Jubilee Update

Jubilee justice

It Is Time for the Churches to Declare Jubilee

by Rev. Britton W. Johnston
[12-3-09]

Britt Johnston and his wife Danna Larson are living in Pasadena, California, where Britt is working on a Ph.D. in Practical Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He's also part-time Pastor at Occidental United Presbyterian Church in northeast Los Angeles. They participated in the Witherspoon "Dancing with God" conference on mission at Stony Point in September, 2005, and have served in Colombia as accompaniers.

The time has come for the church to declare jubilee. Every 50 years, according to the Book of Leviticus, God’s people are commanded to have a year of jubilee, in which those who have lost their homes and lands because of indebtedness will be able to return to them with their debts forgiven. The year of jubilee is a pivotal idea in the prophetic traditions of Israel, picked up from Leviticus in Isaiah’s declaration of "the year of the Lord’s favor." Following in this tradition Jesus declared himself to be fulfilling Isaiah’s vision of jubilee (Luke 4) and also taught us to pray in a way that alludes to the jubilee: "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

We live in a time that cries out for jubilee. For the past three decades at least, the working people of America have been systematically plundered by financial elites. Economic inequality has increased dramatically, as the investing class has seen its income tower like Babel, while wages have stagnated. For thirty years, working people have been forced to "borrow their wages," as Michael Moore puts it in his recent film. As became abundantly clear in the past two years, financial elites have led Congress to privatize profits and socialize risk. This grew to the absurd proportions of a multi-trillion dollar bailout for the financial institutions by the working people of America. These institutions have taken this money without turning it into new lending, the purpose for which it was originally given.

This plunder has reached a breaking point. The investment bankers are using the bailout money to generate a new speculative bubble, one that will be beyond even the capacity of the U.S. government to repair, if it is allowed to continue. And it is being allowed to continue: oversight of the banks’ use of bailout money is pathetically weak. Any move in Congress to break up or re-regulate the banks is met with a perfect storm of lobbying to stop it dead. As Senator Dick Durbin said, "the banks own the Senate."

What do the people of the United States need? We need jobs, but the financial system as currently configured doesn’t produce jobs. Instead, it de-industrializes the country, sending good paying jobs overseas. It drives down wages and it inflates the cost of everything from housing to health care. That’s another thing we need, health care. But health insurance corporations (a sector of the financial "services" industry) block any effort to make it widely accessible and affordable. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, and the least effective (by 1st world standards) in terms of aggregate outcomes. The recent effort at health care reform in Congress has degenerated into yet another massive subsidy to financial corporations. We need housing, but the cost of housing has risen out of reach, driven by speculative bubbles, which in turn are fueled by an investor class flush with cash from tax cuts. We also need a climate that supports life. But again, the investor class threatens this most basic of needs, by standing in the way of needed regulation of greenhouse gases and change in our sources of energy.

We elected a charismatic new president with a record of empowering working people as a community organizer. But no sooner did he take office than he was fenced in by "experts" from the investment banking houses, who have led him to do their bidding. Even with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, the non-Republicans (the Republicans are utterly subservient to investors against workers) are unable to make any move that seriously challenges the investor class. We can no longer count on our government to do what is necessary to provide our people with what we need. The government is now in no other business than that of aiding and abetting the plunder of working people. Political activism has been rendered almost completely impotent. We demonstrate, we send letters to Congress, we register voters – but the corporations always get what they want.

The situation might be completely hopeless, politically, except for a unique set of historical conditions that have the potential dramatically to turn the tables in favor of working people. Conditions are ripe for a declaration of jubilee – a debtors’ strike. Because the working classes have been borrowing their wages for the past thirty years, they have become indebted to the bankers at a level unprecedented in history. In 1929, just before the Great Crash, average household indebtedness was around 30% of annual income. Today, that average is at 120% of annual income! These debts are treated as assets by the investment banks, which use them to leverage loans for their speculative alchemy. A vast proportion of the wealth of the financial sector rests on the faith that these debts will be paid. A loss of that faith would devastate the power of the bankers. A working class movement to repudiate these debts could radically overturn the power structure in our society. The irony is that debt, the tool used by the owning classes to plunder the workers, could be turned into enormous power to restore equality and democracy to our society. The conditions that exist right now to accomplish this are unusual in history, perhaps unique.

