Leben auf Kredit

Felix Krämer
Leben auf Kredit
Menschen, Macht und Schulden in den USA vom Ende der Sklaverei bis in die Gegenwart
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Life on Credit
People, Power and Debt in the USA from the End of Slavery to the Present
(series: Structural Changes in Property)
Campus publishing house, 2024
ISBN: 9783593517681
323 pages
45 EUR
(also available as an e-book)

Debt characterises the lives of many millions of people in the USA. Felix Krämer sets out in search of their stories from 1865 to the present day. It becomes clear that black Americans in particular, but also women, workers and migrants, have repeatedly been exposed to higher credit risks or unbearable conditions. Such differences are addressed with the term "debt difference". The book demonstrates this through various forms of debt such as the system of sharecropping after the end of slavery, images of loan sharks or property debt and traces how student debt and credit card practices brought neoliberalism into people's everyday experiences. With its focus on precarisation through debt, the book uncovers a production line of the "wealth gap" in the USA and thus fills a gap in the new history of capitalism.