Husband: What happened in Pennsylvania is kind of amazing. It's the home, on the one hand, of the money people, right? And then you have this amazing thing that happens in the lead up to declaring independence. You get, somehow, ordinary people, because they're needed to fight in the war, organize to sort of take over the malicious system. Husband: This was democracy with the qualifications that I brought up before, right about democracy and who was left out.
Astra Taylor interviews William Hogeland on his book Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation. Hogeland recovers a fascinating crop of mostly-forgotten rebels, the movements they led, and their radical demands that put the landlords and lenders of their day on edge. He also recounts the complex and sometimes deadly machinations that went into suppressing them in order to create a nation that was safe for the owning and investing classes.
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