Payment morale. Reflections on the connection between debt and debt with Nietzsche, Weber and Bourdieu

The article works out the moral form of subjectivation of economic debt. In a discussion of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, it is argued that the form of debt is characterized by a specific temporality. The central thesis is that the temporal regime of debt and debt proves to be paradoxical: on the one hand, the modern “disenchantment of the world” (Max Weber) enables an opening towards social futures and this temporal opening also forms a necessary condition of capitalist investment activities. On the other hand, however, the current rigid temporal regime of debt(s) obstructs the possibility of subjective and political new beginnings in time, as debt sets in motion a dynamic of economic determination of current options for action through the compulsion to repay.