Interview

Enric Duran is a Catalan anti-capitalist activist, best known for his act of “financial civil disobedience” announced on September 17, 2008, in which he took out half a million Euros in bank loans and distributed the funds to anti-capitalist movements. As it was never his intention to pay these debts, but instead to stir debate about the unfair legal advantages afforded to the powerful financial elite, he was soon labeled “Robin Banks,” and faced with a lengthy prison sentence. The resulting legal actions and his subsequent seclusion have left him living virtually underground, although he maintains selective contact and has stated that he may return, contingent on a variety of factors.

Despite his precarious legal status, his work continues undiminished in the Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC), which describes itself as a “transitional initiative for social transformation from below, through self-management, self-organization, and networking” and Fair.coop an ambitious transnational Open Cooperative backed by its own socially-oriented cryptocurrency, Faircoin.