The recent federal emergency stimulus package demonstrates that what politicians often claim is impossible is sometimes necessary:  debts that cannot be paid will not be paid.  The question is, who will be bailed out, and why?   Why is the most important priority of the US government the 4 trillion dollar price of bailing out Wall Street?   Is the financial economy really necessary, or is it a parasite destroying the conditions of life on this planet?   The Debt Collective ( https://debtcollective.org/) and other organizing efforts are already challenging the legitimacy of the debt-based economy, and in view of the current crisis, calls for rent strikes and even a general strike may join with debt strikes to challenge the basis of economic power.

Join Richard Robbins, Devin Singh, and Joshua Ramey online for an investigation into the history of debt politics, the relation of debt to money itself, and a discussion of how to undo the moral, ideological, and even religious attachments most people have to paying their debts.

Richard Robbins is the Chair of Anthropology at SUNY-Plattsburgh and the co-author, among many other works, of Debt as Power.

Devin Singh is Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, and the author of Divine Currency:  The Theological Power of Money in the West.

Joshua Ramey is Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace, Justice, and Human Rights at Haverford College.  He is the author of Politics of Divination:  Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency and is currently working on a book entitled For the Remains:  Undoing Economic Sovereignty.

Online time: Saturday, April 11, 10am (EST- Eastern Time Zone). A Zoom link will be available on registration.
Reading: If you would like to dig into some texts beforehand, Joshua Ramey recommends the following: Richard Robbins and Tim DiMuzio, Debt As Power (it’s not long, and you can just sort of root around in it and pick up the argument fairly easily). You can get a sense of Devin Singh’s work two ways: A recent article of his, “Debt Cancellation as Sovereign Crisis Management,” . . . and a recent symposium on his book, Divine Currency:  The Theological Power of Money in the West.
Registration: You must register at Online Seminars to receive the online link.

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