Shanna Bennett speaks to three Debt Collective founders Laura Hannah, Thomas Gokey, and Andrew Ross about the formation of the Debt Collective and how far they’ve come. They also discuss the upcoming Pick Up the Pen, Joe: April 4th Day of Action to challenge the end of the student loan moratorium and demand student loan cancellation in front of the Department of Education in Washington, D.C.

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Taking Action: Debt Collective Co-Founders Panel

Transcript – 

Shanna: Hi, I’m Shannon Bennett and I’m here with some very special guests. I’m looking at some of the founders of the debt collective. I’m here with Laura Hannah, Thomas Gokey and Andrew Ross. And we’re on Matter of Life and Debt.

Welcome to the podcast! Hi everyone!

Andrew Ross: Hello.

Shanna: So before we get into it, I just want to give folks some context. So if you don’t know who the Debt Collective is, they’ve abolished $5 billion dollars in not only student debt, but medical debt, payday loans, probation debt, and credit card debt. Not only that, but their student debt campaign put full student debt cancellation on the map.

So while we have you here, we have to say, thank you so much for what you’ve done in this space. We appreciate you. It is so amazing to have a group that is organized and laser-focused on these issues. So just, we appreciate you and thank you.

Okay. Let’s dive in. So do any of you have any student debt and if so, how much and what has been your experience with student debt?

Thomas: I think I might be the only one of the three of us who has student debt. But you know, correct me if I’m wrong, Laura and Andrew. I’ve got just under $40,000, used to be more. And yeah it’s controlled every aspect of my entire adult life. I just used an example on a Debt Collective call earlier this week. I was playing around with the Department of Education’s student loan simulator tool that simulates when your loans will be paid off. It simulated that mine would be paid off when I’m 68 years old. I’d be in debt from the time I’m 18 to 68.

Shanna: Yeah. That’s why we have these conversations because I don’t think people sometimes get the full picture. And when you say it that way, someone’s going to be in debt because they chose to pursue higher education from the age of  18 is 68. That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. Andrew, what about you?

Andrew Ross: I don’t, I’ve never had student debt because I went to college in a country that had tuition-free college in the UK.  And not only that, but the government gave us grants, not loans, but grants, to cover our living expenses. And that model, it seems to me to always be a kind of ideal model.

That’s the way it should be. and the US is an outlier in this respect, is really the only rich country that has turned this higher education system into a vehicle for profit extraction from lenders and creditors. That said, my day job is an NYU professor. And so I walk into classrooms every day where my students, you know, are groaning under the burden of student debt, NYU has a particularly advanced problem.

Indeed, as I’d experienced, it kind of compelled me to join the debt resistance movement in the first place. That everyday experience of just feeling awful about confronting my students.

Shanna: Laura, what about you? What’s your experience with student debt?

Laura Hanna: I don’t have student debt and I think it’s a good question. And it’s a good entry point into the work because you know, when we look at the history of the Debt Collective and the organizing that we’ve done over many years, the intention was not to simply focus on one particular issue or one particular type of debt.

But to look at new ways that we can assert and build solidarity and challenge some of the economic structures that we’re facing more broadly. So that meant from my perspective that, you know, I thought, I think, and I still do, that education needs to be funded differently and it should be treated differently.

And the way that people develop themselves and let alone how they use that development to go to work and make money, it needs to change. And it needs to be thought of in a different way, from my perspective. And we should be sending healthcare to one another. It shouldn’t be structured in the way that it is.

It shouldn’t be forcing people into bankruptcy when they get sick. So for me, coming into the Debt Collective and doing work and working for the last 10 years as one of the co-founders of this project, it was ironically, you know, we were looking at student debt as one aspect of the work, but we’re very much known for that work because it’s been successful today.

Shanna: Do you want to speak to, it’s a really nice segue to how the Debt Collective was born. How was it created? And can you give some of the histories as to it came to be?

Laura Hanna: Yeah, I think it’s an interesting question because everyone will have a different answer. Based on their entry point into organizing. And I’ll say for myself, you know, I was working as a culture worker. I was doing work around documentaries and before that television and, involved in the art world in some way.

