Maria Kaïka

Copyright Reuters: Jon Nazca. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/forced-evictions-in-spain-1380887332-slideshow/

MORTGAGED

LIVES

Maria Kaïka

Debt as Biopolitics

PI Maria Kaïka

RAs. M Garcia-Lamarca & D Siatitsa

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Maria Kaïka

Household debt to net disposable income %

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

2008 2009

Belgium 68.3 70.5 68.3 66.3 68.3 70.7 74.6 79.5 83.3 87.4 89.8 90.8

Denmark 221.1 226.3 232.8 237.7 242.9 248.7 261.9 282.1 299.4 324.7 339.4 338.7

Finland 64.7 66.0 69.2 70.8 75.6 79.9 88.6 99.2 109.4 114.7 117.1 117.5

France 72.4 74.9 74.8 77.0 77.5 81.1 81.9 88.4 93.6 96.6 98.7 104.3

Greece – – – – – – – – 72.1 80.4 84.7 85.3

Ireland 110.8 126.2 147.2 170.0 201.0 225.9 236.2 231.9 240.8

Italy 46.0 50.7 54.5 56.5 59.4 62.5 66.2 71.3 76.1 80.2 81.6 86.5

Netherlands 176.7 189.0 199.1 194.2 204.4 222.9 233.0 251.5 256.9 261.4 274.3 286.6

Poland 19.7 21.6 25.0 31.2 39.2 51.5 52.8

Portugal 77.0 94.3 106.8 118.3 121.6 123.6 126.8 135.9 140.6 145.7 148.9 151.4

Spain 79.7 84.2 87.1 94.1 102.3 113.6 128.2 144.3 154.1 150.1 145.2

Sweden 101.5 105.3 108.6 119.2 121.6 128.2 137.0 146.7 153.8 157.4 159.5 163.5

UK 114.4 117.3 118.9 125.6 138.8 151.7 164.9 167.2 178.8 183.3 178.1 167.5

Source: Compiled from data from the: EMF (2009, 70); OECD (2009); INE (2014) .

HOUSEHOLD DEBT TO NET DISPOSABLE INCOME %

Maria Kaïka

The metamorphosis of solidarity and welfare into a private

affair (Crouch 2012) threatens to turn what used to be

collectively responsible political subjects into private

indebted objects: or else, into idiots

Etymological origin of ‘idiot’ = Ιδιώτης. Greek word for

private individual who cares only about his/her houshold

and does not participate in ‘the polis’

1. Mortgage contracts have become a form of biopolitical

technology, that weaved the fabric of everyday life deep

into the web of global financial speculative practices

under the promise of regulating risk and securing a

better future

2. The role of mortgage contracts in producing these new

indebted subjectivies is central in fuelling speculative

practices rooted in the built environment

WORKING HYPOTHESIS

Macroeconomic and policy changes could not have led

to the global expansion of speculative real estate

investment without a parallel biopolitical process that

mobilized homeownership as a supplementary welfare

system and mobilized mortgage contracts as tools that

integrated not only the economic but also the social

reproduction of the workforce into global cycles of

financial speculation.

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Scholarly attention on:

Institutional an macroeconomic changes that led to the

global expansion of speculative real estate investment

and the expansion of mortgage markets.(Aalbers 2008 2009 2011; Rolnik 2013; Ashton 2012; Coq-Huelva

2013; Baldauf 2010; Christophers 2011; 2015; Gotham 2009;

Wainwright 2009; Rutland, 2010; Sánchez Martínez 2008; Smart

and Lee 2003).

‘Housing financialisation’

A process through which the mortgage finance market

becomes an investment channel in its own right,

increasingly disconnected from housing production (Aalbers, 2008; see also Christophers 2011; 2015)

Scholarly attention on:

How global speculative real estate practices led to

intensified social polarization

(Bridge 2014; Smith and Searle 2010; Lees 2008; Rolniq 2013;

Soederberg 2014: Wyly , Moos, Hammel and Kabahizi 2009)

How mortgage liberalisation went hand in hand with

decline in welfare provision

(Case et al 2005; Ivanova 2011; Toussaint and Elsinga 2009;

Langley 2008; Powell 2008; Watson 2009; Desmond 2012; Crouch

2012; Lowe et al 2012).

