David Graeber: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse [MUST READ]
It does often seem that, whenever there is a choice between one option that makes capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and another that would actually make capitalism a more viable economic system, neoliberalism means always choosing the former. The combined result is a relentless campaign against the human imagination .. What might a revolution in common sense actually look like? I don’t know, but I can think of any number of pieces of conventional wisdom that surely need challenging if we are to create any sort of viable free society .. What would happen if we stopped acting as if the primordial form of work is laboring at a production line, or wheat field, or iron foundry, or even in an office cubicle, and instead started from a mother, a teacher, or a caregiver? We might be forced to conclude that the real business of human life is not contributing toward something called “the economy” (a concept that didn’t even exist three hundred years ago), but the fact that we are all, and have always been, projects of mutual creation
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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 7th, 2013 at 7:42 AM and filed under Activism, Articles, Economics, Peace, Philosophy, Youth. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.
2 Responses to “David Graeber: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse [MUST READ]”
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I completely agree; this is a MUST READ! As I was plowing through this piece, I began to think: I really like the direction this is going–and who the heck is this guy? So–this piece really comes out of his life’s work.
Posted on 07-Apr-13 at 4:32 pm | PermalinkI just finished the textbook “The Necessary Revolution” for a college class I’m in. There is nothing whatsoever remotely revolutionary in the book. The authors are business school instructors. Please!
We live in a world of rising productivity and growing unemployment. (Not to mention a host of other issues.) To coin a phrase, I believe we need to “reinvent work”. In line with Graeber, that will be work which helps one another. He suggests that the production of things for sale is less important than work that improves all our lives.
Also, debt is the mechanism of control. “You owe, therefore you must work.” It is true of Greece, just as it is all working people. It is a system of “fleecing”.
A wealthy friend once said: if you reset the table with everyone equal, in no time at all some would be far ahead. True, the hope of Democracy is to keep resetting that table.
The author Graeber was much involved in Occupy Wall St. I too am searching for a lever. A change in “common sense” might do it. He is credited with the 99% formulation. That is a heck of a start.
hey Pat thanks for your comment .. Here’s to more common sense!
Posted on 08-Apr-13 at 7:20 am | Permalink