by Debt Collective
Haymarket Books
10/20/2020, paperback
SKU: 9781642592627
Debtors have been mocked, scolded and lied to for decades. We have been told that it is perfectly normal to go into debt to get medical care, to go to school, or even to pay for our own incarceration. We've been told there is no way to change an economy that pushes the majority of people into debt while a small minority hoard wealth and power.
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that mass indebtedness and extreme inequality are a political choice. In the early days of the crisis, elected officials drew up plans to spend trillions of dollars. The only question was: where would the money go and who would benefit from the bailout?
The truth is that there has never been a lack of money for things like housing, education and health care. Millions of people never needed to be forced into debt for those things in the first place.
Armed with this knowledge, a militant debtors movement has the potential to rewrite the contract and assure that no one has to mortgage their future to survive.
Reviews:
"This book explains why we are overdue for a debt revolution and, more importantly, how to do it. To abolish debt is to begin to rebuild society. We need to start doing so now." --David Graeber
"Defusing explosive debts and undermining the legitimacy of the punitive, profitable debt system of the current United States is insurrectionary work, and uniting debtors in common cause is solidarity and justice work. This anticapitalist manual is a beautiful guide to how and why to do all those things." --Rebecca Solnit
About the Author:
Debt Collective is a membership organization working to transform our individual financial struggles into a source of collective power, offering services to empower people to dispute debts and conducting direct actions and campaigns of non-cooperation with the finance industry.