autobiography years before the financial crash of 2008 i did my best to be capitalist i took a job at a mortgage broking firm my task was to process mortgage completions once all the approvals had been received every case that i processed represented somebody gaining a new home but i had no contact with any of them no way to know what might become of them next arranging a house for somebody is normally seen as kindness but these boons were often assaults we worked with lenders like northern rock specialists in sub-prime mortgages at the touch of a button that transferred one row of numbers between spreadsheets i dropped debt into the lives of those who couldn’t sustain their repayments years later the backwash of defaulted loans would erode northern rock down to sand is there a difference between killing families with drone strikes or with usury my discomfort with all this was obvious on the last day of your probation my manager called me to her office for a meeting “we think you might be happier in community-oriented work” she explained that it was important to trust the c.e.o.’s ethical choices our role is to enact them we are the technology through which finance operates on the world don’t worry about the human beings you’re processing as far as you’re concerned they’re just numbers upon a screen to demonstrate how this should work in practice i was asked to clear my desk and leave the building right away and you how would you respond to such a change of circumstances

• scale back your outgoings to match your reduced income
• reply with physical violence to the systematic brutality of capital