The churches would have to play a significant role in this movement. One of the biggest obstacles to a movement of this sort is the moral constraints on debt repudiation. Americans view the refusal to pay a debt as a form of stealing. But the church is uniquely positioned to release this constraint by issuing a declaration of jubilee. The same God who commanded "thou shalt not steal" also commanded the jubilee year. It is only the church (and the synagogue) that can make this claim with real authority. This declaration may not open the floodgates for a widespread debt revolt, but it can very likely put a hole in the dike. Human nature would take its course from that point.

Biblical scholars have often dismissed the concept of the year of jubilee as an idealistic principle that was never actually put into practice. It was too obviously unrealistic to believe that creditors would agree to forgive debts so comprehensively. But this view misses the point. The Year of Jubilee is not a divine command to the creditors, but for the debtors. It is in effect a tradition of a debtors’ strike. The biblical command provides legitimation for debt repudiation, to encourage solidarity among the debt-ridden poor and to undermine the moral claims of the creditor class. It didn’t matter what the creditors agreed to; with a declaration of jubilee, the power shifted to the debtors and the creditors had to grin and bear it.

According to the U.S. constitution, the refusal to pay taxes is punishable by imprisonment – but not the refusal to pay private debt. In fact, debtor’s prison is explicitly prohibited in our constitution. This gives added leverage to the call for jubilee. According to a recent report by Arizona attorney Brent White, there are real financial and legal advantages for underwater homeowners to "walk away" from their properties (LA Times, 11/29/09). He encourages them to discard the moral inhibitions that keep them from defaulting on their loans. So from a legal as well as a theological and ethical standpoint, the time is ripe for a debt revolt.

Such a movement may seem difficult to start. Political activists in the present climate know how hard it is even to get a few hundred people to show up for a street demonstration, let alone a massive national movement. People are discouraged, they don’t have the time or energy, and the media for communication of the message are taken over by corporate interests. All this may be true, but there is an important social force that movement leaders can have on their side in this: the power of panic. Stanford philosophy professor Jean-Pierre Dupuy has done some interesting writing on the topic of panic, which shows that panic among humans is not at all like a stampede among animals. A herd of bison might stampede if they get spooked by a loud noise, but human beings are gripped by panic through a combination of desire and competition. Dupuy is a disciple of René Girard, who has shown that humans get their desires from each other. We want what we see other people wanting. Panic sets in when the crowd is gripped simultaneously by the desire for something, and the fear that the supply is limited. Each person feels compelled to hurry and get some before the rest of the crowd takes it all. Dupuy argues that the stock market is a (barely) controlled form of panic.

A proclamation of jubilee can be structured so that it generates a kind of panic. Underwater homeowners might be persuaded that if they don’t walk away from their mortgages, they will be left paying for the financial system while the rest of the crowd sticks them with the bill. That kind of panic can spread without any help from expensive public relations campaigns. No demonstrations in the streets will be necessary – although a few examples of crowds blocking the eviction of foreclosed families would help. By employing the principle of panic, the jubilee debtors’ strike will organize itself.

