From debt invention to debt peonage
Résumé
In his work, Benjamin Lemoine shows how French public debt underwent a process of marketization and a Polanyi-type disembedding over the last 60 years. He explains the functioning of public debt via its instruments, which shape the political priorities and led to a naturalization of the relation between State and private creditors. I propose three other readings of the analyzis : (1) a history of "exploitation through credit" via the concept of peonage, (2) the absolute disconnection between the rates of public indebtedness and its social tolerance, (3) a criticism of the contemporary critics of debt, which contest it as a sole moral dispute.