Strike Debt

Debt resistance collective

Strike Debt is a decentralized debt resistance collective. Formed as an offshoot from Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy movement, it is similar to Occupy Sandy in practicing "mutual aid as direct action".[1] In 2012, they published the Debt Resistors Operations Manual.[2]

## Rolling Jubilee

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Bay Area Strike Debt's 2014 launch party for a new Debt Resisters' Operations Manual edition

Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt initiative that purchases and forgives monetary debt on the secondary market. Bank loans deemed unlikely to be repaid are reclassified as risky. Banks looking to recuperate the debt's little outstanding worth resell these portfolios on the secondary market at a fraction of their original worth. This type of high-risk debt is normally purchased by debt collectors who believe they can recover more from the loan than the banks could. The Rolling Jubilee, however, using crowdfunded donations and telethons, buys the debt to forgive it.[3] The ideological impetus for the scheme came from Debt: The First 5,000 Years, in which the anthropologist David Graeber advocates for a biblical-style Jubilee absolution of debt.[3] While Strike Debt's debt forgiveness is not meant to solve the structural inequalities of indebtedness, its organizers intend for the symbolism of their actions to remind the public of the morality of debt, its ability to be addressed, and its worth far below its listed price.[4]

The group started with $500 to erase $14,000 of debt in November 2012,[3] when the project went viral.[5] The next month, they erased $100,000 of medical debt for 44 upstate New Yorkers. Each recipient was notified through a red, wrapped package, approximating a Christmas gift.[3] Strike Debt received about $700,000 in donations from supporters between November 2012 and December 2013,[4] after which they stopped collecting donations.[6] From this total, they used $400,000 to purchase $13.5 million of medical debt from nearly 2,700 debtors and $1.2 million of other personal debt.[4] Strike Debt purchased the debt at a 50-to-1 ratio with no additional details on the debtors apart from their addresses, to which they mailed a letter explaining the project and that the debt was now canceled. The group turned to focus on student loans next.[7]

After being shut out by major student loan servicer Navient, Strike Debt targeted Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit institution affiliated with predatory lending practices. In September 2014, the Rolling Jubilee absolved $3.8 million in private student loans for 2,700 students of Corinthian's Everest College.[4]

The anti-capitalist group both encourages the breakdown of current debt dogma and acknowledges the smallness of their role within larger debt structures. Strike Debt perceives its Rolling Jubilee as a public education campaign to "build a national debtors' movement" and showcase the effects of predatory debt on communities and people. It wants to encourage debt erasure as a public policy practice and to erase the stigma behind defaulting. To this end, the group wants those reached by the jubilee to pay it forward such that their contributions will help the jubilee reach others, such as those that Strike Debt encourages to default.[3]

In Raritan, Eli Cook praised the plan's elegance and subversiveness. Conservative pundits, including a Fortune contributor, also affirmed its brilliance.[3] Meanwhile, criticism within the movement asked whether this form of relief constituted political action, considering how recipients often did not view the gesture as political.[1]

## The Debt Collective

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The Debt Collective is a union of student debt strikers.[8] Announced in late 2014, this Strike Debt initiative began as a platform for debtor organization and advocacy.[4][5] The collective is looking to create an economic identity common to student debtors, undo the normalized expectations for college students to enter debt, and weaken the moral expectations around repaying debt ultimately worth pennies on the dollar. Ultimately, the Debt Collective plans to advocate for free education and the abolition of student loans. Some of the Debt Collective's difficulties include debtors' own perception that student loans are elective, that there is no common enemy, and that many debtors have disparate, chaotic lives. Strike Debt had unsuccessfully attempted a similar approach in 2012, to get one million student debtors to default as a statement.[5]

The group supported the "Corinthian 15" students who sought full debt relief as their school, the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, was being dismantled while under multiple investigations and lawsuits.[9] Following Corinthian's 2015 bankruptcy, the Debt Collective helped students file thousands of loan forgiveness claims, exercising a U.S. Department of Education escape clause in which debtors misled by their college can ask for forgiveness.[10]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the collective organized 1,600 debtors to strike, deferring their loan payments, with the hope that mass financial civil disobedience would lead to debt relief and cancellation.[8]

