Giorgos Gouzoulis is an associate professor at the University of London and author of Debt and the Future of Workers: Financialization as Exploitation in the 21st Century.
The US government wrote off almost all the money it lent businesses during the pandemic. Now it’s wrecking credit scores and threatening to garnish paychecks to collect student loans. Debt can be forgiven easily enough — just not for the working class.
Following its 2023 national elections, Greece is looking at another four years of authoritarianism, privatization, and further financial and labor market deregulation. A new radical left alternative rooted in organic social movements is urgently needed.
Since the late 1970s, strike action and union membership have been declining steadily in most Western democracies. New research finds that one key reason is the working class’s increasing dependence on credit.