse, characterizing a state of dehumanization and complete alienation. As he pointed out with piercing insight: "In the credit relationship, it is not money that is abolished in man, but man himself who is turned into money, or money and man become identical. The human individuality itself, human morality itself, has become both an article of commerce and the material in which money exists. Instead of money, paper, it is my own personal existence, my flesh and blood, my social virtue and reputation, which constitute the material, the body of the spirit of money" (ibid, p. 169). Consequently, in moral practice, those who cannot obtain credit will be seen as people unworthy of recognition—as the pariahs and "bad people" of society. That is to say, whether a person can obtain moral recognition is manifested entirely externally in the form of credit. This fully demonstrates the fundamental relationship between the modern credit industry and man's moral existence. Here, moral recognition is rooted in immoral behavior; it is the immoral behavior of morality. In Marx's view, this is the hypocrisy, egoism, and cant hidden within modern debt relations.
Undoubtedly, the Marx of 1844, standing at the height of the critique of political economy and based on modern economic elements such as money, credit, and banking, achieved a grasp of the social essence of debt that differed from previous ones, more profoundly revealing the alienating effect of debt on man's moral existence. However, we cannot therefore deny that the Marx of that time criticized the moral existence of man in debt relations from a humanitarian theoretical standpoint. As the credit and banking industries gradually come to occupy a dominant position in the operation of the modern economy, how to further examine the moral existence of man within debt relations is a more pressing issue. From an economic perspective, the essence of debt is credit, which is the inevitable result and manifestation of capital's pursuit of profit. It would be unrealistic to imagine criticizing the moral scrutiny of man by credit relations by returning to the original direct relations between people. On one hand, this does not align with the debtors' diverse needs for borrowing and would, to some extent, hinder economic development; therefore, it is imperative to construct moral elements that match a modern credit economy, such as honesty. This, in turn, promotes the self-reproduction of the moral existence of modern man, incorporating honesty as an internal link in moral construction, thereby showing the positive role of debt relations on man's moral existence rather than viewing it merely as a manifestation of self-alienation. On the other hand, this also fails to align with the creditors' claims to their own legitimate rights and interests. In modern economic activities, the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of creditors is an important component of modern private property rights; thus, it is biased and untimely to view the moral scrutiny of creditors toward debtors solely from the perspective of the debtor. In fact, we are now more concerned with the moral behavior of creditors when collecting repayments—for instance, pressuring debtors through malicious harassment, improper collection practices, SMS threats, or the leaking of personal information. At the same time, this indicates the necessity and importance of improving and perfecting the social credit system [4] for the moral reconstruction of creditors and debtors, rather than merely limiting oneself to a purely moral critique within the logic of alienation.
It is reasonable to create a set of moral norms based on honesty according to the requirements of modern economic development. For example, the establishment of a modern personal bankruptcy system is based on the debtor's...
The concept of "honest but unfortunate" serves as the benchmark. That is to say, not all debtors can use a bankruptcy filing as a shield to escape their corresponding responsibilities when they are unable to repay. The modern individual bankruptcy system requires the verification of the debtor's moral honesty, using the economic misfortune that exceeds their capacity as a boundary, to provide a practical path of relief for those trapped in debt distress, lest they fall into an irrecoverable debt black hole. It is foreseeable that this will place higher demands on the debtor’s moral convictions and practices, such as honesty. In fact, the determination of being "honest but unfortunate" is not a subjective presumption but follows strict procedures. For instance, the court will only rule to grant a discharge and identify the debtor as "honest but unfortunate" after the debtor declares assets, creditors declare claims, administrators investigate and verify, the creditors' meeting deliberates, and repayment is made according to a reorganization plan or settlement agreement—or after an observation period for discharge and social supervision. Conversely, if a debtor applies for bankruptcy through improper means such as transferring assets, maliciously evading debts, damaging the reputation of others, making false statements, or providing false evidence, these acts will be regarded as dishonest and immoral behaviors unworthy of legal protection. Viewed from this perspective, the moral existence of the debtor itself has significant practical implications for the resolution of debt issues.