## References

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1. ^ a b Hammond, John L. (April 2015). "The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street". Science & Society. 79 (2): 304. doi:10.1521/siso.2015.79.2.288. ISSN 0036-8237. Archived from the original on May 9, 2021. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
2. ^ Kaminer, Ariel (November 13, 2012). "Occupy Wall St. Offshoot Aims to Erase People's Debts". The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2021.
3. ^ a b c d e f Cook, Eli (2013). "Can David Graeber Become the Marx of the Debtor Class?". Raritan. 33 (2): 83–85\. ISSN 0275-1607. Archived from the original on July 14, 2019. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
4. ^ a b c d e Kasperkevic, Jana (September 17, 2014). "Occupy activists abolish $3.85m in Corinthian Colleges students' loan debt". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
5. ^ a b c "Shame to Outrage: Group Takes Action Against Student Debt Crisis". NBC News. September 16, 2014. Archived from the original on January 12, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
6. ^ https://rollingjubilee.org Archived June 16, 2021, at the Wayback Machine "But as of December 31st, 2013, we have stopped accepting new donations."
7. ^ Dilts, Elizabeth (November 12, 2013). "Occupy Wall Street buys $15 million of Americans' medical debt". NBC News. Reuters. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
8. ^ a b Lam, Julia Carpenter and Bourree (November 9, 2020). "The Student Loan Crisis Led to a Debt Strike. Experts Have Other Ideas". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
9. ^ Jaffe, Sarah (February 23, 2015). "'We won't pay': students in debt take on for-profit college institution". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
10. ^ Cowley, Stacy (November 11, 2018). "Borrowers Face Hazy Path as Program to Forgive Student Loans Stalls Under Betsy DeVos". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 15, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.

## Further reading

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* Altman, Anna (November 21, 2012). "Occupy Returns, With a New Idea". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Bringardner, John (November 26, 2013). "A Robin Hood for the Debt Crisis?". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Chang, Clio (March 1, 2021). "Either We Break Our Pandemic Debts or Our Pandemic Debts Break Us". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Ellis, Blake (March 15, 2013). "Occupy offshoot forgives $1 million in random people's debt". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on April 9, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Ellis, Blake (September 17, 2014). "Occupy abolishes $4 million in other people's student loan debt". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on November 12, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Ellis, Blake (November 9, 2012). "Occupy's Wall Street's new mission: Forgiving peoples' debt". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Fischer, Molly (November 9, 2021). "David Graeber's Possible Worlds". Intelligencer. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
* Ford, Paul (November 15, 2012). "Big Problems, Little Solutions: For the New Occupy, Size Is Everything". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on November 19, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Gabbatt, Adam (November 15, 2012). "Occupy launches 'Rolling Jubilee' debt forgiveness programme". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Gould-Wartofsky, Michael A. (2015). The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-931391-4.
* Graeff, Erhardt (2016). "Case Study: Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee—Building a Debt Resistance Movement". In Gordon, Eric; Mihailidis, Paul (eds.). Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice. The MIT Press. pp. 137–146\. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9970.003.0010. ISBN 978-0-262-33424-2. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Kaminer, Ariel (November 13, 2012). "Occupy Offshoot Aims to Erase People's Debts". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 7, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Kasperkevic, Jana (July 21, 2015). "Strike Debt: Occupy offshoot fights for students at New Orleans parade". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 31, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Leach, Anna (March 23, 2018). "The rebel bank, printing its own notes and buying back people's debts". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on January 7, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Lowrey, Annie (May 17, 2015). "Protesting Student Debt With Astra Taylor". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on November 20, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Martin, Nick (February 7, 2020). "The Radical Possibilities of Not Paying Your Student Loans". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583.
* Matthews, Christopher (November 12, 2012). "The People's Bailout: Occupy Wall Street Wants to Forgive Your Debt". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Mejia, Paula (September 17, 2014). "Occupy Wall Street Offshoot Rolling Jubilee Wants to Pay Off Your Student Debt". Newsweek. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Newitz, Annalee (September 17, 2014). "Possibly the Most Relevant Political Movement for Our Future". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Ogman, Robert (2014). The U.S. Occupy Movement – Since the Eviction from the Squares. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Patel, Vimal (January 23, 2020). "Look Who's Talking About Canceling Debt". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Shultz, Alex (April 8, 2021). "Eye of the storm: Debt organizers prepare for end of moratoriums". SFGATE. Archived from the original on June 20, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Skidelsky, Robert (October 21, 2014). "The moral economy of debt". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on September 14, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
* Smith, Heather (December 7, 2014). "'We want democracy, but we don't have the theory or skill to do it'". Grist. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
* Stewart, Emily (April 23, 2019). "We are (still) the 99 percent". Vox. Archived from the original on May 26, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.

## External links

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* Official website
* Rolling Jubilee
* The Debt Collective
* Full text of the Debt Resistors' Operations Manual