Consumer credit: Its structural determinants and its place in the state management of the labour power

Abstract

This paper analyzes the determinants of consumer credit from the process of reproduction of aggregate social capital. Among the main forms of credit, consumer credit arises last as a significant economic phenomenon, once capitalism has incorporated the production of the wage goods; conditio sine qua non of mass production and consumption regimes. Hence, the incorporation of consumer credit to what Brunhoff calls “state management of labour power”. Fordism and its consumption pattern inaugurated the incorporation of consumer credit into the state management of labour power. Secondary until the crisis of 1973, consumer credit becomes a central element of contemporary state management of the labour power.