Welcome to election profit makers, everybody. It's a podcast. You can listen with your ears and appreciate with your mind. This week we're doing something different. The entire episode is just one single interview. How crazy is that? Welcome to the insane asylum. We're talking to one of my favorite

people. It's Astra Taylor. Astra's documentaries include Zhizek, The Examined Life, and What Is Democracy?

Her books include The People's Platform, Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age.

She also wrote, Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone,

which is one of the best ever books about democracy that also kind of sounds like a Morrissey song title.

And from last year, her book is Remake the World, Essays, Reflections, Rebellions.

Astra is also an activist who's done lots of work with something called the Debt Collective,

which we'll be talking about today.

So whenever I talk to Astra, I always come away feeling kind of inspired and hopeful.

And, you know, things are kind of grim right now and we're entering the

season of doom and gloom commonly known as wintertime, which also comes with a bouquet of something

called seasonal effective disorder. So John and I basically thought now might be a nice time to talk to

her. John, are you ready for this conversation with Astra Taylor? I am. Okay, here we go.

Astra, welcome to election profit makers. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

You should know that John and I are a couple of Take No Prisoners, Bad Boys. We specialize in no-holds-barred,

anti-PC talk radio-style provocation.

So I hope you're ready.

I'm ready.

Okay, good.

You and I met a while ago now, and we met in the context of something called the Rolling Jubilee.

And I wondered if we could start this conversation by you just giving us some

background about sort of the theory and the history of debt cancellation. Before we get into

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