Reflections on the Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Condition of the Indebted Man

This short essay investigates Maurizio Lazzarato’s concept of the ‘indebted man’ in the context of the Greek sovereign debt crisis. In doing so, a particular focus is on how the rise of the ‘debt economy’ has reconfigured subjectivity and power in the neoliberal era. The way that the crisis is discursively framed and acted upon can then be seen as an attempt to expand and intensify the condition of the indebted man rather than as an opportunity to reassess our priorities. While the Greek crisis has often been presented as an exemplary case, my aim is to use it as an example in order to illuminate some of the characteristics of the contemporary neoliberal conjuncture that we all find ourselves in.