Excellent insight on housing/mortgage/finance/real

estate speculation nexus,

But remained remarkably disembodied.

Ignores an important constituency of actors that are as

important in animating this process:

Mortgage holders themselves

Notable exceptions: Coq-Huelva 2013; Palomera

2014: Halawa 2015)

SIGNIFICANT GAP IN THE FIELD

By neglecting mortgage holders, we leave

undocumented and untheorized the embodied

processes that are instrumental in enrolling citizens

(thought mortgage contracts) in speculative financial

practices the drive urban renewal

KEY OBJECTIVE

Move beyond a macroeconomic and policy based

analysis of mortgage debt crisis.

Expand the conceptual framework within which we

examine mortgage debt , by reconceptualising

mortgage contracts as a biopolitical tool; a “technology

of power over life” (Foucault 2003, 246). that engineers

an increasingly intimate relationship between

speculative practices of global financial markets and

human bodies and practices of everyday life.

Taking seriously materiality of mortgage contracts as a means of

forging embodied practices of financialisation

KEY AIMS

1. Pay more attention empirically and conceptually onto how

funneling global flows of capital into urban development goes

hand in hand with signing off significant parts of future labour,

decision making capacity and well being of the workforce to

mortgage debt repayments

2. Document how mortgage contracts became the means to

embed the labour force in a process where the production of

surplus value is subsumed not only via the direct exploitation of

their labour power, but also via the circulation of capital (Marazzi

2012).

Translate signatures on mortgage contracts into changes in

everyday lives

Empirically grounded: Spain – Barcelona (currently expanding

empirical basis in Athens, Sao Paolo and Mexico City).

KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS. (empirically grounded on Spain)

1) What were the processes, social relations, cultural practices, dreams,

aspirations related to the promise of homeownership that produced an

intimate relation between the production of urban futures and the

reproduction of biological lives through signing mortgage contracts?

2) What were the specific terms and conditions on mortgage contracts

that enrolled livelihoods into global speculative processes of rent

extraction at a scope and scale broader than ever before?

3) What is the full range of the social and personal consequences of

mortgage debt defaults (incl. health, family and community relations,

sense of citizenship, self-esteem, ability to care for oneself and others,

political engagement or disengagement)?

4) What were the reasons why mortgage contracts that promised to be

tools for building future wealth, became a punitive mechanism?

5) What are the emerging practices and/or collectives that try to

disentangle the fabric of life from the web of global financial markets?

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Developing Research Hypothesis and Questions into a

Methodological Framework

John Kennedy Campbell, Anthropologist and Historian

+

Emerging literature on financialization and subjectification

(Marazzi 2007; Langley 2006 2007 2008; Lazzarato 2012; French and Kneale 2012; Hall 2011;

Kear 2013; Martin 2002; Soederberg 2014; Kaika and Ruggiero 2013 2015; Benito 2007; Crouch

2009; Doling and Elsinga 2013; Lowe et al. 2012; Case et al. 2005; Castles and Ferrera 1996;

Ivanova 2011; Toussaint and Elsinga 2009; Aron et al. 2012; Forrest and Hirayama 2009; Malpass

2008; Powell 2008; Crouch 2009; Smith and Searle 2010; Finlayson 2009; Regan and Paxton

2001; Watson 2009; Vatter 2009; Rossi 2013).

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A QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY THAT

1. Foregrounds the role of mortgage holders as actors that animate the

global expansion of speculative real estate investment through financial

markets.

