The whole point of credit cards, the way they are rendered most profitable, is that we dig ourselves into debt and stay trapped there forever.
Credit cards act to obscure, reproduce, and exacerbate divisions of class, race, and gender by creating a credit relationship in which individuals and banks are paired in a patronizing, asymmetrical economy of debt. The illusion of choice and our own feelings of complicity hide the fact that debt is embodied domination, that the purpose of consumer credit is to keep you in debt perpetuity. You are not supposed to be able to pay enough to escape debt, but you are supposed to pay interest on time or be disciplined by higher interest, penalties, fees, and harping, dunning, threats, and infantilizing phone calls.
