Debtor prisons have been revived through debt-collection lawsuit traps

Evidence

The mantra “your debt is not my problem” has permitted other bottom-feeding organizations like personal debt collection agencies to revive the once-banned practice of debtor prisons. As people fall behind in their debts and are often unaware of being subject to lawsuits, any arrest whatsoever now can trigger jail time, often for sums as small as five hundred dollars. Hundreds of fly-by-night firms scoured databases to find those falling behind in their mortgages, and hired offshore phone banks to endlessly call and promise false hope, only to swindle them with false stories of help with principal reductions, stealing from them fees they could ill afford. Yet no major media outlet has mustered even a scintilla of outrage for what is, at bottom, cheap illegal ways to harass and torture debtors. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 370

Categorization

• QUESTION: The passage asserts no media outrage—worth chasing how debt-collection lawsuits became invisible in mainstream coverage.
• XREF: Doctors/extraction link to the wider ‘thought collective’ argument that legal-financial institutions repurposed old exploitation under new ideology. — connects to: Financialized criminal justice monetizes punishment and traps former inmates in legal debt. — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 81; Student loan debts survive bankruptcy and trigger wage garnishment and license revocation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 384

Broader Connections

• Student loan debts survive bankruptcy and trigger wage garnishment and license revocation #exemplifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 384