2. Takes seriously the materiality of mortgage contracts as a means of

forging new embodied practices of financialisation,

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METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

access to mortgage contracts

access to mortgage affected people

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Collaboration with 13 international partners Committed partners to research funding applications

1| European Investment Bank, Regional and Urban Development Division 2| Lab Cidade, Sao Paulo 3| Institute of Government and Public Policy, AUBarcelona4| Observatorio DESC Barcelona 5| Observatorio Metropolitano de Barcelona 6| Cáritas Barcelona 7| PRAKSIS Athens 8| SHEDIA streetmagazine9| ARSIS Thessaloniki 10| Department of Geography and Regional Planning, NTUAthens11| Department of Economic Sciences, University of Macedonia 12| Department of Urban Planning, NTUA 13| Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Aristotle University.

METHODOLOGY

-One year observation/ follow up participant observation

at PAH’s weekly meetings

- Identifying evicted citizens – life interviews

- Semi-structured interviews with ‘Veteran’ key informants:

barking, real estate, policy sectors

- Archival data: National Institute of statistics (INE); Spanish Tax

Agency (AEAT); Bank of Spain; European Mortgage Federation

(EMF)

-Debt Diaries

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NORMALIZING HOMEOWNERSHIP in Spain

Jose Luis Arrese, Minister of the

Ministry of Housing (1957)

“We want a country of homeowners, not

proletariats.”

“Man, when he does not have a home,

takes over the street and, driven by his

bad mood, becomes subversive, bitter,

violent.”

Source: http://www.euskomedia.org/aunamendi/4902

LIBERALISATION OF MORTGAGE FINANCING SYSTEMS

AND LAND DEVELOPMENT REGULATION

1981: Mortgage Market Regulation Act

• Enables private operators to enter mortgage market

•Increases loan-to-value ratio and introduces variable

interest rates

1992: Act (enabling SPVs)

1998: Planning and Land Act

• Declares “all land not yet incorporated into the urban

process as eligible for development”

1999: Spain enters European Monetary Union

Source: Naredo et. al. (2008: 59) from the Ministry of Housing

Price of housing,

(euro per square metre)

“Financial establishments hurled themselves onto

families so that they would ask for mortgages …”

(Former Catalan Minister of Housing personal communication, 7 May 2014).

“[in 2000] getting a mortgage was as easy as buying bread.”

(B., 36 year old female, 4 September 2014)

“I did not even have to go to a bank to ask for a mortgage (in 2000). Everything was made easy

for me. People came to you and offered [mortgages] with conditions that you never in your life thought you would be offered….They

came to my house, to my workplace….If you went to an estate agent they would send a sales agent to your house, he ate you up, he told you

many things, he described it in a lovely, wonderful way, that this was your life’s dream, many things. You get excited, and you end up

falling in their web”

(N., 40 year-old male: 11 June 2014).

Source: La Vanguardia newspaper archives, 1997

A mortgage catering for every need

“[the estate agent told us] Rent a flat and you’ll have to pay €800. Buy a flat

and you’ll pay €900. For €100 more, you live in your own flat and as time goes by

that money is yours”

(M., 32 year old female April 2014).

“The purchase-sale price of a home was €100,000 but the mortgage granted was €130,000, and the Bank of Spain

didn’t meddle. How was this done? By making it look like there were four

guarantors….It looked like they bought the flat together but there was no

relationship or anything. Just to balance the numbers…”

”

(A, Retired banker, Male, 24 July 2014).

