#david-graeber — Public Fediverse posts

Eh klar, weniger arbeiten!!! 😎😉

Aus "Anarchie - oder was? Gespräche mit David Graeber, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Nika Dubrovsky und Assia Turquier-Zaubermann"

#anarchie #anarchismus #davidgraeber #arbeitsfetisch #sozialismus

"... In fact, Eurasian populations made a much earlier entry to what was then a genuinely ‘New World’, some 17,000 years ago. What was more, they did indeed think to build boats, following a coastal route that passed around the Pacific Rim, hopping between offshore islands and linear patches of kelp forest and ending somewhere on the southern coast of Chile. Early eastward crossings also took place."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"... In fact, Eurasian populations made a much earlier entry to what was then a genuinely ‘New World’, some 17,000 years ago. What was more, they did indeed think to build boats, following a coastal route that passed around the Pacific Rim, hopping between offshore islands and linear patches of kelp forest and ending somewhere on the southern coast of Chile. Early eastward crossings also took place."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"In parts of Australia, these indigenous techniques of land management were such that, according to one recent study, we should stop speaking of ‘foraging’ altogether, and refer instead to a different sort of farming."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(4/4)

"In parts of Australia, these indigenous techniques of land management were such that, according to one recent study, we should stop speaking of ‘foraging’ altogether, and refer instead to a different sort of farming."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(4/4)

"As indigenous legal scholars have been pointing out for years, the ‘Agricultural Argument’ makes no sense, even on its own terms. There are many ways, other than European-style farming, in which to care for and improve the productivity of land. What to a settler’s eye seemed savage, untouched wilderness ..."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/4)

#agriculture #permaculture #indigenous

"As indigenous legal scholars have been pointing out for years, the ‘Agricultural Argument’ makes no sense, even on its own terms. There are many ways, other than European-style farming, in which to care for and improve the productivity of land. What to a settler’s eye seemed savage, untouched wilderness ..."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/4)

#agriculture #permaculture #indigenous

"Scholars still write as if those living in earlier stages of economic development, and especially those who are classified as ‘egalitarian’, can be treated as if they were literally all the same, living in some collective group-think: if human differences show up in any form – different ‘bands’ being different from each other – it is only in the same way that bands of great apes might differ."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"Scholars still write as if those living in earlier stages of economic development, and especially those who are classified as ‘egalitarian’, can be treated as if they were literally all the same, living in some collective group-think: if human differences show up in any form – different ‘bands’ being different from each other – it is only in the same way that bands of great apes might differ."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

I wonder of David Chapman has written about The Dawn of Everything? I'm only onto the 3rd chapter, but it's already blowing some big holes in the assumptions that underpin the @Meaningness book-in-progress, for example in quotes like this;

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/116956225889065381

What a shame David Graeber isn't around anymore, I'd like to see a conversation between the 2 of them, and Graeber's co-author David Wengrow.

#Meaningness #DavidChapman #TheDawnOfEverything #DavidGraeber #DavidWengrow

I wonder of David Chapman has written about The Dawn of Everything? I'm only onto the 3rd chapter, but it's already blowing some big holes in the assumptions that underpin the @Meaningness book-in-progress, for example in quotes like this;

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/116956225889065381

What a shame David Graeber isn't around anymore, I'd like to see a conversation between the 2 of them, and Graeber's co-author David Wengrow.

#Meaningness #DavidChapman #TheDawnOfEverything #DavidGraeber #DavidWengrow

"In conversation, we can hold thoughts and reflect on problems sometimes for hours on end. This is of course why so often, even if we’re trying to figure something out by ourselves, we imagine arguing with or explaining it to someone else. Human thought is inherently dialogic."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

"In conversation, we can hold thoughts and reflect on problems sometimes for hours on end. This is of course why so often, even if we’re trying to figure something out by ourselves, we imagine arguing with or explaining it to someone else. Human thought is inherently dialogic."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

"This, [Christopher Boehm] concludes, is the essence of politics: the ability to reflect consciously on different directions one’s society could take, and to make explicit arguments why it should take one path rather than another."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"This, [Christopher Boehm] concludes, is the essence of politics: the ability to reflect consciously on different directions one’s society could take, and to make explicit arguments why it should take one path rather than another."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"This is not, then, a book about the origins of inequality. But it aims to answer many of the same questions in a different way. There is no doubt that something has gone terribly wrong with the world. A very small percentage of its population do control the fates of almost everyone else, and they are doing it in an increasingly disastrous fashion."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"This is not, then, a book about the origins of inequality. But it aims to answer many of the same questions in a different way. There is no doubt that something has gone terribly wrong with the world. A very small percentage of its population do control the fates of almost everyone else, and they are doing it in an increasingly disastrous fashion."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

