this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024

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What Happened to David Graeber? | Los Angeles Review of Books (lareviewofbooks.org)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Tldr, graeber is a lib but also a state socialist.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (3 children)

By his own account politically unemployable in American academia, he claimed that, though the academy of that era sheltered myriad “authoritarian Marxists,” anarchism was considered beyond the pale, as I can confirm from personal experience.

I find this an interesting anecdote as I've generally found that a lot of academics are soft anarchists or radlibs who think they are anarchists but are less open about putting specifics on their political identity compared to campus trots. Not saying he's lying or anything, different times and countries.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I read this book along with Debt and Utopia Of Rules and I would say that his politics were very utopian and I think he always overstated the impact of OWS. He had a lot of interesting stuff to say for sure and his classic quote about simply unmaking what has been made is great.

I think he leans too much into the spontaneity of revolutionary action and that in some sort of messianic way, change will come.

Just my opinion and all that

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

I enjoyed Debt for its anthro study of money, and traditionally anarchists have always been utopian to MLs in various ways.

Was just commenting on my own campus experience (I was a student/worker on campus for 12 years) that didn't seem to vibe with the article writer's experience, but maybe things have changed.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

a lot of academics are soft anarchists or radlibs who think they are anarchists

This was my experience as well

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I think this article is good. Dismissing the concept of egalitarianism and the state does seem like a move away from anarchism

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So Graeber's analysis evolved and grew? That doesn't seem like the bad thing this review makes of it. He still seems like an anarchist even if he is saying that the conception of the state and its history is a flawed category, and how "equality" in contemporary discourse ends up as calls for technocratic tinkering unconcerned with any potential for non-capitalist social formation.

Like the reviewer clearly sees his position develop over time and then invokes Hayek as if that's a fair comparison:

Here, he appears almost to be ridiculing himself and the Occupy movement (if also Thomas Piketty), or Graeber and Wengrow appear to be ridiculing earlier Graeber. Do I hear a touch of Friedrich Hayek?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Graeber's rejection of the concept of the state undermines one of the basic assumptions of anarchist thought, which is anti-statism. As the reviewer says,

But this “simplistic” conception of the state is also the conception that fuels or articulates the anarchist critique of the state, from William Godwin to Mikhail Bakunin to Emma Goldman [...] In late Graeber, this looks simplistic and nonempirical. “The state” is a concept that falls apart under analysis and should be abandoned. Of course, that makes anti-statism just as senseless, for what is an anti-statist fighting against, really?

Same logic applies to his rejection of egalitarianism, which is also an important aspect of anarchist thought. I think late Graeber would dismiss anarchism as based on the same flawed Enlightenment assumptions that he spends debunking in The Dawn of Everything.

I think Graeber remained a radical throughout his life, but not an anarchist in his later works. Unless you're using a more expansive definition of anarchism?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

The last chapter in Debt was a real lib curveball

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is this in the dunk tank as a dunk on Graeber or a dunk on the author criticizing Graeber?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The latter

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I'm not exactly an expert on Graeber despite having once been a pretty big fan of his work, but I don't really find myself disagreeing with much this author says. I think there was a bit of a liberal drift in his later works.