And I became fatigued by observing issues and analyzing them and thinking about them, but not really acting in any way. Then the housing crash happened at the time. And, you know, I had some family who really suffered from the fallout from that and socially saw a lot of misery and suffering. And that there was just a certain point in my life that it made a lot of sense to move beyond the types of activities I was involved in at the time.

And that happened for a lot of people during the Occupy era and a group of us ended up organizing around what was called “Strike Debt” during that time. And it was really thinking through different forms of economic disobedience and solidarity. So that’s how I came to it. But I’d love to hear Tom and Andrew talk.

Thomas: Yeah. I mean, to me, the interesting part was around 2014, when we all, Lauren, Andrew, and, the other folks, all met in Los Angeles to sort of having a kind of make-or-break moment. Cause we were working on other projects together and we were trying to decide if we should just sort of wrap up those projects and just go on with our lives and do other things, or if we wanted to really, make a go of creating a debtors’ union, which was something we had been talking about but had not actually gotten off the ground.

We were tired and it could have just not happened. So I think there’s a tremendous amount of potential for debtors’ unions. And, we’ve really only scratched the surface of what might be possible.

Shanna: Where did that idea come from the idea of the Debtor’s Union?

Andrew Ross: Well, we’ve been kicking that around for a while you know, even before the formation of the Debt Collective and, in my point of entry was with the Occupy Student Debt campaign, which was founded in November of 2011. And that was a very ambitious campaign with no resources. The only resource was the viral energy of Occupy, which, we thought, might carry the campaign pretty far. And in terms of the media and public discourse it did, but the actual campaign logistics were aimed at getting a million people to sign on to a pledge of that resistance. We never came close to making that mark, even though a million student debtors actually did default on their student debts that year, but they didn’t default together. They defaulted individually. So it had no impact, but we raised a lot of public consciousness about the student debt crisis during that year and learned a lot about the psychology of student debt. And undertook a lot of self-education. And so the campaign was, I think, successful in terms of public education. but in terms of reaching the goals, it was too ambitious.

And in fact, that Debt Collective, that meeting that Thomas described, there was a retreat really for us in Venice Beach, California. And we actually found a group of student debtors during that trip who really became the first Debtor’s Union. And so the idea evolved that we would start very small and build it from the ground up as it was.

Whereas with the Occupy Student Debt campaign it was really, you know, starting with a million as a number was far too ambitious. And we realize that when you build something, you really have to start from the ground up. And I think that’s, that’s been a lot of this story that Debt  Collective since is building steadily, building numbers, building collective strength, recording wins along the way. And really pushing the issues and principles that have been there all along into the forefront of political attention, not just public attention, but the attention of the political class, which is where the issues are right now on the front burner.

Shanna: What added to the viral nature of the Occupy movement do you think? Something that we sometimes talk about on the podcast is messaging,  you know, how can we better position ourselves and message? Cause even at home with parents and friends, you’re talking about student debt and there’s still kind of that tension and that resistance. So what do you think made the Occupy movement viral in that moment in history?

Andrew Ross: Certainly the novelty of it. A lot of it had to do with timing also. And a lot of it had to do with the creativity of the organizing but the viral messaging can only go so far. I mean, you can, you can live off the fumes of viral messaging, but organizing is a very labor-intensive business.

And especially in the debt field, we discovered that organizing debtors are much more difficult than organizing other kinds of people who are faced with burdens because they really are isolated by their debts. So building a Debtor’s Union makes perfect sense to us, theoretically and logically. But in practice, it’s very difficult to do, to persuade all these individual debtors to come together and be solid with one another. And viral messaging only goes so far.

Laura Hanna: I think at the time too, there was the movement of the squares. There was the economic collapse that had a global footprint, quite literally, there was a lot of communication across different groups that it was, it was a really creative time. And that was driving not just, you know when we think about viral messaging, sometimes it’s well, let’s produce the talking points and get, you know, get it out there and we’ll spread it. I think that there is just a lot more of an exchange of ideas and communication, and also that lessons in those moments, okay, people are identifying with this notion of what, of the 99%. So once that happens, then you see what’s sticking, what’s not sticking, what’s working, and work from there. And I do think that those, that was a moment that was rippling from anti-globalization protests. And there was enough historical memory and experience from before that of some organizers and other practitioners that were coming together. And yeah, it was just a very creative time. And I think a confluence of events, series of events and actors simultaneously.

