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Gear 8: Debt.
One of the strange tensions that last years finical crisis highlighted was problems of how owned the future. Or better how different types o future appear to be owned differently b different sets of people. Deb is after all in a sense a punt on the punt. I act now in the problem of what is to come. Indeed it is surely capitalism great strength that it articulated different futures. Or better it exists as the system which capitalizes’ or places value upon the future ‘s incarnation. It allows then futures to come in shadow form into society now. A belief in a certain future then makes that future more likely or at least finically possible. So mundane is this becoming seer in capitalism, that we take it all for read. One cannot fill in form for a grant or a loan or event register something of the internet without including a finical plan, and with it a speculation of future cash flow – and the promise of money that is yet to be.
Debt, that I the acting now in the belief of what is to come is then the great shibboleth of capitalism. T is what makes it special. Or better it is the bit that is really so very different to other system. The future is not to be commanded or planned for or merely dreaded, as it is in other system, on the contrary capitalism is the system that turns the future my future and my families or companied future into something doubly communal. Not only will what hat future is depend upon the actions of others. Their belief, their actions then become y future, the future I want. The resent of another and my future are then given in the one two, But also my own actions now to persuade others to help of hind give me a right to a future in the fist place. The future is then torn way from it magic and its mystery. The future is hen at once capitalized and socialized. It is made a thing one can define in value an money: t becomes a thing one can take of punt or create hedge funds around. It becomes then the ultimate and inexhaustible resource for us all.
In a sense here capitalism genius leis in articulating and yet inverting a deep relationship. It a straight model of the future one might say that he future is that which is taking hold of the present (or here past) and making it address its otherwise. The future is then that which is always warping the past or the present, and making it different. He entire idea then of debt creates an eddy in this apparent order borrow how in the belie of what will be, I allow then one aspect (the finical aspect) of the future into the present, and in its name already act. The present then in a sense cats its shad on the future. It has already allowed for or used what that future was doing to it. As such it has cast the future in a certain model or at least, having allowed that it a certain thing or a certain path of a certain effect, is committed to that belief. It is hen goes wrong – if the future that one has taken a punt upon or looked towards fails, one will be left only with the debt, and the agony of paying it back. Thence on might say capitalism ,in capitalizing the future offers the possibility (or threat9 that that future having manifested itself in the present might split o changing. One aspect- namely the fact that by manifesting now, one owes later, will certainly be. One will certainly then owe money in the future and must acknowledge that fact, The second aspect of the future, that it will grow and change as one wants it to now, is of course far more problematic, it might do, and then on will be rewarded for the gamble, but if it does not, then one is left only with that future of debt.
Debt is then the name of this loop of gear. That is this silent cog of hope in the present, a cog that might well link into two rather different future machines. The one the ‘hope’ aspect of the future is directly manifested. It comes into the word then in the form of growth, and debt are cleared. In the other the hope is only in the present, and its manifestation must be paid for latter. The future is then turned into not merely something I dream of, but also something that might forcefully invade my rights to future presents, and force me toward a certain set of action. The future is then caught in capitalism net of debt in both of its aspects, as hope and fear
Capitalisms great and invasive power is surely that it feeds of this right to have a future, and this power the future holds very all of us. The future is after all where we are all great, and all powerful: the future is utopia, and has been so since we looked as children on the freedom of adults, and wondered what we would be when we grew up. And yet the future is of course never really that simple. It was one of the great ideas of Difference and Repetition that there was not one future one way to understand or comprehend the future (and the effect of debt within it) when three different movement, of futures future or past futures and present future. What is more Deleuze suggests that the sense that these futures are owned or allowed by any individual person or state rally need not the same in these different takes of the future.
To understand the nature of a future is then never simply to grasp what is to come. But rather one must also ways also which future is one taking about now? Is it the future of the futures itself as it incarnates direct/ Or that future that will need to be addressed across as period of time a sequence or passage of time tumbling into memory? O finally visit that responsibility to the future which exists in the present here and now, the one we needs address. Each of these future no only have a different moods, also demand different responses on the behalf o the individual, and different sense of ownership: That is different way to understand debt. Each will then be understood in turn.
The purest form of the future is doubt that bright future which tumbles form beyond ad which cannot be ever truly; comprehended or understood it the present. It is this future, this idea that every will continue to enrich itself, to become more complex or better (we will live longer or travel to the moon, or invent other forms of time travel) that infuses modern society and makes it so exciting. We are always looking towards, straining towards then next bi adventure. This is future beyond individual ownership. T I the future of open possibility, and evolution. It is the future of unlimited change. And yet it is just this unlimited it creates in a sense the problem within capitalism. When this future is monetized it works out as a belief in the continuance of growth.. This belief is of course justified by recent history,. And yet this is where the problems start. Such a future is of course unrestricted and in a sense uncontained. It in fuses an entire system. Everything wall grow, I then invade manifestation where it cannot easily be contained or perhaps (to be moral about it) should not be. T becomes then a raging greed., and capitalism can do nothing to contain this greed.
