Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/02/2014
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Location
88 Fleet Street

Category(ies)

• Workshop

States found a way out of their self-made dilemma that taxing companies, on the one hand, provides them with the conditions of their economic success and, on the other hand, takes from them the very means of this success: money. Contrary to popular belief the growing mountain of debt is not a result of incompetent politicians and frivolous spending. Instead, with sovereign debt states made themselves independent from the confines of wealth already earned in their societies to provide the conditions of future growth.

For many years this worked. States owe debts, lots of it and on an increasing scale. Now, sovereign debt is in crisis and countries compete against each other to convince investors that their respective national economies are still worthy and secure investments.

In this workshop we don’t want to focus directly on the current crisis but ask what is in crisis. We want to present and discuss what sovereign debt is, how it works, who the investors are and what makes sovereign debt an interesting investment to them.

Based on this we want to critique two common misconceptions. The first one is the notion of an “objective constraint” which posits that states have no choice but to fulfil the demands of finance capital against them. This notion misses that the premise of these demands is that states furnish and maintain a world where such demands can be made. Secondly, we want to show that criticising sovereign debt and bailouts as a redistribution from the bottom to  the top trivialises how our lives are subjected to the calculations of profit  – in and outside the financial sphere.

The workshop is open to all. In particular, no prior knowledge of finance or political jargon is required.

This workshop is part of a three part workshop series on taxes – sovereign debt – austerity. See http://critisticuffs.org/events/poverty-of-the-state-the-state-of-poverty/ for details.