Shanna: So looking back at the birth of the Debt Collective to now, looking at the growth, what brings you awe about the movement? Maybe I’ll comment to you, Thomas, because I think you referenced, you know, maybe that meeting is not happening or maybe the Debtor’s Union is not happening.

Thomas: If I had a time machine and I could go back in time and say, hey, you’d be able to get rid of billions of dollars of debt, that would have been, I think, I think we’ve punched above our weight. The first time that we had canceled a million dollars of debt, I thought that was really cool. and now we’re, you know, that initial student debt strike back in 2014, early 2015, which started with 15 students, has set off a chain reaction that has canceled, around over $4 billion dollars just from that particular mechanism. And if they applied the law to everyone, it would cancel hundreds of billions of dollars, but it also put us on the mechanism where we could cancel all student debt.

I was really impressed when we were doing stuff in the millions. Now we’re in the billions and we’re close to being in the trillions. That’s not an unrealistic victory. And we have everything to fight for. I’m just kind of in awe that it worked, with the limited resources and know-how and people I look at how little, the Democratic party can accomplish with so many people and so much money, and it’s just you know, the tiniest amount of resources and we can run circles around them.

[00:12:40]

Shanna: I was thinking if I could just vote you all into office, I would because of how much you’ve done.

Thomas: But there isn’t power in the office. Right? There’s power with us. We’d actually have less power if we held the office.

Shanna: You’re absolutely right. So when you said, looking back at the times when you were canceling millions, I think somewhere around there, I don’t even remember when it was. I remember coming across a Rolling Jubilee site and I remember the site going into detail about debts being canceled, debts being purchased, and then discharged.

I think there might’ve been even a ticker or some kind of routine update about how much debt was being handled. And I remember thinking who are these people? Who are these people that are buying debt and then discharging it? It was, it was an awesome thing, seeing the growth has been amazing. Laura, do you want to speak to the kind of looking back and being in awe of some of the things that you’ve been able to accomplish together?

[00:13:35]

Laura Hanna: Thomas said it really well. It’s, you know if I were to go back to 2015 from the position I’m in now and say, hey, these, this is what is going to be built. And these will be the accomplishments. That would have definitely been some additional wind that would have been needed at the time in terms of energy.

I’m always impressed. I think that the lessons that I’ve learned is that, you know, you shouldn’t wait for someone else to tell you what you think is right, or what they think is right. Right? Or you shouldn’t wait for the expert or you shouldn’t assume that power functions in a certain way.

I think obviously Democrats hold power in the office and it’s a different type of power. And our job is to build a counter-power that’s significant enough to challenge it. And I think it’s possible. What it looks like, let’s see. But I’m just impressed by all the work and solidarity over the years and creativity and stamina and just the fight and the sweat over a long period of time. And the relationships that are built out of it.

Andrew Ross: I just wanted to echo that and just say a few words about the Rolling Jubilee project, which you referenced because the Rolling Jubilee process was a different model of that cancellation, from the billions of dollars that Thomas was describing earlier. It was very much a mutual aid project where small amounts of money were donated by people and with that money, we were able to divide that on the second rate debt market, which none of us really knew anything about at the time. And in fact, most people in the world don’t know anything about the secondary debt market. So again, that was intended really as a public education project.

The numbers, the actual amount of money that we, that we ended up abolished, of course, is a drop in the ocean. But the publicity generated by that project has been immense. And in fact, we recently revised it, in a very sort of limited way, to shine a light on particularly pernicious debt classes. And that’s what we’ve been, that’s what we’ve been doing currently, one of our projects. and it’s a big people pleaser because it does demonstrate how easily in a way you can actually cancel the debt, but also exposes this very pernicious second rate debt market, which is, you know, where bottom feeders operate. The lowest of the low when it comes to debt collectors. They’re trying to collect the full amount of the debt, or even though they’ve only paid pennies on the dollar for that debt, so it’s a different model from the one where you make claims on the federal government to cancel the debt because the debt was generated under fraudulent circumstances.

[00:16:05]

Shanna: The project that you’re referring to, that you revived recently that the carceral debt that I was reading about at one point or no, is that a different project?

Andrew Ross: That was one of the debt buys that were made recently with, through the Rolling Jubilee, private probation debt,  yeah.

