A powerful guide to action for the debt-ridden ready to fight
back.
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.
Debtors of the world
must unite. Through tactics such as strikes and collective
bargaining, debtors’ movements can help redress our country’s
foundations in racial capitalism and environmental destruction. As
isolated individuals, debtors have little influence. But as a bloc,
we can leverage our debts and devise new, powerful strategies to
challenge the corporate creditor class and help win universal public
goods.
Individually, our
debts overwhelm us. But together, our debts can make us powerful.