Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis ... - Negri in English

Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis
The triumph of neoliberalism and its crisis have shifted the terms
of economic and political life, but they have also operated a
social, anthropological transformation, fabricating new figures of
subjectivity. The hegemony of finance and the banks has
produced the indebted. Control over information and
communication networks has created the mediatized. The
security regime and the generalized state of exception have
constructed a figure prey to fear and yearning for protection—the
securitized. And the corruption of democracy has forged a
strange, depoliticized figure, the represented. These subjective
figures constitute the social terrain on which—and against
which—movements of resistance and rebellion must act. We will
see later that these movements have the ability not only to refuse
these subjectivities but also to invert them and create figures that
are capable of expressing their independence and their powers of
political action. First, though, we need to investigate the nature
of the subjective figures of the neoliberal crisis.
The Indebted
Being in debt is becoming today the general condition of
social life. It is nearly impossible to live without incurring
debts—a student loan for school, a mortgage for the house, a loan
for the car, another for doctor bills, and so on. The social safety
net has passed from a system of welfare to one of debtfare, as
loans become the primary' means to meet social needs. Your
subjectivity is configured on the foundation of debt. You survive
by making debts, and you live under the w T eight of your
responsibility for them.
Debt controls you. It disciplines your consumption,
imposing austerity on you and often reducing you to strategies of
survival, but beyond that it even dictates your w T ork rhythms and
choices. If you finish university in debt, you must accept the first