The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual is a project of Strike Debt. Strike Debt is building a movement of debt resistance and liberation based on principles of anti-oppression, autonomy, democratic decision-making and direct action. Debt resistance can take many forms and Strike Debt is developing tactics, resources, and frameworks for expanding the fight against the debt system while developing alternative systems of mutual aid for the common good.
Strike Debt emerged out of thematic assemblies held in May 2012 in solidarity with the student strikes in Montreal. Occupy Theory, Occupy Student Debt Campaign, and Free University collaborated to hold an assembly on Education and Debt. Several weeks later, the group continued to meet under the name “Strike Debt.” Strike Debt quickly realized that organizing around all forms of debt provided much-needed energy and systematic analysis to the movement.
In addition to this manual, Strike Debt initiatives include launching the “Rolling Jubilee,” a mutual-aid project that buys debt at steeply discounted prices and then abolishes it; hosting debtors’ assemblies; and planning direct actions across the country, ranging from debt burnings to targeted shutdowns of predatory lenders. Each project is seen as a strike against the predatory debt system.
Check out their homepage and more on the Rolling Jubilee
The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual
SKU: 9781604866797
Editor: Strike Debt
Publisher: PM Press/Common Notions
ISBN: 9781604866797
Published: 4/2014
Format: Paperback, ePub, PDF, mobi
Size: 5 x 8
Page count: 256
Subjects: Politics-Social Movements/Current Events/Economics
Praise
“That debt is neither inevitable nor ethical is one of the powerful
assertions of Strike Debt, whose brilliant manual is both a practical
handbook and a manifesto for a true debt jubilee: an economic rebirth in
which the indebted are freed and financial institutions are
reinvented.”
— Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
“The impact of the neoliberal assault on the U.S. population in the
past generation has rightly been designated a ‘failure by design.’ This
failure is sharply class-based—for the designers it has been a grand
success, and a failure for most of the rest. The same is true of debt.
That sets two tasks for those who care about the health of the society:
change the design, and find ways to cope as effectively with the
failures it imposes. This valuable monograph by Strike Debt provides a
good guide to undertake both.”
—Noam Chomsky, author of Hopes and Prospects
“The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual is a powerful tool
for resistance and creation. It shows how we can say ‘no!’ to
debt—resist and refuse—at the same time it opens the possibility of
alternative ways of relating and creating real value together, based on
solidarity and care.”
—Marina Sitrin, author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina
“This Manual is a practical guide that will aid anyone who
is struggling with debt. But even more important it is a political guide
that illuminates the myriad kinds of debt relationships that define our
society and helps us imagine how we can begin to organize collectively
against debt.”
—Michael Hardt, author of Commonwealth
“The Debt Resisters’ Operation Manual is a sober, practical
book that will save its readers much money and many sleepless nights. At
the same time it is a visionary text that goes into the bowels of the
debt machine to chart a collective way out of the state of debt-induced
indentured servitude that millions of Americans face. Get a copy and
join the movement.”
—Silvia Federici, author of Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle
Book Events
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Reviews
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