Shanna: I think it was through that work that I actually learned about that category of debt. I wasn’t familiar with that. What do you think are the barriers to wide-scale student debt cancellation and how do we move past them?

Laura Hanna: I mean, it’s such an interesting challenge, right? Looking at what’s happened over the last couple of years with the pandemic, I’ve been surprised. I’ve thought about if I had kids and they were in college right now, I would definitely not be paying, having them pay tuition. There, there would be an easy way to collectivize a type of activity.

And so I’m just surprised at how much people will take. You know the work that we have that’s cut out for us is to continuously pilot and practice what it looks like to build counter-power in the economy. And that can happen in different ways. And you’re asking about wide-scale student debt cancellation currently.

I mean, I think it’s probably similar to the challenges that all organizers are facing with the current administration. How responsive are they being, but you know, what kinds of demands, how are we asserting the demands? Right. We need to work on building that, scaling it up, having more direct action, more creative communications, and we’ll see. It won’t happen without doing that. So I’d be curious to hear what Tom has to say about it.

Thomas: Yeah. In terms of what barriers exist to student debt cancellation? In some ways, the road is wide open. There’s no reason not to do it. The only thing that’s standing in the way is Joe Biden. We are one signature away from wiping out all federal student loans. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen while we’re on this call. I don’t claim to understand other people or know what’s going on inside his head, but I think it’s a combination of just ideology and power. And that is a very useful form of social control. And it’s hard for them to give that up. But they know it only impacts certain people and it just so happens to be those certain people that they think shouldn’t be free.

Shanna: Andrew, do you agree with Thomas’s comments?

Andrew Ross: Well, I do, but I think there’s a lot that’s not, I don’t think it’s just Biden. Although Biden himself, you know, his whole career has been, has been one upholding the interests of the financial industry. It was very difficult for someone who, you know, in his bones, has, as being one of the most reliable, defenders and promoters of Wall Street. But the pushback, there is a lot of pushback from the financial industry. I mean, even in the first few weeks of the Occupy Student Debt campaign, we witnessed that we felt the pushback. Just the very prospect of debt cancellation is something that is so taboo. And, even if Biden were to use his pen to sign that legislation, I mean the federal government doesn’t do this kind of thing.

It doesn’t do widespread debt cancellation of any substantial volume. It would be absolutely historic in every respect. And so it would be a huge step for economic and social justice. But also a huge step In the wrong direction, as far as the financial industry is concerned and that’s an industry with an immense amount of power and influence.

So there’s a lot riding on that stroke of the pen.

Shanna: So what is happening at the Debt Collective lately? And more specifically, how is Debt Collective fighting against these debt payments potentially starting again in May?

Thomas: Well, there is so much stuff happening. I mean, there really is it, and on many fronts, right? So beyond student debt, we have carceral work happened in California to eliminate bail debt. We have another tool that’s focused on California that is aimed at preventing evictions. But specifically on student debt where there are the next few months are really, really crucial, right?

The current plan is that they’re going to end the payment pause on May Day of all days. And, we are planning an in-the-street, action, protest, debtors assembly in Washington, DC at the Department of Education on April 4th. So if you’re listening to this, turn out in the streets, join us.

Then a lot of people have reached out to us and said, this is the moment for a student debt strike. And so we’ve been trying to figure out exactly what that looks like at this moment. And where we’re getting closer to doing that. And so there will be a student debt strike component to the escalation strategy that we have. I mean, this debt is never going to be repaid. That’s just a fact. So it’s time that we all sort of make a united front and bring the folks at the White House and the Department of Education to just recognize reality. This is never going to get repaid. It has to be canceled. We know that we have to escalate and keep pressure on. Where we’re going for full cancellation, not just an extension of the payment pause.

These next few months are going to be very busy and very crucial. We have everything to fight for. We have everything to win. And there’s nothing fatalistic about this. It really is up to us, our debtors going to get organized and flex our muscles. It’s going time.

Shanna: So if you didn’t catch that per Thomas, turnout in the streets, April 4th, Department of Education, in DC. See you all there. It’s a nice segue to our next question. Why, should people get involved? You kind of just touched on that. I don’t know, Laura, if you want to take that one, but why should people get involved in and how do they get involved?