II. Debt and the Economic Existence of Human Beings
In the past, debt understood within the horizon of moral critique pointed more toward a condition of forced indebtedness, where handling marriage and funeral arrangements were major reasons for people falling into debt traps. Additionally, poverty caused by accidental events such as major illnesses or natural disasters would also lead to the occurrence of debt. Consequently, the debtor often appeared as a figure of suffering and was treated as an object of sympathy. Strictly speaking, in a debt relationship, failing to repay a debt as agreed is considered immoral. However, under modern economic conditions, debt exhibits diverse characteristics; it is closely linked to the economic existence of human beings and more profoundly manifests the mode of existence of modern people defined by debt. Regarding the purpose of debt, besides part of it being for subsistence, there is also the production of wealth and consumption; regarding the subjects of debt, besides individuals, there are households, enterprises, and states; regarding the objects of debt, the content has expanded into every aspect of life, such as mortgages, car loans, education debt, and medical debt. It can be said that modern society has already taken on the appearance of a "debt society," far exceeding debt relationships where the individual is the sole debtor. Obviously, this is determined by the economic existence of modern people—that is, by their economic life demands and business activities.
In terms of the purpose of debt, modern debt is increasingly profit-driven, and this profit-seeking nature has become a dimension of its essence. That is to say, apart from those debtors forced to borrow to get by (who are the "sufferers" in the debt relationship), more borrowers actively incur debt for the purpose of obtaining profit. In this sense, the latter may be both sufferers and beneficiaries. Marx provided a deep analysis of this debt relationship in Volume III of Capital through the concept of interest-bearing capital. He argued that for a money-owner to augment their money as interest-bearing capital, they must alienate it to a third party, throwing it into the sphere of circulation and making it function as a commodity-capital. In this way, the money in the hands of the money-owner "is capital not only for himself, but also for others; it is not only capital for the person who alienates it, but it is handed over to the third party as capital from the outset, which means as a value that possesses the use-value of creating surplus value and creating profit" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 46, p. 384). Of course, Marx grasped their debt relationship within the opposition between money-capitalists and industrial capitalists. On one hand, money-capitalists, as creditors, obtain interest; through the ceaseless movement of lending money, they continuously recover their own money while also seizing a portion of the profit. On the other hand, industrial capitalists, as debtors, exercise the use-value of the borrowed money to profit through the surplus value created by the labor power of wage workers. According to Marx’s analysis, the source of profit for both creditor and debtor actually lies in the unpaid appropriation of the profit produced by wage workers. This analysis can be extended to more debt relationships in modern business activities, demonstrating that the image of the debtor as a beneficiary exists as an objective fact.
In fact, besides debt aimed at profit-seeking in the sphere of production, debt aimed at consumption in the sphere of circulation has also served as a booster for modern economic development. As Stelter pointed out in Debt in the 21st Century, most economists underestimate the importance of debt—especially consumer debt, which plays an increasingly important economic role. "Given the stagnant incomes of the broad middle class since the 1980s, consumers no longer rely on income but on credit for consumption to maintain demand and the corresponding rate of return on capital. This situation has intensified over the past thirty years; therefore, the wealth growth we have experienced in these years would have been absolutely impossible without a corresponding expansion of debt" (Stelter, p. 78). He also noted that in Europe and America over the past thirty years (up to 2014), a growing proportion of debt did not lead to more production; consumption, speculation, and interest on borrowing new debt to repay old debt became the mainstream. To be sure, this consumer debt is also a manifestation of money-capital's pursuit of profit; however, it objectively raises the debtor's level of consumption and improves their standard of living to some extent, while simultaneously making them liable to fall into a debt crisis at any moment. Therefore, for debt aimed at consumption, if economic development is viewed in isolation from the production of wealth, it will inevitably transform into an economic crisis, thereby transferring the debt predicament onto the individuals carrying consumer loans and plunging them into a deeper state of existential alienation. Thus, "reasonable indebtedness" becomes a fundamental limit for consumer debt.
Regarding the subjects of debt, the traditional debt relationship, characterized by individuals as the primary debtors and banks as the primary creditors, has been replaced by the multiple subjects of modern economic activity. As capital increasingly occupies a dominant position in the economy and society—especially after industrial capital and bank capital merged into finance capital to lead economic development—the subjects of debt have undergone fundamental changes, giving rise to diversified types of debt, primarily in the following areas:
First, individual debt. With the promotion of credit cards and internet-based consumer finance products, the convenience of individual credit has been greatly enhanced, which has largely driven the generation of individual debt. Beyond this, the influence of consumption concepts such as "pre-consumption" [5], conspicuous consumption, and status-based consumption has also spawned individual debt problems, with the individual debt of young groups particularly deserving of attention. In the era of finance capital, this privatizing tendency of debt is an inevitable trend, using the debtor’s creditworthiness, social relations, and income as collateral, and possessing a high recovery and return rate.
