Democracy of Credit: Ownership and the Politics of Credit Access in Late Twentieth-Century America

In recent years, sociologists have noted the increasing centrality of credit for determining life chances in our society, but they have not given adequate attention to the credit market as a key site where individuals assert claims over economic resources. This article explores distinctive features of the credit transaction that differentiate claims making in the credit market from more familiar forms of claims making in the labor market. Rather than the quid pro quo exchange between formal equals that characterizes the wage relation, the extension of credit creates an obligation that marks the debtor as inferior to the creditor. The hierarchical and asymmetrical nature of the loan contract appears to erode the possibility for effective political demands in this arena. However, this article demonstrates that to the extent the status of “ownership” is institutionalized in the credit transaction, borrowers may be able to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with occupying the weaker position in an ...