Maurizio Lazzarato

“Student indebtedness expemplifies neoliberalismś strategy since the 1970s: the substitution of social rights (the right to education, health care, retirement, etc.) for access to credit, in other words, for the right to contract debt. No more pooling of pensions, instead individual investment in pension funds; no pay rises, instead consumer credit; no universal insurance, individual insurance; no right to housing, home loans. The individualization process established through social policies has brought about radical changes in the welfare state. Education spending, left entirely to students, frees up resources which the state quickly transfers to corporations and the wealthiest households, notably through lower taxes. The true welfare recipients are no longer the poor, the unemployed, the sick, unmarried women, and so on, but corporations and rich.”
― Maurizio Lazzarato, Governing by Debt

“Taxes assure the political comparison/valuation of assets and securities as well as appropiation, neither of which is guaranteed by the market. The political dimension at the basis of the market became violently clear as soon as the "automaton" of the market collapsed. In appereance, the property regime is no longer private but "public," because it is the state that collects taxes. In reality, it has become impossible to distinguish the state from capital and "public" property from "private" property since the state's tax revenues go directly to banks and to creditors' accounts hidden away in taxes heavens.”
― Maurizio Lazzarato, Governing by Debt