YearMortgages

Issued

1994 429.873

1995 403.587

1996 412.928

1997 479.237

1998 529.565

1999 585.782

2000 612.852

2001 615.703

2002 690.230

2003 989.439

2004 1.107.664

2005 1.257.613

2006 1.342.171

2007 1.238.890

2008 836.419

2009 650.889

2010 607.535

2011 408.461

2012 273.873

Number of homeownership mortgages issued in

Spain between 1994-2012

Source: Garcia-Lamarca and Kaika (2016 in print)

Compiled by authors, based on data from the INE 2014

CREATING A NATION OF INDEBTED HOMEOWNERS

DEBT DISGUISED AS WEALTH

Wealth held by Spanish households

480% GDI in 1995

800% GDI in 2006

540% of wealth recorded in 2006 corresponded to property wealth, and

calculated on the basis of inflated property values

Total outstanding Mortgage debt in 2008 = 674 billion Euros

“As the price of flats went up, they [flats] were presented to us] as if they were the best caviar in the world… But all that we, poor people, asked for was simply … a dignified home where we can live and work.” (personal communication 25 July 2014).

(N., 40 year-old male: 11 June 2014).

Year Owned Private rent Social rent Other

1950 45.9 N/A N/A N/A

1960 51.9 41 2 -

1970 63.4 28 2 6.6

1981 73.1 19 2 6

1991 78.5 13.2 2 6.5

2001 80.7 9.3 2 7

2007 87 7.6 1.5 4

2011 82.2 9.3 2.8 5.7

Housing tenure, 1950-2010 (percentage of households)Source: Palomera 2014; last row added by authors based on data from the INE (2012)

NORMALIZING HOMEOWNERSHIP in Spain

Distribution of wage earners by income scale in Spain, 2007

Source: Garcia-Lamarca and Kaika 2016 (in print). Compiled by the authors. Data derived from the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) 2007 and López and Rodríguez (2010, 233)

Salary scale 0 -

€15,977

€15,977 -

39,942

€39,942 -

59,913

€59,913 -

€79,884

>€79,884

Number of

wage earners 10,863,957 7,017,173 958,288 275,817 193,796

Women (%) 50.4 35.4 28 22 14.2

% of total wage

earners56.8 35.8 5 1.4 1

% of total

salaries25.2 49.2 13 5.4 7.2

Average

annual salary

€10.935 €26,175 €47,599 €68,111 €129,852

CRUMBLE OF SPANISH ECONOMIC MIRACLE:SKYROCKETING FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS

Source: Madrilonia.org

“nobody simply stopped paying all of a sudden … Everyone will explain to you

that they’ve done the same as I did; initially letting up on one or two

mortgage payments, then trying again, asking for money, paying again for a

while…”

(personal communication with mortgage affected male, 38 year old, 8 September 2014).

“ I did not want to stop paying, it’s difficult to accept what is happening to you….I said to

my husband: look, you are going to find work, I am going to keep paying the mortgage with

the €800 I earn. But we had to pay an instalment of €600 per month, and husband

said: but we’re left with €200 to survive…I can not support your choice [to keep paying the mortgage] … we don’t have any money for food. We either pay the mortgage or we

stay alive.”

(Z., 34 year old female, 23 June 2014).

“When I stopped paying my mortgage, I went to inform the bank. [Their response was]: This is your fault, you shouldn’t have gotten yourself into this. We’re going to

take away your flat, and you’ll still have to pay us a lifetime.’ I knew I couldn’t pay the full instalment for that month [€1200]; the following month I almost sacrificed myself

to pay, and the month after that; just getting by, just getting by….”

(C., male, 6 May 2014)

The end of the ‘love affair’ between mortgage holders and

their creditors.

Showed what was perceived as a personalised relationship

with clerk or director of local bank for what it really was:

a debt contract with an unreachable global financial entity.

Once a family is unable to pay, the broker in effect “manages the portfolio

classified as ‘junk’. So what does that make us? Rubbish. Scum”

(E., Male, 42, 15 May 2014).

Mortgage contracts that were supposed to act as a

life enhancing technology turned into a punitive

mechanism

“A debtor is a debtor for life. Even if they work

twenty-four hours a day they will never repay that

debt. It is the perfect form of extortion and slavery.”

(Ada Colau, co-founder and former spokesperson,

Platform for Mortgage Affected People (PAH),

Mayor of Barcelona since May 2015. Quoted in

Muriel 2012, last para, no page number.)