Second, household debt. The debt incurred by modern households in their collective material production and life primarily manifests as spousal debt. Looking at the two main indicators for measuring household debt risk—the leverage ratio (the ratio of a country or region's household sector debt to GDP) and the debt-to-income ratio (the ratio of debt balance to household disposable income)—household debt levels in major Western developed countries began to rise rapidly in the 1980s. Since then, these levels have remained high; in 2008, the U.S. household debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 97%, and the UK's ratio even reached 106%. Following the financial crisis of that same year, household debt levels worldwide also began to increase rapidly. A prominent feature of modern household debt is the continuous enhancement of its financial investment attributes, especially mortgages, alongside consumption loans like car, medical, and education loans, and business loans for profit. Economically reasonable household debt helps enhance household economic vitality and the members' sense of gain [6], happiness, and security. Conversely, it triggers serious household economic crises, jeopardizing household stability and sustainability.
Third, corporate debt. If individual and household debts are primarily carried by the economic activities of natural persons, then corporate, sovereign, and international debts are primarily carried by the economic activities of legal persons. The primary purpose of such debt is to enhance the profitability of specific interest groups. Regarding corporate debt, Marx argued that credit between them is mediated by money existing in an ideal form, rather than needing to be mediated by human life activities or social virtues like individual credit, because the profit created by enterprises through borrowed money will be returned to money managers like banks in the form of interest. If bank interest primarily depended on corporate profit in Marx’s time, in more modern economic activities, the creation of corporate profit increasingly depends on credit from banks or other financial institutions. On one hand, to pursue short-term interests and high rates of return, real-sector enterprises are more inclined to obtain debt financing from financial institutions and then divert capital that should have been invested in physical assets into the virtual economy. This leads to the "hollowing out" of the profit-making entities of corporate debt subjects, resulting in a "crowding-out effect" where the virtual economy displaces the real economy. On the other hand, through debt financing, enterprises can mitigate operational difficulties and alleviate economic distress when facing a crisis, allowing corporate debt to exert a "reservoir effect." In this sense, moderate corporate debt aimed at industrial production has positive economic effects on business operations. Conversely, it triggers corporate economic crises, thereby jeopardizing the vital interests of employees.
Fourth, sovereign debt and international debt. Viewing modern sovereign and international debt with a more pragmatic attitude is an inherent requirement of observing modern states and international relations from the grand perspective of "history transforming into world history." Although Marx once envisioned a five-part or six-volume plan for the writing of Capital, he revised his writing plan and did not conduct in-depth research on modern world issues such as the state and international trade. This is undoubtedly a great theoretical regret for later Marxist studies of sovereign and international debt. Nonetheless, in the "Introduction" to the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 (the Grundrisse), Marx clearly expressed the view that the modern state takes wealth itself and the production of wealth as its object, so it is itself seen merely as a means for producing wealth (see Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 30, pp. 49–50). Looking at today’s sovereign debt, this judgment of Marx still provides us with enlightenment. On one hand, economically developed countries increasingly tend toward consumption-based and financialized debt, drifting further from the original intention of wealth production itself, leading to the hollowing out of the economy; the resulting financial debt crises should not be underestimated. On the other hand, the sovereign debt of mainly developing countries is concentrated in the secondary sector, such as industrial infrastructure and engineering project investments. The incurrence of these debts is a necessary measure to promote economic growth and create substantial profit, and thus possesses significant economic meaning. In the contemporary sovereign debt system, debt enters the international division of labor as a factor of production; as a result, the prototype of the international debt chain based on profit distribution emerges. That is to say, sovereign debt and international debt in the modern world market are actually organically linked. The governance of sovereign debt affects corresponding international debt governance, and conversely, the governance of international debt has practical effects on sovereign debt governance. Some argue that "international debt governance is, in fact, a very complex and difficult agenda, and cannot be measured simply by whether to provide bailouts or by moral standards" (Zhou Yuyuan, p. 36). But no matter how complex or difficult, debt issues are, in essence, economic issues; ultimately, they must be resolved by improving the productive capacity for physical wealth, not by increasing virtual financialized products. Otherwise, it will only cause the economy to fall into the illusion of self-prosperity while waiting for the bubble to burst.
