For at least 5,000 years, before capitalism even existed, popular movements have tended to center on struggles over debt. There is a reason for this. Debt is the most efficient means ever created to make relations fundamentally based on violence and inequality seem morally upright. When this trick no longer works everything explodes, as it is now. Debt has revealed itself as the greatest weakness of the system, the point where it spirals out of control. But debt also allows endless opportunities for organizing.This is absolutely right. The trick with debt is that it’s made to appear as a function of personal responsibility. Those who are responsible don’t get into debt they can’t pay back. If you’re in debt now and can’t pay it back, that’s your problem. You shouldn’t have borrowed the money in the first place.
The problem with this appeal to personal responsibility is twofold. First, if it’s an individual problem, they how can the problem be so general? According to this article “There were 145,000 home foreclosures last year -- a 21 percent increase from 2007 and a 108 percent increase from 2006. Another 11,000 families lost their homes in January alone.” The problem isn’t one of personal responsibility. It’s a systemic problem. Something went wrong beyond people’s personal choices. Choices don't exist in a vacuum. Holes are dug, and people are pushed toward them.
That brings us to the second problem: even if this couldn’t have happened without individuals making bad personal choices about their own money, it’s definitely a general, societal problem now when you consider how things have spiraled out of control as a result of it. The point has already long past where we can sanctify debt. What we need now is for companies like Countrywide to be forced by the government to get off of people’s backs and let them keep their homes. And if the government won’t force them to do it, we need to form a debtors’ union and collectively negate our debts.
Graeber sounds lukewarm on this proposal though. See what he says next:
Some speak of a debtors’ strike or debtors’ cartel. Perhaps so, but at the very least we can start with a pledge against evictions. Neighborhood by neighborhood we can pledge to support each other if we are driven from our homes. This power does not solely challenge regimes of debt, it challenges the moral foundation of capitalism.This power creates a new regime.I mean, I guess. To respond to the idea of government intervention in the debt crisis or worse, to respond to the idea of a debtors’ union with a “perhaps”, in favor of a “moral” challenge to capital seems hopelessly perfectionistic and idealistic to me. While I'm not intimately familiar with Graeber's line, I suspect it comes from this general view that the only institutions that have the moral right to challenge capital are those that reflect the will of the people in a direct, almost mystically immediate way. A lot of leftists are skeptical of a debtors' union because they're skeptical of unions in general. They’re skeptical of the “traditional” organs of working class struggle, the ones that don’t really end up representing the people, after all.
Surely we need both. We need to turn around the moral logic of personal responsibility and constantly point out the ways in which capitalism is a system of slavery and theft, even in the relatively affluent United States. We need to mediate so-called personal problems with general categories and concepts, showing how what appears to be personal in fact exemplifies class antagonisms fundamental to the capitalist mode of production. But we also need to take a practical point of view with regard to these criticisms, and that means utilizing to the greatest degree possible all the institutions and organizing technologies at our disposal, not just the sexy, radically decentered ones. Our orientation should not just be moral or practical. It should be political. That means creating new institutions that adequately express working class power, but it also means seizing power from the hands of our masters, taking over their institutions, and wielding that power against them with impunity.
No, I said that because I don't have a line. I said "perhaps" because I don't want to prejudge matters. Yeah, that might be an excellent idea. But maybe someone else has an even better one. If you want to go out and create a debtor's union, I say, great! You will certainly have my support.
ReplyDeleteDavid Graeber
I think that we need to develop some very practical ways of building a debtors union step by step starting at the local level. David’s essay puts forth a great way to start which is by opposing and preventing evictions. The groups that do that work would be forming embryonic parts of the debtors union. If a better idea comes up then by all means we should take it up. But the more practical things we can come up with to build the movement on the ground the better. If we could consolidate tales and tactics of resistance to teach and inspire on another we will be ale to solve this current crisis in the way that benefits working people all over the world.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I found objectionable in the article was that it seemed like it was coming principally from a moral angle. I'm not against such an attack against capitalism by any means. Like I said in my post, I think we have to attack the idea of personal responsibility (or being personally irresponsible) that's behind the idea of debt, and we have to lay the blame instead at others' feet. That's a moral angle. But I would also emphasize a political direction: for example, pushing the Obama administration to move on this issue, having lots of top-down solutions as well, not just bottom-up stuff. I believe strongly in the power of grassroots organizing, and I think that a debtors' union would likely start with the kinds of activities Graeber mentions in his article. (And also I believe there were similar joint activities done in the 70s to lower the cost of energy bills?) But the problem is so enormous, I don't see how we're going to resolve it without top-down political solutions, too. Which is why I mention the class Marxist-Leninist strategy of seizing power—which I know makes some people uncomfortable on different grounds.
ReplyDeleteFrom http://www.plunkettresearch.com/Industries/BankingMortgagesCredit/BankingMortgagesCreditStatistics/tabid/233/Default.aspx
ReplyDeleteThere is 14Trillion in mortgages, with 6% delinquency rate. Let's assume that is basically 6% of 14T which is 840B. It is probably less because delinquency is focused at the bottom end of housing values. Of course, prices have risen, so the bottom of the last few years is higher than average, let's call it a wash.
So then 840B and we're done right? WRONG!!
