If aliens could beam to our shores with recording devices, a savage irony would immediately and immaculately light up their antennas: not only does our global society fail to provide The Golden Square to every person on Earth, humans are increasingly forced deeper and deeper into debt for those fundamental rights to Food, Shelter, Healthcare, and Education. The debt-staircase has become grossly absurd and toxically tragic—a ruinous prank laid upon us at an ever-accelerating rate since the dawn of neoliberalism. From cradle to grave, we’re trapped on a noxious treadmill of Debt Achievement Goals: School Lunch Debt, College Debt, Credit Card Debt, Auto Loan Debt, Housing Debt, Medical Debt, and more. And even after death, debt collectors hound our family members and moralize about unpaid balances. As David Graeber once said, “As it turns out, we don’t ‘all’ have to pay our debts. Only some of us do.” And who is that “some of us,” exactly? Well, certainly not the 1%; rather only the rest of us—the great unwashed 99%—as we resign to rumination and self-blame for not being entrepreneurial enough. As capitalism forces us to pay for our own existence (while it indiscriminately tears through the Earth’s remaining ecologies), we must seriously question the moral plea to “pay all debts.” And as it turns out, there is another path that leads us away from Terminal Dystopia Syndrome (TDS). Forged from relationships built during the prefigurative struggles of Occupy Wall Street —The Debt Collective has published an urgent and instructive new manifesto tackling the emergency of now: Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition. In this episode, Matt & Jesse consider the emancipatory ideas of this important book, the necessary demand to abolish debt, and how we might reclaim the “intellectual luxuries” we all deserve. The Debt Collective offer a persuasive argument for how and why Debtors Unions have dynamic potential to become the most liberatory union movement in history, providing the leverage needed to redress hierarchies of racial capitalism and colonial plunder by inaugurating a new era of investment in “Reparative Public Goods.” Amidst the powerful and dark-tidal pull of the COVID-19 pandemic, Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay provides a capstone to a trilogy on debt: David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years (an anthropological reckoning); Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot (a popular awakening), and finally, this book by the Debt Collective—a battle plan plan for how we unfuck the world that capitalism has smothered and smeared into shit. A 21st Century Debt Jubilee must be wrought by all of us, collectively.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Can't Pay, Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition by Debt Collective with a Foreword by Astra Taylor. Published in October of 2020 by Haymarket Books - The Debt Collective’s writers’ bloc includes Ann Larson, Astra Taylor, Hannah Appel, Thomas Gokey, and Laura Hanna.
Join The Union and Take Action with The Debt Collective:
Can't Pay, Won't Pay Book Excerpts:
Roar Magazine: The case for debt abolition: “We cannot afford not to rebel”
Jacobin: "There’s No Such Thing as a Good Debtor"
A Haymarket Books Talk:
Chenjerai Kumanyika facilitates a discussion with Astra Taylor and Hannah Appel: "Can't Pay Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition"
Book Reviews:
Alexis Clements in Hyperallergic: “Making the Case for Debt Abolition”
Teka Lo in Public Intellectuals: “A Book Review of an Anti-Dystopian Guidebook”
Podcast Appearances with The Debt Collective Writers’ Bloc:
Hannah Appel on THIS IS REVOLUTION: “Episode 72: How We Overcome the Crippling Burden of Debt w/ Debt Collective”
Astra Taylor on Waiting on Reparations: "From Debt to Society"
Thomas Gokey on This is Hell!: “Toward Mass Debt Resistance”
Thomas Gokey on Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast: “028 - The Debt Episode w/ Thomas Gokey of the Debt Collective”
Hannah Appel in Dissent Magazine: "There Is Power in a Debtors’ Union"
Creditocracy And The Case for Debt Refusal by Andrew Ross. Published in 2014 by OR Books.
For Noam Chomsky, when it comes to student loan debt - It’s by Design. Case in point: You’re not asked to pay your student debt back until after you leave college, which effectively atomizes students from solidarity actions and debt-resistance. Most quoted line by Chomsky on the subject:
“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a ‘disciplinary technique,’ and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the ‘disciplinarian culture.’ This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.”
Annie Nova in CNBC: “Bloomberg’s Plan to Tackle the $1.7 Trillion Student Loan Crisis”
Cameron Gordon in The Conversation: “The Debt Jubilee: an Old Testament Solution to a Modern Financial Crisis?”
Michael Hudson in Evonomics: “How Bronze Age Rulers Simply Canceled Debts: Clean Slate Proclamations Were Part of the Community’s Self-Preservation.”