In terms of the objects of debt, modern debt involves a far wider scope than that of ancient societies, where debt was primarily concentrated in marriage, funerals, or poverty resulting from major natural disasters. Today, it includes business loans, mortgages, car loans, education loans, and medical loans, among others. This is naturally caused by the diversification and refinement of the life and production needs of modern people. As mentioned above, debt in modern society has played an important role in driving both material life and productive praxis, whether for the purpose of production or consumption. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith envisioned increasing a society's land and labor products by "parsimoniously" converting income into capital. That is, through the frugality of those who manage this capital or those with idle capital, the saved surplus is invested into improving the productive capacity of useful labor and increasing its quantity. As the saying goes, "the immediate cause of the increase of capital is parsimony, and not industry" (Smith, p. 311). Here, Smith speaks of productive lending, though he reduces this lending of money to parsimony. In Marx's view, "To consider the total profit as the 'income' of the capitalist is itself an error. On the contrary, the laws of capitalist production require that a part of the surplus labor, i.e., unpaid labor performed by the worker, be converted into capital" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 33, p. 156). Furthermore, Smith rejected the consumption of the rich while affirming the consumption of groups such as laborers, manufacturers, and mechanics, provided it could further bring profit. Marx criticized Smith for regarding the workers' personal consumption as a part of productive consumption, pointing out the "inhumane" dimension of his economics.
It is well known that Smith’s economic principles have been immensely influential. However, the practice of making the production of wealth the sole objective—thereby suppressing consumption and even relying on the so-called parsimony of capitalists to increase wealth—actually limits economic development. Keynes pointed out: "The reason why the classical school of economists lauded the virtue of parsimony was due to their tacit assumption that the rate of interest was always at a level which maintained full employment" (Keynes, p. 116). That is to say, when the interest rate can be controlled at a level that maintains full employment, parsimony still has an important influence on economic development, and the rate of capital accumulation must still be increased through the restraint of consumption. However, when the opposite situation occurs, suppressing consumption will reduce the rate of capital accumulation—that is, affect the speed of wealth increase. In response, Keynes raised the question of the relationship between investment, consumption, and employment, pointing out the driving role of consumption in the economy, which became the precursor to the later "Three-Tiered Engine" [7] theory. In this framework, consumption is the "horse" and investment is the "cart." Of course, what continues here is no longer a "theory of parsimony" but a "theory of consumption." Indeed, the practical policy of achieving advanced consumption and excess consumption through credit to drive economic development continues to influence people's basic views and practices regarding debt and consumption to this day. Thus, it is evident that consumption, as an important mode of human economic existence, creates the basic operational logic of modern economic society through its combination with debt.
III. Debt and the Texture of Human Existence
Through the above discussion on the relationship between debt and man's moral and economic existence, we can further recognize the profound contemporary significance of Marx's thesis: "the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual; in its reality, it is the ensemble of social relations" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, p. 505). In terms of its profundity, this thesis clarifies that the essential attribute of being human lies in social relations. Although these relations are formed under the drive of individual subjective initiative (such as passions, desires, etc.), once formed, they become a factor of passivity that both promotes and restricts human development. As an important representation of the economic relations between people in modern society, objectively speaking, debt has produced positive practical effects on human existence, improving the quality of life to a certain extent and providing conditions for human development. However, it has also brought negative practical effects, intensifying the crisis of human existence to a certain degree, reducing the sense of happiness, and placing people in a state of tension and anxiety over debt repayment, further consolidating the gap and antagonism between the rich and the poor. People constrained by debt relations gasp for air between a destitute "today" and an overdrawn "tomorrow"; while hoping to improve survival and promote development through debt, they are simultaneously frustrated by the constraints of debt coercion and credit crises. This is the texture of existence [8] shaped by debt for modern people. This "texture of existence" refers to the psychological perception or sensitivity of modern people toward their own existence in such a contradictory manner. We will unfold this analysis from both macro and micro levels.