‘The violence of financial capitalism’ (Marazzi,

2012)

“They were not taking away her home; they were taking away the woman’s

working years, taking away all her life”

(personal communication 23 June 2014).

“I consider myself from a class that no longer exists, that has been wiped off the map. Middle. There is no middle

class anymore; now, we are nothing”

(M., Male, 36, 30 May 2014).

“I realised. Oh! This is what speculation really is … it made me realise that yes, there are rich people …. and there are

poor people. There are no people in the middle or anything”

(C., Female, 30, 15 July 2014).

“Thanks to finding myself in this situation I saw reality for what it is. Before, I used

to earn a good salary … and didn’t realise that people had a really rough time.

So although it doesn’t make me happy, it has opened my eyes a bit”

(R., Female, 42, 6 May 2014).

KEY FINDINGS

Exemplified:

How the expansion of global capital markets through private deficit spending, enacted through the promise of homeownership enrolled livelihoods into global processes of rent extraction and financial speculation at at a scale broader than ever before.

How Mortgages are not simply a “extraction of financial profit directly out of personal income” (Lapavitsas 2009; 114). They are also a disciplinary mechanism that entangled the fabric of life into the web of global financial speculation and subjected life itself to debt servicing practices – producing a new subjectivity, the “Indebted Man” and Woman (Lazzarato 2012).

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KEY FINDINGS

Foregrounded:

Practices of resistance

Reclaiming housing as the urban commons

Methods for disentangling the fabric of life from the web of financial institutions

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“Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter, try again, fail again. Fail better”

S. Beckett Worstward Ho

LIMITATIONSExpanding empirical field of inquiryAthens,

Sao Paolo (Raquel Rolnik),

Mexico City (Susanne Soederberg)

Funding applications submitted1| British Academy Research Grant (awaiting decision)

Funding applications in preparation 13 international partners plus 3 Co-Pis:1) Susanne Soederberg, Canada Research Chair in Political Studies, Queen’s University; 2) Raquel Rolnik UN Housing Rapporteur (2010-15) Lab Cidade Sao Paulo; 3) Anne Haila, Professor of Urban studies, University of Helsinki.-- SSHRC Partnership Development Grant. (November 2016 competition $200K). -- SSHRC larger Partnership Grants of up to $2.5 mill, (November 2017 competition). Involves:larger (UN-HABITAT; Habitat for Humanity; FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisations for the Homeless).-- Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie -Innovative Training Networks (MSC-ITN)January 2017 competition, approx. 2 million. Confirmed Partners: UCLA (A. Roy), University of Barcelona (G Kallis); Univ of Hamburg (M Grubbauer); National Technical University of Athens (D Vaiou).

3 KEY CONTRIBUTIONS TO URBAN STUDIES

FIRST. Challenges recent debates in urban political economy

that seek to explain the mortgage crisis and/or the ‘financialisation

of housing’ primarily through macroeconomics and/or policy

analysis (Aalbers 2008 2009 2011; Rolnik 2013; Ashton 2012; Coq-Huelva 2013; Baldauf 2010;

Christophers 2011; 2015; Gotham 2009; Wainwright 2009; Rutland, 2010; Sánchez Martínez 2008;

Smart and Lee 2003).

SECOND. Offers new conceptual insight and empirical nuance to

studies on financialisation and subjectification(Marazzi 2007; Langley 2006 2007 2008; Lazzarato 2012; French and Kneale 2012; Hall 2011;

Kear 2013; Martin 2002; Soederberg 2014; Kaika and Ruggiero 2013 2015; Benito 2007; Crouch

2009; Doling and Elsinga 2013; Lowe et al. 2012; Case et al. 2005; Castles and Ferrera 1996;

Ivanova 2011; Toussaint and Elsinga 2009; Aron et al. 2012; Forrest and Hirayama 2009; Malpass

2008; Powell 2008; Crouch 2009; Smith and Searle 2010; Finlayson 2009; Regan and Paxton

2001; Watson 2009; Vatter 2009; Rossi 2013).