The Haitian Revolution: A Wikipedia History & the most Celebrated Book on the Subject: C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and The San Domingo Revolution. Originally Published in 1989 by Vintage Books.
David Graeber’s Magnum Opus: Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Published in 2011 by Melville House.
Thomas Jefferson’s slaves were sold after his death to cover his outstanding debts: As Explored in Jeff Nilsson’s Article in the Saturday Evening Post: “The Debt and Death of Thomas Jefferson.”
Thomas Jefferson marshaled the use of debt as a weapon of colonial plunder - as noted in this passage from Can't Pay, Won't Pay:
“In 1803, Thomas Jefferson told lenders to encourage indigenous people to borrow excessively and then lay claim to their property as collateral. Debt, he argued, could be strategically deployed to force Native Americans to sell their territory. “To promote this disposition to exchange lands,” he wrote, “we shall push our trading houses and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt.”
YouTube Clip of Ronald Reagan’s Famous Phrase: “Government Is The Problem.”
Twitter is for Geniuses: Neil Gaiman’s Cavalier and Condescendingly Classist Advice to Non-Famous Writers.
“Work tree, work! Or a lobster will take your place!” - Learn from The Master Himself: MasterClass: Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling
Resilience in Higher Ed as Explored Menacingly in The Chronicle of Higher Education by David Steno: “We’re Teaching Grit the Wrong Way.”
David Webster: “Critiquing Discourses of Resilience in Education”
Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode 173: “Resisting Resilience With Nicola Rivers & David Webster”
Margaret Thatcher at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference: “There’s No Such Thing as Public Money”
"They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours." – Margaret Thatcher in an interview in Women's Own in 1987.
The Economist: "Why, Despite The Coronavirus Pandemic, House Prices Continue To Rise"
Jacob Passy in Marketwatch: “Home Prices Continued to Rise Even as the Coronavirus Pandemic Swept Across America, FHFA Says”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: “Property is theft!”
Tim Hjersted in Films for Action: “Profit Is Theft: It Sounds Absurd but Here’s Why”
Emmie Martin in CNBC: “Here’s How Much Housing Prices Have Skyrocketed Over the Last 50 Years”
Ronald Reagan as Governor of California on February 28, 1967: “There are certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we could do without." Taxpayers should not be "subsidizing intellectual curiosity.”
Dan Berrett in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Day the Purpose of College Changed”
Scott Lee Meyers on Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR): “Reagan's 1967 Speech Changed Purpose Of College Forever, Says Journalist”
The Black Panthers started out as a reading group at UC Berkeley, according to the scholar Donna Murch on Doug Henwood’s Behind the News.
Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California by Donna Jean Murch. Published in 2010 by University of North Carolina Press.
James M. Buchanan is an example of the conservative scholars saying ‘60s’ radical campuses were a big danger to the social order: As explored in: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacClean. Published in 2018 by Penguin Books.
Ricardo Vasquez in UCLA Newsroom: “UCLA Remains the Most Applied-to UC Campus and University in the Country”
1978 California Proposition 13: The Beginning of the Reagan Revolution and the Tax Revolt
“Hey Lobsters! Remember: Government is the Problem. Check out Milton Friedman's Fucking Pencil. Isn't it Awesome? There Really is No Alternative!”
Jordan Peterson: “Lessons from Lobsters”
Ronald Reagan: “Government is the Problem”
Milton Friedman: “I, Pencil”
Margaret Thatcher: “There is No Alternative”
Our Shared Debts:
US Student Loan Debt = $1.7 Trillion
US Household Debt = $14 Trillion
Global Household Debt = $48 Trillion
Total Global Debt = $255 Trillion
David Graeber at 36C3: “Managerial Feudalism and the Revolt of the Caring Classes”
“I would propose that we just rip up the discipline of economics as it exists and start over. So this is my proposal in this regard. I think that we should take the ideas of production and consumption, throw them away, and substitute for them the idea of care and freedom.”
Democracy Now on April 25, 2012: “1T Day: As U.S. Student Debt Hits $1 Trillion, Occupy Protests Planned for Campuses Nationwide”
Vauhini Vara in The New Yorker: “The Occupy Movement Takes on Student Debt”
The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual
David Graeber in The Guardian: “Caring Too Much. That’s the Curse of the Working Classes.”
Pat Garofalo in ThinkProgress: “Occupy Wall Street Launches ‘Rolling Jubilee’ To Buy Up And Forgive Debt”
Astra Taylor's Fellowship for The Debt Collective with the Shuttleworth Foundation.