At the macro level, the texture of human existence is significantly and tremendously affected by economic crises. The social consequences caused by every major economic crisis in history ultimately fall upon the participants in economic activities; whether they are creditors or debtors, they are inevitably constrained by them. Regarding economic crises, Marx provided a profound analysis in Volume III of Capital, using the credit system as a medium. He argued that the necessary formation of the credit system played a mediating role in the formation of the average rate of profit, and that the entirety of capitalist production is built upon the movement of equalizing profit rates caused by the credit system. Therefore, the emergence of economic crises is inseparable from the formation and development of the credit system. As the credit system manifests as the main lever for overproduction and excessive commercial speculation, the process of capitalist reproduction will also manifest as an inherent and extreme state of tension. "Here, the maximum of credit is equal to the fullest employment of industrial capital, that is, it is equal to the reproductive capacity of industrial capital reaching its extreme tension regardless of consumption limits. These consumption limits are also expanded by the tension of the reproduction process itself: on the one hand, this tension increases the consumption of income by workers and capitalists; on the other hand, this tension is identical to the tension of productive consumption" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 46, p. 546). That is to say, overproduction brought about by the maximization of credit will break through consumption boundaries, plunging the reproduction process of industrial capital into contradiction: on the one hand, insufficient consumption leads to restrictions on capital investment for reproduction; on the other hand, the infinite expansion of credit leads to capital's unlimited pursuit of profit maximization. The result of this contradiction must further stimulate the consumption of workers and capitalists, causing the boundaries of consumption to expand further, thereby leading the economy into a vicious cycle of the reproduction process established by credit. In this sense, Marx further pointed out the inherent duality of the credit system: first, it serves as the drive of capitalist production by enriching a few through the appropriation of others' labor, which causes the credit system to "develop into the purest and most colossal system of gambling and swindling, and to reduce the number of the few who exploit social wealth" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 46, p. 500). Second, the credit system will accelerate the explosion of the inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production—that is, accelerate the breakout of economic crises—and promote the transition from the old mode of production to a new one. Therefore, Marx believed that the main promoters of credit are both swindlers and prophets!
Through the medium of the credit system, Marx gained insight into the antagonism between wealth and poverty in a society dominated by capital. On the one hand, wealth gradually accumulates in the hands of a few, leading to a situation where a minority owns the majority of wealth; on the other hand, the masses gradually become impoverished, leading to an increase in the number of people in "absolute poverty" who can only survive by selling their labor power. Clearly, this is the silent penetration and abstract rule of capital over the entire world. Unlike Marx, who grasped economic crises from the perspective of the sphere of wealth production, Thomas Piketty, in Capital in the Twenty-First Century, primarily grasps the economic crises triggered by the polarization of wealth from the perspective of wealth distribution. He argues that the rate of return on capital ($r = \text{net profit} / \text{paid-in capital} \times 100%$) is structurally higher than the rate of economic growth ($g$), leading to the self-reinforcement and continuous intensification of income and wealth polarization, which ultimately results in insufficient demand and triggers crises. Therefore, he advocates for the redistribution of wealth through "robbing the rich to help the poor" [9] to avoid economic crises and achieve economic democratization. In response, Daniel Stelter, in The Debt Debt in the 21st Century (21. Jahrhundert Schulden), points out that although Piketty's attribution of economic crises to uneven distribution of income and wealth is reasonable, his grasp of the root causes of the crisis is incomplete—specifically, he knows nothing about over-indebtedness and therefore cannot provide a theory or solution with realistic explanatory power for economic crises. On the one hand, Stelter points out that Piketty only examines net assets (the difference between total assets and liabilities) while turning a blind eye to debt itself. If there were no additional demand supported by debt, net assets would be far less than what Piketty calculated. The increase in the concentration of assets and wealth is only one side of the coin; the other side is the growth of debt. The main part of assets consists of equity and debt claims, with the latter accounting for a larger proportion. Wealth changes over the last 40 years show that "the real problem is debt in the 21st century" (Stelter, p. 11). On the other hand, unsustainable high debt and surplus wealth are important reasons for the injustice of wealth distribution. If we ignore the significance of debt for the changes in asset and wealth concentration, especially the impact of government and private debt on asset changes, the solution to economic crises will miss the correct direction. Therefore, blindly emphasizing the use of a one-time wealth tax—that is, confiscatory taxation on high income and massive wealth—to solve debt problems cannot touch the root. This is because the flaws of the modern economy caused by universal over-indebtedness cannot be compensated for by increasingly cheap money; they must be compensated for by adopting economic policies that increase investment in education and innovation, thereby promoting economic development and achieving substantial growth in wealth.
In fact, the above two explanations for the problem of wealth polarization arising from debt can be categorized into two paths: one is the wealth production path, which seeks a fundamental solution through the development of productive forces and the transformation of the ownership of the means of production; the other is the wealth distribution path, which attempts to alleviate the crisis by taxing those with high incomes and massive wealth. From the perspective of the critique of political economy, the former involves the source of the problem, because debt is the economic expression of the credit system and an inevitable product of capital's realization of profit maximization. Thus, the final resolution of debt is also a result of capital's own development—that is, its self-negation—and simultaneously the result of a new mode of production replacing the old one. The latter involves the manifestation of the economic crisis, which has an important impact on the texture of human existence today. If more resources are channeled through debt into public sectors such as education and innovation, then for the people living within that society, they can improve their labor capacity, survival conditions, and social interaction levels; this is a positive social effect. From a macro perspective, these two paths demonstrate a profound concern for and urgent need to resolve the crisis of human existence, but their solutions possess their own era-specific characteristics, and their specific social effects should be tested according to the specific practices of each country.
