Resistance to Debt: Catiline, El Barzon and Strike Debt

Resistance to Debt is increasingly the way that class struggle is being expressed today. But debt resistance is not new. In Ancient Rome the battles between debtors and creditors were real ones, fought to the finish. This kind of struggle has returned in the late 20th century in many parts of the world though in a less bloody manner. Caffentzis will discuss one of the largest debt resistors’ organization in history, the El Barzon (or The Yoke) movement in Mexico in the 1990s. A number of common elements in these movements will be discussed and their strengths and weaknesses will be discussed. Finally, he will introduce the work of a debt resistors’ organization that is forming in the US arising out of the Occupy movement in the US.

George Caffentzis is a philosopher of money and a participant in Strike Debt who lives in NYC. He is author of several works including: Clipped Coins, Abused Words and Civil Government: John Locke’s Philosophy of Money (New York: Autonomedia/ Semiotext(e) Press, 1989) and Exciting the Industry of Mankind: George Berkeley’s Philosophy of Money (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000).