Strike Debt

Social Movements 

Over the last thirty years, as wages have stagnated across the country, average household debt has more than doubled. Increasingly, we are forced to take on debt to meet our needs, from housing, to education, to medical care. The results—wrecked lives, devastated communities, and an increasing reliance on credit to maintain our basic living standards—reveal an economic system that enriches the few at the expense of the many.

The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual is a movement-produced handbook for debtors everywhere to understand how this system really works, while providing practical tools for fighting debt in its most exploitative forms. Inside, you’ll find strategies for dealing with credit card debt, medical debt, student debt, housing debt, and an analysis of tax debt, sovereign debt, as well as the relationship between debt and climate. You’ll also find tips for navigating personal bankruptcy, and for protecting yourself from credit reporting agencies, debt collectors, and payday lenders, alongside a vision for a movement of mass debt resistance.

The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual is a project of Strike Debt, which is building a movement of debt resistance and liberation based on principles of anti-oppression, autonomy, democratic decision-making, and direct action. In addition to this manual, Strike Debt initiatives include launching the “Rolling Jubilee,” a mutual-aid project that buys debt at steeply discounted prices and then abolishes it; hosting debtors’ assemblies; and planning direct actions across the country, ranging from debt burnings to targeted shutdowns of predatory lenders.