The banks created huge leveraged instruments on this 840B. That's why each dollar lost in subprime is turning out to be n$ (who knows, 3, 4, 5 times) in lost "paper" (fake, fraudulent) value.
Current estimates are 3T covers that paper value, value which never existed.
Ready for big inflation in 2010? Get the barrels out.
FYI, capitalism is fundamentally human. We all have things that others value more highly than we do...and vice-versa. That is called a "market" and the trading begins. Multiply it by 5B people and it gets pretty complicated.
@anonymous: Good link! If anything, that information verifies that this is less a problem of individual deadbeats not paying what they owe and more a result of systemic corruption from the banks and the rest of the finance industry.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the scary stuff happening with the banks in Europe.
"European bank bail-out could push EU into crisis"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4590512/European-banks-may-need-16.3-trillion-bail-out-EC-dcoument-warns.html
I'd have to disagree just a bit on calling capitalism fundamentally human. "Trade" is fundamentally human; capitalism is a social construct ostensibly based on principles of trade. Monopoly capitalism as we have it now runs counter to the free nature of human trade since we're all forced to produce and buy our goods and services from practically the same entities.
Anonymous points out the problem, 3 trillion dollars worth of fake, imaginary of fictitious wealth. In the article Graeber puts it eloquently:
ReplyDelete"What is debt? It’s imaginary money whose value can only be realized in the future. Finance capital is, in turn, the buying and selling of these imaginary future profits."
So the crisis revolves around the $3 trillion. There are two solutions. Either we, the taxpayers, give the banks $3 trillion out of our future earnings to realize their fake claims or we flush the $3 trillion in fake claims out of the systems by organizing a mass default.
I never claimed capitalism came from outer space or was secreted by plants, so yeah, I guess it is "fundamentally human", at least in that sense. However, DNA evidence indicates modern humans emerged in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Capitalism is only about 400 years old. If capitalism is that fundamental to the human condition, one must explain what was, uhh, suppressing it for all those millenia.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism is fine, we need to control it. The notion of "free markets" is ridiculously insane, like they somehow have a "life". It's retarded and has been sold to us by people pushing an agenda.
ReplyDeleteTime to harness capitalism for the people. That is done through taxes, and it works just fine.
First thing we can do is fix the military budget. Anyone notice that the Pentagon just submitted a 600B budget: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/washington/03cnd-military.html
I like to say "800B for the people, 600B to kill them."
There is SOOOO much wealth/slack in the system, with a refocus of priority we'll be in great shape. Obama knows this and that is why he exudes such confidence. I GUARANTEE his 2013 budget reduction projections are based on military cuts.
The Rovian plan was to spend so much that we had to cut SS social programs. He literally stated this, so they tried to spend those programs away, this is stated fact. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot, Obama will spend away the military.
This article is a must read for anyone who wants to know how we got here, it is astonishing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200709/karl-rove
I for one am a happy man despite personal losses in the market, this will be a better world from this decimation of the rich.
David Graeber has been (is being?) silenced as are others who fight hopelessness. Why? Because people are fearful to admit they are addicted to limitations. Most of us are addicted to the limitations of consumerism, but we need to become aware that we are likewise addicted to the limitations of social and cultural identity(race, gender , ethnicity, religion, class, all comparisons labels). We only PRACTICE fighting each other (we are really MASTERS at fighting our emotional selves). We will continue to fight ourselves and each other instead of fighting what needs to be fought, namely our addiction to the emotionality involved in providing ourselves with basic survival needs. If we all could be assured of having our basic survival needs met, then we could get on with the hard work of overcoming our emotional defensiveness about the meaning, or more accurately the absence of meaning, in our lives. Instead most of us cling to our limitations and seek deeper and deeper oblivion from awareness of just how emotionally defensive we are. Of course it is instinctual to be defensive about our most basic survival needs, but to seek more than what we need to live simply is having life "live" you and having life "use" you! This is the source of the emotional defensiveness that is hidden from awareness by distractions ivolving drama and ego. What might work in the cases of those about to be evicted from their only home could be a variation on the following: We could develop public opinion to have a consensus that debt(ie mortgages in authentic default, as opposed to theoretical default, ie where there are hidden, even legally protected assets beyond what is abolutely needed for basic survival,)is the process of PRACTICING to owe others but is really owed to the self and that those who owe debts on property and/or services transfer the debt to a BANK (or a BLANK)) PERSONALITY almost like a pawn shop and admit they have an absent or a blank personality and are emotionally defensive, (they will be provided with basic necessities) until they can get back or for the very first time obtain their unique personality by proving they are free from emotional defensiveness. They will risk being made emotionally defensive if they seek more than their basic needs unless and until everyone else has their basic needs and these are secure for all. This universal supply of basic needs for all will be further secured due to the belief and corresponding actions of all as a result of the desire to sustain hopefullness as it is seen and felt in the freedom from emotional limitations (defensiveness). Then enhancements to everyones basic needs can begin without emotional defensiveness. Then freedom from emotional defensiveness will be what all authentic personalities will seek in the form of freedom from external government. Self government by the golden, or unique "rule" of freedom from the emotional limitations of defensiveness will be sought as meaning for ones life. To prove this will work I challenge anyone to try to make me emotionally defensive.
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