Bonds of Debt

The Bonds of Debt: Borrowing Against the Common Good by Richard Dienst, 186 pages

As Richard Dienst explains, while capitalism has always been based upon debt, since the '70s debt, both public and private, has increasingly served not only as the primary motor driving the global economy, but an elaborate system of social and political control binding debtors to creditors on the personal, national, and international levels.  That such an arrangement is unsustainable seems to have been proven by the financial crises of the last decade, yet the debt regime continues its unquestioned ascendancy.  Unfortunately, Dienst's narrow materialism blinds him to any real alternative to this system, despite his appropriation of terms such as "common good", "jubilee", and "solidarity" which he clearly does not understand.

The Bonds of Debt is enlivened by Dienst's playfulness with language, as evidenced not only by the title but by formulations such as "insecure securities". Unfortunately, his inventiveness is more often demonstrated in his deployment of jargon as a tool of obfuscation - a kind of Dodgsonian rhetorical strategy is necessary to maintain his looking-glass view of the world, wherein, for example, the starvation and violent repression of the Venezuelan people somehow represent prosperity and liberation.