Abstract
In the Czech Republic, the system of loan provision has gradually developed since the mid-1990s. However, the mortgage market has expanded rather recently when quadrupled in the past ten years.
Nearly half of household repay a loan at the moment. In the same time, one in ten inhabitants of the Czech Republic is facing wage seizure, with a high regional variability - in some cities, over a fifth of the population is under distraint.
Existing data show that the problem of over-indebtedness is more concentrated between low-income households, and many loans are taken to repay another obligation (i.e., rent, utilities). In my contribution, I will discuss the development of household debts, with a particular focus on the context of the Czech debate about poverty and economic insecurity.
With certain simplification, we can observe a development of two parallel debt-related debates which involve different groups of people: the circuit of mortgage debt aiming on what could be labelled as 'middle-class', often framed in terms of individual responsibility and success and one with the consumption and short-term loans, which is often related to (strongly ethnized) problem of social exclusion - despite the fact the third, in some regions up to a half of the population faces an insecure social situation in various respects. Existing research indicates that these division goes beyond sole economic stratification as they enable moral distinction and constitution of a successful and independent individual through the 'proper' use of debt while excluding others from the access to fundamental right and protection (such as guaranteed minimum income).
These processes of both practical and symbolic exclusion of certain groups seem to be paralleled by an increased level of distrust of those excluded into democracy and state institutions. The moral economy of debt can be observed as a (re-)production and contestation of the citizenship hierarchies through debt.