Thread by @StrikeDebt

Here, we make the moral case for refusing to pay your debts. (1/8)

Both Gandhi and MLK Jr. distinguished between just laws and unjust laws. We have a moral obligation to cooperate with just laws, but we also have a moral obligation to refuse to cooperate with unjust laws. A similar distinction exists with debt.

There are just debts and unjust debts. We have a moral obligation to pay just debts, and a moral obligation to refuse to pay unjust debts.

So the question is: what do we really owe and to whom? What should we owe to the 1% and what do they owe to us?

Debt forced on people to meet basic needs like healthcare, housing, education, food, utilities, etc is an unjust debt. There's no moral obligation to pay these debts; they wouldn't exist in a just society.

Our moral obligation to each other is to collectively refuse to cooperate with our own exploitation. There's a double standard of morality when it comes to who has to pay their debts and who doesn’t. The 1% gets to negotiate their debts or even walk away from them all together.

Banks get bailed out all the time, and then turn around and tell us we have a “moral obligation” to pay the unjust debts they claim we owe to them. The real debts that we owe are to each other.

If you get sick or hurt you should be able to get healthcare. This is a moral debt that we are currently defaulting on. People should be able to get an education without mortgaging their future.

Reparations for Black and Indigenous Americans are a moral obligation we have long defaulted on. There is enough wealth to meet these moral obligations, but that wealth is being hoarded by the 1%.

It’s time they coughed up.