The result of cause was that the system was gripped in the belief or faith of unlimited and open growth. It did not matter what shit property one invested in the here and how, growth always happened an could always be gambled upon. Growth became then an unlimited resource, hardly a gable at all, and ‘modern banking system was founded and then foundered, as faith in this endlessly growth collapsed, and took with it the up rights we felt we had to a future.
This problem though is clearly deeper that individual greed. It is the paradox on the unlimited future that it cannot be simply contained in the current streams of what it. Debt will then be an imperfect tool. It will either be too little (one could have always risked more with hindsight, or too much, and the seems is always in peril. One of the interesting facets o modernity I of course that we are inventing other systems of debt to trap this future, within finite other then money and individual debt. The feat about Peak oil, for example, is a fear that limits the future within finite resources: The future is then contained within a set finite – the amount of oil. The current fear of global warming is than always very much in this ilk. Here the fear is contained less within a finite number, and more within the complexities of a system. Or rights o claim a current fourteen are then placed of about of possible futures, and either effects this claim has, We are then made to spin into the absolutely uncountable axis of all futures, and if you like the futuring of future, when are our acts are thought o resonate of centuries to come, and we are forced to face up to this fact (and the uncertainties it breeds then and now).
The future is then unstable in is pure form; it is invasive and corrosive and in needs o gathering. Traditionally however this gathering has not been some other-God capable on owning the pure future but rather by slipping into an understanding of that future as it is pattern current time streams. Debt then I not a punt of what will be, but rather becomes a very real problem in the now. He government has a debt problem which of course originated because it took over some lese debt problem, notably the bank. The Debt crisis is then ultimately not the governments direct fault so much as ours. We where the ones who borrowed, from the back on the strength of f true and then lost faith in that future, leaving debts enough to ruin the banks. It was this debt then that the government in financing the banks actually took on, and what is blighting their copy book here and hw. The future then transforms itself into a problem that can only be addressed in and through time. It becomes then a poisonous legacy, we endlessly have o work to pay for a yoke we live under.
Here however there is a real tension, t is very clear ht the current Labour government have not lost sight of the fact that the true driver of this futuring is not the passage of time, and the debt of much as the original hope that created he debt in the first place hey have gambled then the fate of the economy and also their own political skins on the faith that sooner or latter the economy will pick up. At which point hose dead resources they currently own, the banks, will suddenly become highly lucrative. Gordon Brown ,might be flogging of rubbish now (or threatening to) but in two years time, be might have a profitable back to sell . The problem of course really is that if this is announced as the plan, the that future will become more unstable. The government then has to make a pretence at responsibility and long term ownership (to lend to the bank it own stability). The fact then that the banks will be flogged off pay off the national debt becomes a truth that cannot speak is name (hence he does not want to reform the system- he needs it to make money as it did before so his sole asset has ‘real’ value). .The alternative is then that we ignore this ’othering’ resource and treat the debt as if it were a standard one. We treat it then as along term problem a thing to be paid off. I becomes staggering amount we all owe, and all must address. The fact then that we owe money, how the future becomes manifest in something collective. The future might be dreary but it at least our own. It is this ouring of the othered future that no doubt gives this move its current appeal.
Once however the futures it ours, then it very quickly slips into the Cameron-jargon, of personal responsibility. That is once the future is understood in terms of a debt to be paid, then a course of action appears clear, and we all must find a role within it. The future becomes then give able in the present in a sequence of cuts, an limitations of personal expenditure. The future becomes given in individual suffering and the creation of poverty, all the bright hope, that the debt ill b lifted (and another quite different future promised). The future then becomes present in a plan to be followed across a period of time.
This promise towards a future of course makes very sound politics for the party that manifests it. It a straight political foresight the party which can promise action toward the future, always sounds more convincing than those that merely hopes. Indeed this of course creates a genuine tension within the ‘democratic and capitalist system. The future of capitalism always trends towards open growth, while its politics rewards plans…
It is no mystery than the secret of capitalism lie init ability to offer futures. It s the system that sells hope and so puts differing values on differing futures. What is less clear is however how it creates a gear which actually sips in-between rather different pasts, present and future of the future: all are comprehended within debt, which becomes the universal lubricator ( leverage) of the system, allow people themselves within very different schema as if they were part of the self same schemata. Without this illusion o location the entire system would, as Marx knew so well, doomed. The Punt then capitalism always takes on its own future is its continuing ability to create different leverage, different articulation of what ill b, a fact that needs o be remembered by is friends and foes alike.
