Last Thursday night, Le Poisson Rouge, a concert venue in lower Manhattan, hosted “The People’s Bailout,” a night of music and comedy performances to benefit an initiative called the Rolling Jubilee. The Rolling Jubilee, a project of Strike Debt, itself an arm of Occupy Wall Street, has been raising money from supporters to buy debt discounted by the original lenders to as little as two cents on the dollars—the kind of debt that’s typically sold to collection agencies. Having bought the debt, Rolling Jubilee will then forgive it. It is, in Occupy parlance, “a bailout of the ninety-nine per-cent by the ninety-nine per-cent.”

Ticket holders for the event donated twenty-five dollars, fifty dollars, or as much as they were able. When they arrived at Le Poisson Rouge, they were offered a “My Name Is” sticker, on which they were invited to write a number representing the total value of their personal debt—to wear as an identifier, and to add to the collective chorus. A bouncer checking I.D.s at the door sported a sticker on his black bomber jacket that read “$27,000.” A visitor asked what it referred to. He shrugged. “That’s just me, baby.”

Equating a name with a number might contradict the Rolling Jubilee ethos—the tagline for the event, and of the Strike Debt arm of Occupy, is “you are not a loan”—but when it comes to their messaging, Occupy and its offshoots have never prized unity or consistency. Even so, the Rolling Jubilee presents a disarmingly simple—and practical—concept: short-circuit the secondary-debt market by taking advantage of how cheaply lenders sell debt, disrupt it by cancelling the debt, and, in the process, demonstrate that lenders offload their debt at a loss, but are unwilling to forgive it for debtors. As David Graeber, an anthropologist and the author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” explained to Brian Lehrer on WNYC, “People who own that debt are willing to write it off for that much, they’re just not willing to write it off for that much to you.”

Still, there were some points that required clarification. Yes, Strike Debt can specify the kind of debt that will be purchased. (In this case, it will be medical debt, although Strike Debt argues that medical debt, student loan, and housing debt are so mixed up in each household’s economics that it hardly matters.) No, individuals can’t buy their own debt—at least not deliberately. (Debt collectors acquire contact information and Social Security numbers for debtors only after the purchase.) What about the moral hazard of releasing individuals from agreements they had knowingly entered into? Strike Debt organizers take the position that most debt arises from a combination of predatory lending practices—collusion between universities and banks and misleading information, for instance—and bad luck, such as medical emergencies or layoffs. Emancipated debtors would be notified of their “abolished” debt with a certified letter. The hope is that those debtors will pay their good luck forward.

Since Occupy set up camp in Zuccotti Park last fall, the movement has been criticized frequently for its lack of clear goals. It was dismissed as disorganized and ineffectual. Then it was evicted from Zuccotti Park, and for a time, fell out of sight.

But this fall, Occupy’s diffuse but still active network has shown itself capable of real action and organization. That network allowed Occupy Sandy to be among the first organizations on the ground in Red Hook and the Rockaways, where, thanks in part to its put-everyone-to-work ethos of mutual aid, it has made substantial contributions to hurricane-relief efforts. Now Strike Debt has unveiled the Rolling Jubilee as its signature project, to great enthusiasm. Lizz Winstead, one of the emcees for “The People’s Bailout” and a co-creator of “The Daily Show,” told me how frustrating it was to be told, in response to her support of Occupy, that the movement had no agenda or tangible impact to speak of. “But did you ever think that maybe they needed a little more time, that they might be percolating on an idea? Yeah, well.”

The Rolling Jubilee campaign began earlier this month with a test run. Strike Debt organizers raised five thousand dollars among themselves, and used it to acquire a hundred thousand dollars of medical debt. News of the initiative went viral. Donations began pouring in. Soon there was a flurry of news coverage, both critical and laudatory, from both sides of the political spectrum. On Forbes’s Web site, Tim Worstall ran a column titled “Finally, an Occupy Wall Street Idea We Can All Get Behind” and Business Insider called the idea “brilliant,” while Doug Henwood, a contributing editor at The Nation, derided the effort as “purely symbolic” given the country’s debt load, and wondered if a living-wage or labor strikes wouldn’t be a better focus. Felix Salmon, who was otherwise mostly in favor of the plan, raised the question of the legitimacy of the distressed debt being targeted; buying fraudulent debt from banks, he pointed out, would only serve to encourage banks’ dubious practices.

Whatever the opinions about it, the idea spread faster than any of the organizers had expected. Andrew Ross, a professor of social and cultural analysis at N.Y.U. and a founding member of Strike Debt, said that the enthusiastic response had been dramatic, though not surprising. “There’s an incredible appetite for this,” Ross told me. “People are at the end of their tether. Some have written that they are on a fixed income but still want to contribute; some say they are giving their last dollar. It’s been very moving.” “The People’s Bailout” was intended to be a kickoff party to raise fifty thousand dollars, but before the event began, Strike Debt had already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. “It’s actually a victory party,” Ross said. (At the time of writing, Rolling Jubilee had raised $368,428; enough, according to the organization, to buy over seven million dollars of debt.)

“The People’s Bailout” itself was a three-hour variety show featuring a grab bag of comedians, musicians, and speakers. It was streamed live over the Internet as a “telethon” to invite online donations. Performers ranged in age from Ross’s ten-year-old daughter, Zola—who recited lyrics from “Bohemian Rhapsody” while wearing a matador costume—to four nuns from Occupy Catholics who called for “Jubilee, not usury!” The celebrity comedians Winstead and Janeane Garofalo made appearances, as did the “Get Your War On” cartoonist David Rees and musicians from Fugazi, Das Racist, Sonic Youth, and TV on the Radio. Jeff Mangum, the publicity-averse talent behind Neutral Milk Hotel, played. Astra Taylor, a filmmaker, writer, and co-editor of n+1’s Occupy! Gazette, who helped organize the event and is married to Mangum, told me that all of the performers were not more than one step removed from the movement. “This is very family,” she said.

Though the initiative may have started with a festive bang, it won’t continue indefinitely. “This isn’t intended to be a solution to the debt problem, but a way of exposing how predatory the debt market is,” Ross said. “It’s a market where scammers and bottom feeders operate, and people are harassed within an inch of their life. The idea is to let people know just how venal it is.” Strike Debt has raised ten times what it had hoped, but acknowledges that the Rolling Jubilee won’t reach a scale where it can make a significant dent in the nation’s total debt. Instead, they have other projects, including organizing a national debtor’s union and collaborating with Occupy Sandy in areas affected by the storm to warn victims about shady lending practices. For now, Ross was satisfied. “We’ve made our point,” he said. And the money keeps rolling in.

Photograph by Lance Bangs.