debt slavery
Labor for creditors
Debt slavery is a system where a person is bound to work for a creditor until a debt is repaid, often under conditions that make repayment impossible.
The debtor's labor theoretically reduces the debt but rarely does—interest, fees, or inflated living costs keep them trapped indefinitely.
Also called debt bondage or peonage.
The term extends to modern situations where crushing debt effectively controls someone's life choices: Student loans have created a generation of debt slavery.
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- indenturedContracted to serve
- servitudeCompulsory labor under masters
- bonded laborWork forced by debt
- forced laborCompelled toil, no consent
peonage · shackles · chains · ball and chain · labor · exploitation · creditor · loan shark · trapped · obligation · indenture · sharecropping · compulsion · usury · interest · loan · company store · bondsman
- slaverybondage, chattel, thrall, Middle Passage, slaveholders
- Hammurabi's Codeeye for an eye, stele, cuneiform, Babylon, property law
- slave tradeleg irons, human cargo, triangle trade, auction block, chattel
- bondageservitude, bondage, thrall, chattel, serf
- Maya Lawroyal courts, noble courts, council of elders, divine judgment, land disputes
- ancient GreeceAthens, Sparta, Zeus, Parthenon, Acropolis
debt slaveryeconomic freedom
Autonomy in commerce
financial independence · economic liberty · economic autonomy · emancipation · self-employment
debt slaveryfinancial freedom
solvency · wealth · prosperity · affluence · creditworthiness
debt, debts, debtor, debtors, indebted, indebtedness, slave, slaves, slavery