Toon: Americans Are Drowning in Debt
"If history shows anything, it is that there's no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it's the victim who's doing something wrong. Mafiosi understand this.”
David Graeber, anthropologist, professor at the London School of Economics and a big role model of mine, unexpectedly died this week at the age of 59. He was a seriously under appreciated and truly original intellect of our times (under appreciated at least as far as it applies to the US, incoherent screeching about communists, socialists, anarchists from large segments of the population might be a good hint why). There aren't many I can credit with actually shifting and significantly reorienting my worldview, simply because his work is of the rarest quality: Being deeply insightful and innovative, yet true to the anarchist ethos also extremely accessible and very obvious in hindsight.
For example once you really internalize the fact that at its core, a promise of violence is essential to property and all social relations based on money it forces you to be cognizant of it and permanently alters your relationship to your surroundings. John Oliver closed his show on the Minnesota uprisings with this clip. Property destruction suddenly gains many more layers of meaning when viewed from the perspective of the powerless upon whom violence is being enacted on.
Everyone I've talked to who has come in contact with his work almost always classifies fundamental parts of their understanding of society and culture into pre-Graeber and post-Graeber thinking.
He taught me the value of honing and cultivating a relentlessly inquisitive and ceaselessly curious anarchist mindset. You can see it best in his interview with Peter Thiel (yup) I'll link below.
Most importantly what he made me realize about myself is that if I dismiss something, it's often out of convenience and/or cowardice, not because I think I'm smarter or that someone else is necessarily wrong. It's a worn out cliche to describe someone as a free thinker but he really was one. In fact one of his principles was to act as if you were already free.
I genuinely believe your education as a human - and I say human intentionally because imo the best politics is anthropological - is not complete until you've read some of his popular works. As a start I'd recommend “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory", "Utopia of Rules" and of course his magnum opus for which he is most well known for: “Debt: the First 5000 Years". Maybe others can comment and link some of their favorite essays and obscure articles of his.
It's still so unreal. I keep anticipating the many exciting things he would have gone on to produce, especially during our neo-fascist times. The world lost a human. RIPower.
Since Labor Day is coming up I'll leave with this quote:
"Shit jobs tend to be blue collar and pay by the hour, whereas bullshit jobs tend to be white collar and salaried."