The Los Angeles Bus Riders Union: A Wikipedia History
“We’re the BRU, and this is our fight. Mass transportation is a human right”
Laura Hanna of The Debt Collective and Mallory Heiney, a former Corinthian student and debt striker on NHPR: “15 Frustrated Students Launch The Country's First Student Debt Strike”
Gregory Wallace in CNN Money: “'Corinthian 15' Launch 'Debt Strike' Over Student Loans”
Vimal Patel in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Look Who’s Talking About Canceling Debt: How A Fringe Idea Went Mainstream”
Defense to Repayment (DTR) is a federal law that says people defrauded by their school have a right to the cancellation of their federal loans.
Bernie Sanders: The College For All Act
Lucy Diavolo in Teen Vogue: “Bernie Sanders Teamed Up With Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal on a Plan to Cancel All Student Loan Debt”
Luke Herrine in Jacobin: “Cancelling Student Debt Via Executive Action Would Build Working-Class Power”
Ella Nilsen in Vox: “Elizabeth Warren’s Ambitious Plan To Bypass Congress And Erase America’s Student Debt, Explained”
From Can't Pay, Won't Pay:
“All federal student debt can be erased in an instant using the authority Congress has already vested in the Department of Education. The law is called “Compromise and Settlement,” and implementing it would require little more than the Secretary of Education’s signature.”
Jessica Corbett in Common Dreams: “With Eye on Biden Victory, Warren and Schumer Unveil Plan to Cancel Up to $50,000 for Federal Student Loan Borrowers”
Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Plan for Partial Student Debt Cancellation Was Inspired by The Debt Collective: As Explored by Jillian Berman in Marketwatch: “Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Cancel Student Debt Has Its Origins in Occupy Wall Street.”
Chris Arnold on NPR’s Morning Edition: “Forgiving Student Debt Would Boost Economy, Economists Say”
How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century by Erik Olin Wright. Published in 2019 by Verso Books. Discussed in Episode 026: How to Erode Capitalism in the 21st Century
The union membership rate in the U.S. is now down to 10.3%.
Kathleen Elkins in Business Insider: “80% of Americans Own Just 7% of the Country's Wealth”
Inventing The Future and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams. Published in 2016 by Verso Books. Discussed in Episode 014: A World Without Work
Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution by James Fergusan. Published in 2015 by Duke University Press.
Jacobin on YouTube: Samuel Moyn: The Problem With “Human Rights”
Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World by Samuel Moyn. Published in 2018 by Harvard University Press.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A "freedom budget" for all Americans; budgeting our resources, 1966-1975, to achieve "freedom from want." by A. Philip Randolph Institute.
"How the Civil-Rights Movement Aimed to End Poverty – “A Freedom Budget for All Americans” proposed spending billions of federal dollars to provide jobs and basic welfare to all citizens." – a story by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin - in The Atlantic - Feb. 2018
Martin Luther King, Jr.: “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?”
Zaid Jalani in The Intercept: “Martin Luther King Jr. Celebrations Overlook His Critiques of Capitalism and Militarism.”
Michael Walker and Ash Sarkar on Novara Media’s #TskySour: “Failed State Debate”
Combahee River Collective: “Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will be Free.”
The Red Nation: “Communism Is the Horizon, Queer Indigenous Feminism Is the Way.”
Christain Slater’s Ending Manifesto in Season 1, Episode 10 of Mr. Robot: “esp1.9_zer0-day.avi”:
“Is any of it real? I mean, look at this, look at it! A world built on fantasy! Synthetic emotions in the form of pills! Psychological warfare in the form of advertising! Mind altering chemicals in the form of food! Brainwashing seminars in the form of media! Controlled isolated bubbles in the form of social networks. Real? You want to talk about reality? We haven't lived in anything remotely close to it since the turn of the century! We turned it off, took out the batteries, snacked on a bag of GMOs, while we tossed the remnants into the ever expanding dumpster of the human condition. We live in branded houses, trademarked by corporations, built on bipolar numbers, jumping up and down on digital displays, hypnotizing us into the biggest slumber mankind has ever seen. You'd have to dig pretty deep, kiddo, before you can find anything real. We live in a kingdom of bullshit, that even you have lived in for far too long. So don't tell me about not being real: I'm no less real than the fucking beef patty in your big mac. As far as you are concerned, Elliot, I am very real. We are all together now, whether you like it or not.”
Stefan Mann on Vimeo: "The Most Honest 8 Minutes of Television…..Ever (Mr. Robot)"
Colin Tredoux & John Dixon in Nature: “Encounters with Inequality Lead to Demands for Taxes on the Rich”
David Dayen in The American Prospect: “Building the People’s Banks”
Matt Breunig in the People’s Policy Project: “Social Wealth Fund for America”