Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Creditocracy: making the case for debt refusal

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Creditocracy: making the case for debt refusal

Click here to access article by Hollis Phelps from Reflections on a Revolution.

The views expressed in this article furnish another illustration of a middle-class liberal critique of one aspect of capitalism, however it is framed as a radical critique. Phelps discusses the recent book by Professor Andrew Ross entitled Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal.

Ross is...mindful of Marx’s dictum in his Theses on Feuerbach that the point of criticism and analysis is not simply to interpret the world but to change it. Ross thus considers his analysis as a necessary means to an end: to make a moral case to his readers for collective debt resistance.

As the title suggests, Ross identifies the system as "creditocracy"--not capitalism as you may have thought--and the problem is illegitimate debt from creditors. Thus, the solution is resistance to such debt. In his way of thinking, the rule of creditors of such debt is a threat to an existing democracy.

In his latest book, Creditocracy, scholar-activist Andrew Ross makes a compelling case for debt refusal as “a protective deed on behalf of democracy”.

By framing the system as creditocracy and the means of its resistance as debt resistance will do very little in overturning the system of capitalism. And, of course, real democracy does not and cannot exist in a class-structured society regardless of debt. It is surprising to find this sort of analysis on a website that purports to be revolutionary.