Andrew Ross (1) (1956–)
Autore di The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney's New Town
Per altri autori con il nome Andrew Ross, vedi la pagina di disambiguazione.
Sull'Autore
Andrew Ross is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. A contributor to the Nation, New York Times, and Village Voice, he has authored many books, including Fast Boat to China, The Celebration Chronicles, Nice Work if You Can Get It, and No-Collar.
Fonte dell'immagine: from author's webpage
Opere di Andrew Ross
Opere correlate
Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality (1992) — Collaboratore — 325 copie
Birth of a Nation'hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O. J. Simpson Case (1997) — Collaboratore — 70 copie
Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (1994) — Collaboratore — 65 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1956
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Nazione (per mappa)
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- Scotland, UK
- Istruzione
- University of Aberdeen (BA)
University of Kent (PhD) - Attività lavorative
- Social and Cultural Analysis Professor, New York University
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 19
- Opere correlate
- 6
- Utenti
- 677
- Popolarità
- #37,312
- Voto
- 3.7
- Recensioni
- 5
- ISBN
- 103
- Lingue
- 3
Ross is a professor at NYU, and sits firmly in the Occupy Wall Street camp. He presents us with a number of striking figures throughout the text. Did you know that there are five active credit cards for every American? Did you know that 96% of students at for-profit colleges take out student loans, when only 35% of them graduate with a degree (which is sometimes unaccredited, and therefore, worthless)? Did you know that 33% of college students pay tuition at least partially with credit card debt?
Back in high school, I recall my friend Rachel learning about college tuition and loans, and proposing that we all go on strike, as the costs were too high. Looking back, I think she might have been onto something.
“Creditocracy” lays bare the fact that our supposed wealth and affluence in the United States is propped up on an extremely precarious mountain of debt. Ross is not pointing the finger at individual profligacy (he is quick to defend an increasingly impoverished populace). Rather, he explores the institutionalized systems of private credit that concentrate wealth at public expense.
What do we do about this? Refuse to repay debts on moral and ethical grounds. Although this may sound unrealistic, debt refusal has a long and storied history, from the biblical Jubilee, to the list of over one hundred sovereign debt crisis over the past five centuries (which you can find on Wikipedia).
Ross has a good bit of on-the-ground experience, which he documents in the book. Rolling Jubilee was founded to forgive defaulted debts, primarily medical debts. Strike Debt has been focused on organizing students with debt from for-profit colleges to refuse repayment.
Due to our taboos around money, we rarely hear each other complaining about our financial debts. Hopefully this book will help to encourage more people to begin engaging in a dialogue with their peers. If you have overly-burdensome financial debts, you’re part of a silent majority! Start mobilizing!
Towards the end of the book, Ross begins exploring climate debts. Places like the US and the UK have arrived at the top of the global economy through extra centuries of fossil-fuel emissions. What if first-world countries forgave the financial debts of third-world countries due to these ecological debts? In an era increasingly defined by financial inequality and climate change, further exploration in this intersection is merited.… (altro)