From the micro level, modern economics, jurisprudence, and psychology have already conducted in-depth research on the relationship between debt and the texture of existence, such as happiness and mental health. In fact, whether it is individual debt, household debt, or corporate, national, and international debt, they all affect people's lives, production, and psychological perception of existence itself in their own ways. Without a doubt, through pure empirical observation, one can feel the impact that lending brings to the debtor...
“Trouble” and “worry,” while also feeling the “ruthlessness” and “urgency” of the creditor when demanding repayment and thirsting for returns. This manifests the lively, internal tension between the creditor and the debtor. The continuous increase of debt in modern society causes this tension to exist long-term and to strengthen constantly. In Ray Dalio’s view, the fundamental reason for the continuous increase in total debt lies in human drive, because “people have a deep-seated desire to borrow and spend more than they have, and a dislike for paying it back. That is human nature.” (Dalio, p. 10). This “theory of human nature” gains insight into the different internal motivations of creditors and debtors, but it fails to see the profound impact of the socio-economic mechanisms behind borrowing on the debtor. Marx once used the words of G.M. Bell, a director of the Bank of Scotland, in The Philosophy of Joint-Stock Banking to expound upon this influence: “The banking system is a religious and moral system. Does not the young merchant often avoid making loose or expensive companions, from a fear of being seen by the watchful and disapproving eye of his banker? He is anxious to stand well in the banker's estimation, and is accordingly regular in his habits! A frown from the banker is more influential with him than a sermon from a clergyman. He is in constant dread of being thought extravagant or dishonest, lest his credit should be curtailed or withdrawn! To him the banker's counsel is more important than that of the priest.” (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 46, p. 618) At the same time, we should see that different debt behaviors—such as reasonable versus excessive debt, benign versus non-performing debt, long-term versus short-term debt, productive versus consumptive debt, and active versus passive debt—have different effects on the texture of human existence [10]. We cannot generalize about them; we should distinguish between their positive and negative effects.
Furthermore, it is actually difficult for us to know the relative proportions of the aforementioned different debt behaviors from specific data. The complexity of debt’s origins, the intersectionality of debt chains, and the fragmentation of debt governance make it even more difficult for us to make a purely moral or purely economic judgment on the diverse debt behaviors of today. Yet debt, as an important economic category, is fundamentally a theoretical reflection of modern social relations. What it links is not merely borrowing and lending, but also credit—that is, the modern socio-economic system dominated by capital. As Marx stated: “Lending and borrowing took place in earlier periods as well, and usury is even the oldest of the antediluvian forms of capital; but lending and borrowing no more constitute credit than any other kind of labor constitutes industrial labor or free wage labor.” (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 30, p. 534). This is because credit is the product of the separation of money as a symbol of value from its substance; its essence lies in ensuring the continuity of the capitalist production process, and it is the guarantee by which money capital obtains ownership of the laborer's future labor. In this sense, modern debt relations represent capital defining how a person must exist in the present by means of a future that has not yet arrived. Thus, when we examine the relationship between debt and the texture of human existence from the micro-level of the individual burdened by debt, we must not forget the more fundamental essential relationship of modern debt. In any case, what debt reflects is the contemporary person’s situation of “pulling on the elbows to cover the heels” [11] in the present, while also foreseeing a tomorrow that has already been overdrawn. For the individual, this is an era where debt tests subjective states such as one’s intellect, emotions, and mentality. Many empirical debt "catastrophes"—even those playing out daily—show that after gaining insight into the logic of capital credit behind debt, we must still powerfully balance the realistic relationships between desire and wealth, enjoyment and ability, and the future and the present. Only in this way can debt, as a product of human self-alienation, better serve the development of humanity itself. From this, the truthful realization that “the transcendence of self-alienation follows the same path as self-alienation” (Marx, p. 78) can more clearly manifest its practical power to explain and change the world.
(Author’s affiliation: School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China) Source: Philosophical Research (Zhexue Yanjiu), Issue 1, 2026.