Laura Hanna: Have a much better education system where people are liberated from unnecessary, oppressive debt that then, you know, shaped their entire behavior and their futures. Right? There’s why not do that? What is there to lose if you’re already saddled with that debt? And if you’re not, why would you want to have it in the future?

And this is a window, right? We don’t know what’s going to happen during the next transition and administration and we should take advantage of it. Andrew, I was watching a meeting that you were a part of, maybe a couple of days or a week ago or so, but you were talking about, unions getting involved with this kind of debt work and you were saying, you know, education affects everyone. It doesn’t matter what kind of union, what kind of work the folks are doing.

Shanna: I’m sure they’d like their children to have, you know, free access to college and, you know, have that barrier removed to education. And I think that’s the point. It affects all of us. And I think if we want to see change, everyone has to get involved.

Andrew Ross: Yeah, I think one of the inspirations we took, you know, more than 10 years ago was from the, very short-lived labor party in the US which was formed by several big unions back in the late 1990s, early 2000s. And, tuition-free college and debt cancellation. Debt cancellation was less of an issue then, because you know, the numbers weren’t so great, but tuition-free college is the ultimate solution.

You know, if Joe Biden used that stroke of the pen, to abolish debt cancellation, that would be great. But then the debt clock starts ticking again the day after. And debt starts accumulating again. So it’s very important to understand that we’ve always had tuition-free college as a very important plank of our platform.

And it’s an ideal and a practice that is very broadly shared. Perhaps even more broadly than student debt cancellation, just among the general population. Who would not want their kids to go to tuition-free, high-quality college? I mean, no one. That’s a no-brainer.

And yet the US has a country to the north of us and a country to the south of us, which has vast amounts of tuition-free college. Neither of them is as affluent as the US. Mexico has an entirely free system. And, it’s not a question of, can we afford that in a rich country like this? It’s a question of political will and also, profiteering on the part of everyone who profits in some way from the higher education industry.

Shanna: It’s a very good point. My mother, my family is Jamaican. And similar to you, Andrew, she attended college in Jamaica. I don’t think she paid anything. It was a stellar education. Because I think that the argument is if it’s free, right, then the quality will somehow be affected? But that wasn’t the case, not for her. So, I appreciate all of your comments, anything, anything anyone wants to add? Anything we haven’t touched on?

Laura Hanna: I would just encourage anyone to be involved in organizing around the conditions that influence their lives and what they experienced. And it’s been for me a life-changing experience to do that work. And, you know, I think that it changes our society to be involved in a certain way.

And it’s a good thing for people to do. I hope more and more people will start organizing and value it and understand what it is because I think for many of us, that’s what, that’s the work that we’ve done. You know, we weren’t labor organizers from the outset. We weren’t hired as consultants coming in to solve a problem or strategize.

We were genuinely working around a certain set of ideas and it’s really fascinating and fulfilling simultaneously. Join up and fight.

[00:25:30]

Andrew Ross: I just want to add that though, this is one of the great struggles of the 21st century, the conflict over debt. It’s different from the conflict of our wages, which is certainly not over. But the conflict over debt has become a frontline struggle. And, I think everyone recognizes that and it’s very easy to become part of the movement just come and join us and get involved.

Shanna: And if you haven’t already checked out the Debt Collective’s website, there are so many different ways to get involved. I was just recently added to Slack and there’s so much going on. Activism takes many different forms. If you don’t want to leave your home, trust me, there are things that you can do from the comfort of your home to push this movement forward.

So by all means get involved,  get active.

Thank you all for being here, by the way, we really appreciate this. I’m just so glad we were able to make this work. So thank you for being here. Thanks for hanging with us.

Laura Hanna: Thank you for hosting and organizing it.

Shanna: You’re welcome.

If you liked this episode of Matter of Life and Debt, subscribe and share it with a friend. It really helps people discover us. Matter of Life and Debt is hosted by me. Shannon. It is produced by Shannon Bennett, Emma Klauber, and Nikki Nolan.

It is edited by Nikki Nolan, transcripts and writing is done by Emma Klauber. Efe Akerman created the theme music.

Visit our website www.matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen to more episodes, access transcripts, and get additional context for the subjects you just heard about. Absolutely for free the website again, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com.

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