It seems like pretty much everybody--homeowners, students, those who are
ill and without health insurance, and, of course, credit card
holders--is up to their neck in debt that can never be repaid. 77% of US
households are seriously indebted and one in seven Americans has been
pursued by debt collectors. The major banks are bigger and more
profitable than before the 2008 crash, and legislators are all but
powerless to bring them to heel.
In this forceful, eye-opening survey, Andrew Ross contends that we are
in the cruel grip of a creditocracy--where the finance industry
commandeers our elected governments and where the citizenry have to take
out loans to meet their basic needs. The implications of mass
indebtedness for any democracy are profound, and history shows that
whenever a creditor class becomes as powerful as Wall Street, the result
has been debt bondage for the bulk of the population.
Following in the ancient tradition of the jubilee, activists have had
some success in repudiating the debts of developing countries. The time
is ripe, Ross argues, for a debtors' movement to use the same kinds of
moral and legal arguments to bring relief to household debtors in the
North. After examining the varieties of lending that have contributed to
the crisis, Ross suggests ways of lifting the burden of illegitimate
debts from our backs. Just as important, Creditocracy outlines the
kind of alternative economy we need to replace a predatory debt-money
system that only benefits the one percent.
