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Oligopsony comments on A Kick in the Rationals: What hurts you in your LessWrong Parts? - Less Wrong
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A world where this accurately describes reality, rather than one where it doesn't, is one where 1) most people consent, more or less, to the idea that they should pay their debts, 2) indebtedness is stigmatized, 3) debt is seen primarily as a relationship between individuals, 4) the indebted are less likely to be politically active than they would if they were not indebted, ..., &c. It's intended to resonate with one's phenomenal experience and background assumptions, and no, it doesn't attempt much more than that, so like I said, it's a bad argument.
This may sound like a glib remark, and it is, but it's also a legitimate query: where are they hiding all the good arguments?
My lit-crit friend, a Ph.D. student herself, presumably provided this example in the misguided hope that it would offer an insight into the value of her way of thinking. Was it just a bad choice on her part? Is there some secret trove of critical theory observations on debt that I might look at and think "woah! This is knowledge worth having"?
Well, I think you need to more rigidly designate "they," but since neither debt nor literature-department-influenced frameworks are my actual bailiwick I can't in confidence help you out here. I do find that some of the Big Inscrutable Names, like Foucault and Althusser, can be useful to think with.
(If it sounds as though I'm being a really poor defender of Critical Whatever it's because I'm not, really; I'm more used to being typecast as the guy who thinks the cultural turn was bullshit. But it's not as bullshit as most intelligent outsiders assume, is my incredibly modest claim.)