How about a DIY approach?

In a recent Channel 4 documentary, the actor Michael Sheen wrote off £1 million of debt at his own expense for people in South Wales.

This is a powerful act of economic justice. Sheen improved the material conditions of 900 people’s lives. And he brought public attention to an unjust practice where so-called ‘debt purchasing companies’ buy huge swathes of unpaid household debt from banks and other lenders at a fraction of the cost – often around ten per cent. For instance, if a lender gives up trying to collect a loan of £2,000 from a debtor who does not pay, the lender might sell their rights to the loan to a debt purchasing company for a mere £200. And yet, the law allows the debt purchasing company to throw the full force of the law at the debtor, from court orders to bailiffs, to recover the full £2,000. Flipping this injustice on its head, Sheen paid £100,000 to purchase – and then crucially cancel – £1,000,000 of debt owed by residents of his home town of Port Talbot. This act follows in the footsteps of the ‘Rolling Jubilee’ campaign in the USA, which wrote off millions in health care debts, and UK artists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn’s Bank Job film.

Towards the end of Sheen’s documentary, he announces his progress in the campaign to people gathered in a community centre in Port Talbot – in the manner of a trade union leader’s speech to a working men’s club, as depicted in films like Pride. Those gathered had spoken to Sheen about their own economic struggles and applauded supportively. However, none of them had any direct stake in the debts being cancelled. Nor did anyone, not even Sheen himself, know whose debts would be written off. The beneficiaries were anonymous. During industrial-era capitalism, the workplace was a rallying point for resisting economic exploitation. However, in this version of Robin Hood for our current times, when financial lending and borrowing have become central to profit making, our economic lives are increasingly atomised. The privacy surrounding debt marks it off from more familiar economic injustices in the workplace and makes debt problems uniquely difficult to represent visually.

Faced with this conundrum, some activists have called for people to ‘come out of the closet’ about their debts, in order to transform the atomised anguish of millions into a collective struggle against an exploitative system. We have seen such public declarations of indebtedness in social movements like Spain’s ‘Platform for the Mortgage-Affected’, which held assemblies where people risking repossession could open up and receive emotional and practical support. Their rallying cry is: ‘We don’t owe – We won’t pay!’

And yet, as I have found myself, the fact that people often keep their debts private is not without its own subversive power. A quiet rebellion is already taking place in hundreds of thousands of homes around the country. No one coordinates it. Most of us have probably been part of it without even thinking. Every day, millions of people refuse to abide by their creditors’ threats of enforcement and their demands to pay. Often, this is just a temporary delay in payment.

For some people, however, defying the demands of debt collectors has become both a necessity and the norm. In our staggeringly unequal economy, lower-income households increasingly find they cannot make ends meet by relying only on wages from whatever work is available. I conducted an immersive study, living for 18 months in a community where debt problems were commonplace. Nearly all the residents had to supplement wages with welfare benefits, by borrowing money, or through informal practices like cash-in-hand work. This means those who borrowed did so less than freely. Ignoring debts and refusing to pay on time became one of very few options for living in an unaffordable world. Some residents called this ‘living on the never-never’, meaning not that they would necessarily refuse to pay anything, but that instead of complying with creditors’ demands, they would focus on avoiding being taken to court.

Those who ignore their debts are usually judged for ‘burying their heads in the sand’, as if they are lacking financial skills or being irrational. However, I was surprised to find that keeping quiet about debt problems and putting debt collection letters out of sight were closely linked to this ‘do it yourself’ approach to dealing with unjust debts. When creditors threaten to send bailiffs or to take you to court, putting the letters out of sight can help to strengthen the belief that these enforcement measures will not be inevitable. One resident put it like this: ‘They can’t go for everyone who doesn’t pay’. This hopeful belief directly assists people’s ability not to be coerced into making payments they cannot afford. What is more, it is often assumed that people avoid talking about their debts due to shame, but I found that it helped people not to blame themselves for economic circumstances that were beyond their control.

Michael Sheen’s tireless campaigning for economic justice has raised public awareness, as well as bringing material benefit to indebted people in Port Talbot. He deserves every credit for his work. At the same time, as a society, we still condemn people who try to fight their way through an exploitative credit system in a bottom-up way, by refusing to pay what lenders and debt collectors are demanding. It is time we reconsidered their actions.

Ryan Davey is a Lecturer in Social Sciences at Cardiff University, working across anthropology and sociology.

The Personal Life of Debt by Ryan Davey is available to read open access on Bristol University Press Digital here.

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