‘Alone our debts are a burden. Together they make us powerful.’ That’s the key message of the Debt Collective, a US-based debtors’ union, cofounded by Astra Taylor.
With its roots in the Occupy movement, Debt Collective has brought together borrowers from across the US to wield their collective power to challenge illegitimate debt.
‘It was evident at the Occupy encampment that debt was a major personal burden that many of the people there experienced,’ Taylor explains, over the phone from the US. ‘I had also defaulted on my student loan a couple of years prior.’
Describing herself as an ‘old-school Leftist’, another key influence for Taylor was the worldwide Jubilee 2000 movement of the 1990s, which called for the cancellation of Global South debt. ‘This idea that debt is not neutral – it’s political and connected to democracy – is one that was absolutely gleaned from the Jubilee 2000 campaign,’ she says.
Debt Collective is growing at a time when US household debt has reached an all-time high of $17.29 trillion. And it’s been winning. In 2015, Debt Collective organized a student debt strike, and launched an ongoing campaign
