This is a challenge to conventional thinking around money and the ''debt crisis''. By re-evaluating the source of money, Mary Mellor presents a radical alternative to austerity and privatisation: public wealth, or, money used for sustainability, sufficiency and social justice. Debt or Democracy debunks the received lessons of the financial crisis of 2007. Political elites shout about a house whose finances are in disarray; a ''yawning deficit'' created by reckless spending in a bloated public sector. The answer to this ''debt crisis'' has been harsh austerity measures - but this is a dangerously deceptive discourse.Turning against the prevalent narrative, with its language of ''debt'' and ''deficit'', Mellor takes on the familiar question - ''where does money come from?''. The real solution is a return to the notion of public wealth and the public economy; of a monetary system owned by, and operated in the interests of, the majority.