THIRD. Enhances availability of qualitative data on Spain’s

mortgage crisis

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ONWARDSExpanding methodology (debt diaries) Expanding empirical field of inquiryAthens,

Sao Paolo (Raquel Rolnik),

Mexico City (Susanne Soederberg)

Funding applications submitted1| British Academy Research Grant (awaiting decision)

Funding applications in preparation 13 international partners plus 3 Co-Pis:1) Susanne Soederberg, Canada Research Chair in Political Studies, Queen’s University; 2) Raquel Rolnik UN Housing Rapporteur (2010-15) Lab Cidade Sao Paulo; 3) Anne Haila, Professor of Urban studies, University of Helsinki.-- SSHRC Partnership Development Grant. (November 2016 competition $200K). -- SSHRC larger Partnership Grants of up to $2.5 mill, (November 2017 competition). Involves:larger (UN-HABITAT; Habitat for Humanity; FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisations for the Homeless).-- Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie -Innovative Training Networks (MSC-ITN)January 2017 competition, approx. 2 million. Confirmed Partners: UCLA (A. Roy), University of Barcelona (G Kallis); Univ of Hamburg (M Grubbauer); National Technical University of Athens (D Vaiou).

Maria Kaïka

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Expanding Empirical field of inquiry

Athens,

Sao Paolo (Raquel Rolnik),

Mexico City (Susanne Soederberg)

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http://pahbarcelona.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/cropped-azagracolorprueba.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikk22j5zLiM

PAH Challenging Indebted Livelihoods

The violence of financial capitalism

(Marazzi 2007)

“[I]n material and housing-class terms,

barely distinguishable from renters…simply

paying rent to the new landlord”

(Wyly et al. 2009, 338), )

http://pahbarcelona.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/cropped-azagracolorprueba.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikk22j5zLiM

PAH Challenging Indebted Livelihoods

Platform for Mortgage Affected People (PAH):

Challenging Indebted Livelihoods

Occupying empty bank-owned buildingsSource: PAH Cerdanyola

Weekly assemblies: organising & collective advising Source: E. Giné (PAHC Sabadell)

Blocking evictionsCopyright: Melissa Garcia Lamarca

LIBERALISATION OF MORTGAGE FINANCING SYSTEMS AND LAND DEVELOPMENT REGULATION

1981: Mortgage Market Regulation Act•Enabled private operators to enter mortgage market•Increased mortgage loan-to-value ratio and introduced variable interest rates

1992: Act on Securitisation Vehicles

1998: Planning and Land Act•Declared “all land not yet incorporated into the urban process as eligible for development” (Act 6/1998, Exposition of Motives cited in Roca

Cladera& Burns 2000, 548)

1999: Spain enters European Monetary Union

2 KEY CONTRIBUTIONS TO URBAN

STUDIES

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financialisation

- Empirically documenting how mortgages are not simply “an

extraction of financial profit directly out of personal income”

(Lapavistas 2009, 114).

Does so by:

- Empirically documenting how mortgage contracts, that promised

to become the means for turning citizens into ‘leveraged

investors’ (Langely 2006), became in effect tools for turning

citizens into indebted objects, - subjected to debt servicing

practices – for a period that in many cases can last for the

duration of their lifetime.

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For the people who Ada Colau describes as

living in a contemporary regime of “slavery” in

the opening quote of this article, dignity,

welfare, self-esteem, family/community

belonging, health and wellbeing have become

heavily dependent on their ability to fulfil their

mortgage repayment obligations under

increasingly volatile market and labour

conditions. It is a situation where an

unscrupulous manipulation of lives and bodies

lies at the heart of economic and political

strategies and decision-making (Rose 2007).

