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bricolage
17th November 2012, 19:21
so there seems to be quite a bit of buzz around the strike debt stuff in the US and people in the UK catching on to it a bit now as well. it seems the first thing is this 'debt jubilee' thing and then a move towards a debtors union but this bits all vague.

anyway there's been some pretty bold statements coming out of it and one that I recently saw was this:

So to me, the question is not, Why organize around debt? so much as, How to organize around debt? The struggle over debt will be the front-line conflict of our times, just like the struggle over wages in the era of high industrialization. Thats not to say that wage conflict is over (it never will be), but that debts are the wages of the future, and the debt profits extracted by the finance industry are the equivalent of wage theft.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/strike-debt-the-debate

I was reminded of this when someone linked to this article from summer of this year which makes an equally bold statement:

t is no exaggeration to say that debt has replaced work as the driving force of capitalism.
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/work_isnt_working

Opinions?

Lynx
17th November 2012, 21:45
There is money to be made on debt, but it constitutes only a part of the world economy. There have been defaults and debt jubilees in the past, its hardly a new concept.

LiberationTheologist
17th November 2012, 21:59
Good links.

This is the the real here and now issue. I have been advocating that people in the USA reject the now 16.2 trillion US dollar federal debt because over 60% of that debt is war debt. Add in the drug war debt on the local and state level and you have plenty of reason to reject the debt.

For the people in Europe, African and Latin America though, on what grounds can they reject debt? The debt is different in each country but I'm sure the similarities exist. War debt and the police state debt for recreational drugs, prostitution and gambling should all be rejected as should corporate welfare debt foisted onto the people's backs.