by Crimethinc. Workers' Collective
Available in 284 free installments
Owner:
refuse to pay until the collection agency is willing to settle for a fraction of the original debt. If you're fed up with a collection agency hassling you, ask for their address, as if to send a payment, and then send them a letter barring them from contacting you again; keep a copy, as this can stand up in court as sufficient grounds for them to be forced to leave you be. Student loans remain binding even when you declare bankruptcy, but you might be able to pay them off with credit cards and then default on the credit card payments. If that's not an option, there's still hope. You cannot be imprisoned for not paying debts, except in the case of tax evasion. As long as you have no assets that can be seized or income that can be tapped, no bill collector can touch you. Join a collective or an intentional community, in which none of your assets are in your own name and your income is too little or too obscure for them to requisition. Your credit might be ruined as far as corporate America goes, but as long as your credibility with your community is sound, you won't need to qualify for any new loans. This might sound scary, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and the more of us keep paying, the more money our enemies have to make it hard for us not to.
As much as you limit your consumption, there will always be things you need. Never How to Get What You Need fear?you live in the most profligate society on earth. There are countless ways to obtain and share the resources you require.
First, consider collective living. This could mean joining an intentional community, or just sharing things with your friends. The more you share, the less each individual needs to invest in being self-sufficient. The more you pool your resources, the greater the investments you can make together?^perhaps you can even buy land.
Get things used from thrift stores and yard sales rather than buying them new. Learn how to repair the belongings you already have, so you won't have to replace unemployment them as often. 579
You can register for classes at a local
community or four-year college to
get a legitimate student ID card, and
cancel directly thereafter to receive a
full refund. With your ID card, you can
use the school's facilities and perhaps
even ride the local buses for free.
"The author, a white male middle-class
dropout, once lived in a predominantly
black ghetto in which his household was
the only one on the street with a working
telephone. The neighbors would come
over to use his phone whenever they
needed to make a call. The only other
white people living in the neighborhood,
a house of male college students, were
not so liberal with their resources,
and frequently suffered break-ins and
robberies; however, when the author
unthinkingly left his laptop computer
unattended in the front yard one night, it
was still there in the morning.
Unemployment 580
Seek out and pass on family hand-me-downs. Borrow from your friends and neighbors, and encourage them to borrow from you?this helps build relationships;- as well as saving money and discouraging over-production. Not everyone needs to have a set of carpentry tools, a fondue pot, or a weight-training bench?one per neighborhood should be enough. Make use of or set up a neighborhood lending library of tools, cooking supplies, books, records, and everything else you can think of. Take up a collection and buy resources for everyone to share. Set up a cooperative program, so people can buy food and other goods in bulk at wholesale prices. Deal direct with the producers, as in community-supported agriculture programs in which households buy directly from farmers. Barter goods and labor instead of trading in cash.
Take advantage of existing public resources: go to the library for books and videos instead of purchasing or renting them, go to art galleries instead of movie theaters. Investigate what free programs are offered locally?the state of Pennsylvania, to name one unlikely example, provides free classes in motorcycle riding.
Build local infrastructures for distributing things people need (see Food Not Bombs, pg. 248 and Bicycle Coliectms, pg. 92). Hold regular potlatch events?e.g., a monthly "Really Really Free Market" (see Festivals, pg. 241)?or estabUsh a permanent space as a free store (see Distribution, Tabling, and Infoshops, pg. 210), so materials can flow to the people who need them. Host free movie showings. Set up social and cultural events that charge a sliding scale of admission according to each person's financial means.
