Cancel   All   Debts
Cancel All Debts  

We the People hereby call for the complete cancellation of all personal and international debts by the 31st of December, 2030.

We furthermore call that this be done without exception, retribution or prejudice, and that all forms of personal debt — including but not limited to mortgages, medical debt, credit card debt, student loans, liens, and tax debts — be completely annulled.

We call on Our governments to cancel all debts accumulated by the Global South and to abolish all entities which hold and enforce the debt, including but not limited to the World Bank and the IMF.

And finally, We call on Our governments to make themselves available for reformation; to acknowledge and ameliorate their rôles in creating and perpetuating this debt crisis; to de-financialize their economies, including all laws, regulations and fiscal and monetary policies which serve the interests of the few; to dismantle the bureaucracies which perpetuate the status quo; and above all to ensure that such extremes of debt may never again be visited on Us, and by which We may form a more perfect planet for Us and all generations which will follow.

We call for Jubilee 2030.

With 5,000 Years of History Bearing Down on Us
Cory Doctorow’s Legendary Tweetstorm
Cory Doctorow
Debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid.
Michael Hudson
In the ancient world, all revolutionary movements had a single program: “Cancel the debts and redistribute the land.”
Moses Finley, paraphrased by David Graeber
And as King Darius sent to the city of Athens his lieutenants Datis and Artaphernes with chains and cords, to bind the prisoners they should take; so these usurers, bringing into Greece boxes full of schedules, bills, and obligatory contracts, as so many irons and fetters for the shackling of poor criminals…
For at the very delivery of their money, they immediately ask it back, taking it up at the same moment they lay it down; and they let out that again to interest which they take for the use of what they have before lent.
So that they laugh at those natural philosophers who hold that nothing can be made of nothing and of that which has no existence; but with them usury is made and engendered of that which neither is nor ever was.
Plutarch, Moralia, 828f–831a
I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury.
Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.
Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise.
Nehemiah 5:10-12
Frequently Asked Questions
How can government cancel debt? Aren’t banks and government are separate?
As you can tell by the leading phrasing of the question, no, the separation between banks and government is a useful fiction. For the last fifty years, banking laws and regulations have largely been written by lawyers in the employ of banks. The banks then get people in Congress to enact these laws. (The Supreme Court effectively legalized bribery in 1953 by not defining “lobbying” more broadly Furthermore, why would you be obliged to pay a bank if the government weren’t there to enforce that payment with a gun pointed at you? Governments and banks are completely intertwined: in fact, one of the main functions of modern banks is to create money. But you don’t have to believe me when I make that claim: the Bank of England says so too. Furthermore, consider the Dodd-Frank Act and the Volcker rule and how they might affect banks’ ability to manipulate and extract debt from people.
But mustn’t we all pay our debts?
There are a lot of responses to this, ranging from ideological to purely practical, but the short answer is, “no, not really.” For the fullest eximnation of the morality of debt written so far, please read at least the first few pages of Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, linked for free below.
Where would the money to pay the debts come from?
The money wouldn’t come from anywhere; the debts would simply disappear. The money was invented when the debt was created, and the real (i.e., non-financialized) economy wouldn’t be hurt a bit. In fact, it would expand rapidly as people could then afford to buy luxury goods instead of paying off debts to the financial sector. This sort of thing has happened regularly throughout human history (see above) and leaves everyone happier, healthier and freer than before.
Relevant Links
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Cory Doctorow’s Blog
Oxfam International: G7 Report
The Debt Collective