Is this idea ethical? Absolutely. First of all, it is completely nonviolent. No one is directly injured, no physical property destroyed. Second, it has biblical warrant, enough to overcome the ordinary injunction not to steal. But what about the disaster that this will visit on the economy? If the financial system collapses, much suffering will result. To that I would argue that we have reached a point where if we do nothing, there will be much suffering anyway. The investor class has near total control of government at this point, making rational reform impossible. Without rational reform, the government will become steadily less democratic, more tyrannical and even violent. There will be no avoiding the "ultimate financial bubble" from which no taxpayer bailout will be able to save us, but by then the working class will be in tatters, beholden to a feudal system of corporate gangsters. The burning of fossil fuels will continue virtually unabated if we do nothing to stop our casino economy; by 2050 there will be massive flooding, drought, agricultural disruption, and internal displacement of populations. So, by declaring jubilee now, we bring about the inevitable disaster a little sooner, but with better empowerment and solidarity for working people, perhaps heading off a nuclear-armed version of feudalism. (For equally gloomy apocalyptic views of our future, see the writings of our fellow Presbyterian Chris Hedges).

By resetting the financial system through jubilee, we can bring about many improvements in the global situation. A decline in economic activity will be good for the environment, reducing the production of greenhouse gases. It would reduce the exploitation of fisheries and forests, perhaps giving them a chance to recover. People who can’t afford cars tend to walk more, and this makes them healthier. It would make the rich countries poorer, something that the world desperately needs to happen. At our present rate of consumption, we are using up the life-supporting resources of the planet faster than the planet can replace them. People in rich countries use up ten times more resources, on average, than people in the rest of the world. Ecologically concerned people in the North are often heard declaring that something must be done to reduce the planet’s population; what we rarely hear them say is that the most efficient way to save the planet is to reduce the population where they live. Or – we could just make them live less well. A declaration of jubilee is one way to make that happen. This would be much less violent than embarking on some horrendous culling project "for the sake of the planet."

Finally, this strategy might be just the thing that’s needed to reinvigorate the church. The church can be relevant again. In this process, the church would have at least two functions to play. The first one was stated above, the declaration of jubilee itself. The second function is to step in as the renewed basis for social solidarity as the financial consumer society, which is the organizational basis of secularity, begins to collapse. Once there is no longer a mall to go to, people will return to the church. The church will once again resemble the ark of Noah, a life boat amid the deluge of a collapsing old order.

So the time may be just right for a declaration of jubilee. The Bible recommends one every fifty years, but it has been at least two thousand years since the last one. We have some catching up to do; lately, look what stars have fallen, and what a bloody tinge has the moon.

The US House of Representatives will vote on the Jubilee Act in early April!

Please take action by calling your Representative TODAY

[4-7-08]

"Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania

From the Witness in Washington Weekly, published by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

April 7, 2008

Join us today as we call on Congress to pass the Jubilee Act and break the chains of debt for the world's impoverished countries (additional information below the call script).

Please take the simple steps below -- and help change the lives of millions:

1. Find out who your Representative is by entering your zip code at http://www.pcusa.org/washington

2. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

3. Ask to be connected to your Representative's office. The receptionist will answer. Introduce yourself as (your name), a constituent from (city, state).

4. I am calling today to urge Representative________ to vote yes on the Jubilee Act (H.R. 2634), which will be considered on the House floor in early April. This bill would expand eligibility for debt cancellation to 67 impoverished countries. Without debt cancellation these 67 countries will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). (If you'd like, add an additional sentence about why this issue is important to you). Do you know how Representative _________ plans to vote on the Jubilee Act?

5. Please be sure to thank the receptionist when you are finished.

6. Thank you for taking action -- now send this message on to 10 friends & urge them to make the call too!!

Background Information:

Today, the world's most impoverished countries spend more than $100 million each day in debt payments to wealthy governments and financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In countries where the majority of the population lives on less than $1 per day, this money should be spent on clean water, basic health care, and education, not sent to the world's wealthiest financial institutions.

In 2000 and again in 2005 world leaders came together to cancel billions of dollars of debt in dozens of impoverished countries around the world. The money freed by debt cancellation so far has been used to fight global AIDS, enroll children in school, provide clean water, improve rural infrastructure and more. But there is still much more that needs to be done С dozens of impoverished countries around the world are still waiting for debt justice!