“I did not even have to go to a bank to ask for a mortgage (in 2000). Everything was made easy for me. People came to you and offered [mortgages] with conditions that you never in your life thought you would be offered….They came to my house, to my workplace….If you went to an estate agent they would send a sales agent to your house, he ate you up, he told you many things, he described it in a lovely, wonderful way, that this was your life’s dream, many things. You get excited, and you end up falling in their web” (personal communication, N., 40 year-old male: 11 June 2014).

“I did not even have to go to a bank to ask for a mortgage (in 2000). Everything was made easy for me. People came to you and offered [mortgages] with conditions that you never in your life thought you would be offered….They came to my house, to my workplace….If you went to an estate agent they would send a sales agent to your house, he ate you up, he told you many things, he described it in a lovely, wonderful way, that this was your life’s dream, many things. You get excited, and you end up falling in their web”

(N., 40 year-old male: 11 June 2014).

MORTGAGING

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MORTGAGING

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Maria Kaïka

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DEBT DISGUISED AS WEALTH

Total outstanding Mortgage debt in 2008 = 674 billion EurosHousehold indebtedness rose from 55 to 130 % of disposable income

Source: Naredo et. al. (2007: 82)

“We shall continue being your slaves anyway; paying for a lifetime. But at least don’t take away our homes; let us breathe a bit. Like a dog; we are waiting for them to toss us something.; if you have a debt and you are a defaulter, you can’t even buy a second hand washing machine”

(M., Female, 32, 25 July 2014).

Empirically grounded on Spain (Athens, Sao Paolo and Mexico City) .

KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1) What are the processes and everyday practices through which

the expansion of global capital markets through the promise of

homeownership, forged an Intimate relation between the

production of urban futures and the reproduction of biological

lives?

2) What are the processes and everyday practices though which

mortgages become not only a rent extraction mechanism, but

also a disciplinary mechanism that subjected life itself to debt

servicing practices and produced a new subjectivity, the

“Indebted Man and Woman” (Lazzarato, 2012)?

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Household mortgage debt to GDP (%)

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

2008 2009

Belgium 26.5 27.6 27.7 26.7 27.8 30.1 30.7 33.4 35.9 37.7 39.8 43.3

Denmark (%) 67.5 68.6 67.7 71.1 74.0 78.4 79.7 84.9 89.1 93.1 95.4 103.8

Finland 29.7 30.5 30.3 31.2 32.7 35.1 38.2 41.9 44.5 45.7 48.0 58.0

France 20.0 20.8 21.2 21.7 22.6 24.2 26.0 29.2 32.0 34.4 36.4 38.0

Greece 5.8 6.7 8.2 10.7 13.6 15.5 18.3 23.2 27.2 30.6 32.5 33.9

Ireland 26.5 29.0 31.0 32.8 36.2 42.5 51.7 61.0 69.7 73.7 81.5 90.3

Italy 7.8 9.0 9.8 9.9 11.0 13.0 14.8 17.0 18.6 19.7 19.6 21.7

Netherlands (%) 55.3 60.7 68.2 73.0 80.2 83.9 88.2 93.5 96.7 98.3 98.9 105.6

Poland 1.5 1.7 2.1 2.7 3.4 4.5 4.7 6.0 8.4 11.6 15.6 18.2

Portugal (%) n/a 36.9 41.5 44.4 47.9 47.8 49.3 53.3 59.1 62.0 63.2 67.5

Spain 23.9 26.7 29.9 32.5 35.9 40.0 45.7 52.3 58.1 61.4 62.0 64.6

Sweden 43.9 45.8 44.6 46.1 47.0 48.5 57.0 59.4 64.8 66.9 66.7 82.0

UK 49.8 55.1 55.8 58.0 62.1 67.4 71.2 77.5 82.4 85.4 80.3 87.6

Source: Compiled from data from the: EMF

(2009, 70); OECD (2009); INE (2014) .

HOUSEHOLD MORTGAGE DEBT TO GDP (%)