The most important and prophetic debt legislation in seven years, the Jubilee Act, will expand access to debt cancellation to all the countries that need it to fight extreme poverty. Without debt cancellation, it will be nearly impossible for many countries to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

The Jubilee Act also requires that debt cancellation be provided without harmful economic policy conditions attached, calls for the initiation of a responsible lending framework, and requires a debt audit in countries like South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo which have a heavy burden of odious debt.

General Assembly Guidance:

In 1998, the General Assembly called upon presbyteries and congregations to support the goals of Jubilee 2000 by sending statements of support to key policy makers in the U.S. government and multilateral lending agencies. The resolution endorsed and supported the "definitive cancellation of international debt in situations where countries with high levels of human need and environmental distress are unable to meet the needs of their people. . . in a way that benefits ordinary people and facilitates their participation in the processes of. . . debt relief." (Minutes, 1998, p. 676)

If you would like to receive this information directly, please go to http://capwiz.com/pcusa/mlm/signup/ .

JUBILEE UPDATE

After major progress, much remains to be done for global economic justice

by Jane Hanna, president of the Witherspoon Society

[7-23-01]

In spite of major victories, the Jubilee 2000 movement to cancel the debts of the poorest countries has not been completed. Last February during a three-day conference in Denver, Jubilee 2000/USA grew to become the Jubilee USA Network, committed to serve as the US wing of the ongoing global Jubilee movement. In the transition many new faith, labor, and social service organizations have joined in this struggle for Jubilee economic justice.

Recognizing that much of the work of the Jubilee debt cancellation campaign remains to be done, the new organization continues to oppose the oppression often imposed by economic structures. Progress so far can be measured by the increased millions of children in Uganda, Honduras, Mozambique and elsewhere who are attending school in classrooms with books and paper because of the Jubilee work to cancel the debt. However, once again we need to intensify political pressure for change in the global economic status quo.

Debt cancellation has been put on the agenda, so we need to keep building this movement until the momentum becomes so strong that full debt cancellation is won and the poor have a voice at the table. This is a moral issue, one we rich citizens of the world dare not ignore. It is not God's intent that millions of the world's people live in abject poverty while a minority enjoy the fruits of the world's labor and resources.

As I write, thousands are gathered in Genoa, Italy to protest the injustice of the global economic system as it presently operates. Barred from G-8 discussions by 15-foot fences, metal and concrete barriers, heavily armed police and military in riot gear, helicopters, and missiles, protesters from around the world ask to be heard.

Regrettably, the violence of some during such gatherings, for whatever reason, gains the attention of the world press. Focus on the anarchy of a minority diverts attention from the violence of system-structured poverty. It is essential to expose the disastrous impact of decisions made by an elite, sowing misery for the many. Eating sumptuously, housed on a luxury liner, the gathered leaders are protected from the ravages of hunger, poverty, and disease, oblivious to the depths of its existence.

We need not sit idly by. Begin with letters and phone calls to our political representatives, letters to the editor and to the World Bank and IMF in support of the "Drop the Debt" campaign. Jubilee USA is calling for 100% cancellation of debt held by the World Bank and IMF, from their own resources, without structural adjustment.

We need to focus our attention on getting the Administration and Congress to support this year's Debt Cancellation initiative. We must resist Administration attempts to repeal legislation won last year requiring the US to vote against and oppose IMF and World Bank loans that include user fees for public health and education. We must also oppose forced privatization of water and other utility systems.

Melanie Hardison, PCUSA representative on the Jubilee USA Network Coordinating Committee, urges congregations to engage in education/action programs that reveal how rigged the global economic system is in favor of the wealthiest countries. The Global South debt is fundamentally illegitimate when rich countries set all the rules of trade, aid, investment, and exchange rates but are not held responsible for their effects. Impoverished nations and peoples are left with virtually no say in the conduct of their economic lives. Our faith requires that we speak for the voiceless, repudiating an inhumane structure.