"Back in the 1930s, the anthropologist "Gregory Bateson coined the term 'schismogenesis' to describe people's tendency to define themselves against one another."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/3)

#schismogenesis

"Back in the 1930s, the anthropologist "Gregory Bateson coined the term 'schismogenesis' to describe people's tendency to define themselves against one another."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/3)

#schismogenesis

Und darunter liegt die Annahme, dass der Mensch von Natur aus wild und gefährlich ist und zivilisiert werden muss. Und dieses Narrativ ist eines der wichtigsten Narrative der Rechten. Das ist quasi die Basis. Ob diese Annahme stimmt - tut sie nicht by the way - ist unerheblich, sie ist (unhinterfragte) Grundannahme rechten Denkens.

#UmbertoEco #davidgraeber

2/6

@arnesemsrott.bsky.social That's the spirit. 💪 #bedingungslosesGrundeinkommen für alle, u.a. auch für die, die am Arbeitsplatz sonst zuviel Schaden anrichten. 😂

#davidgraeber

@arnesemsrott.bsky.social That's the spirit. 💪 #bedingungslosesGrundeinkommen für alle, u.a. auch für die, die am Arbeitsplatz sonst zuviel Schaden anrichten. 😂

#davidgraeber

@phneutral @DGI

Indeed a real eye opener ...

As alread David Graebers elder classic "Debts - the first 5000 years" ("Schulden - die ersten 5000 Jahre"). Latter I consider as one of the books of the century.

#Buchtipp #DavidGraeber

@phneutral @DGI

Indeed a real eye opener ...

As alread David Graebers elder classic "Debts - the first 5000 years" ("Schulden - die ersten 5000 Jahre"). Latter I consider as one of the books of the century.

#Buchtipp #DavidGraeber

"Many influential Enlightenment thinkers did in fact claim that some of their ideas on the subject were directly taken from Native American sources - even though, predictably, intellectual historians today insist this cannot really be the case."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/?)

#eurocentrism

"Many influential Enlightenment thinkers did in fact claim that some of their ideas on the subject were directly taken from Native American sources - even though, predictably, intellectual historians today insist this cannot really be the case."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/?)

#eurocentrism

"Revisiting what we will call the ‘indigenous critique’ means taking seriously contributions to social thought that come from outside the European canon, and in particular from those indigenous peoples whom Western philosophers tend to cast either in the role of history’s angels or its devils."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

#indigenous

"Revisiting what we will call the ‘indigenous critique’ means taking seriously contributions to social thought that come from outside the European canon, and in particular from those indigenous peoples whom Western philosophers tend to cast either in the role of history’s angels or its devils."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/2)

#indigenous

"To give just a sense of how different the emerging picture is: it is clear now that human societies before the advent of farming were not confined to small, egalitarian bands."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/4)

"To give just a sense of how different the emerging picture is: it is clear now that human societies before the advent of farming were not confined to small, egalitarian bands."

#DavidGraeber, #DavidWengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-david-wengrow-the-dawn-of-everything

(1/4)

Every time I reread this essay I'm both amused by the wry, good-natured humour, and inspired by the incisive way David Graeber exposed that the emperors of capitalism wear no clothes;

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

We lost you far too soon David. #RIP

#DavidGraeber #FlyingCar #JetPack

Every time I reread this essay I'm both amused by the wry, good-natured humour, and inspired by the incisive way David Graeber exposed that the emperors of capitalism wear no clothes;

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

We lost you far too soon David. #RIP

#DavidGraeber #FlyingCar #JetPack

@BlumeEvolution

Ich teile die Erfahrung, dass sehr viel Israelkritik antisemitisch motiviert ist. Da ich im Medienteam von Extinction Rebellion Austria bin, möchte ich ein Statement verlinken, dass wir nach dem Hamas-Attentat vom 7. Oktober formuliert haben: https://xrebellion.at/2023/11/07/positionierung-zur-xr-global-nahost-solidaritaetserklaerung/

Der Antisemitismus-Vorwurf kann aber, gerade weil er oft zutrifft, auch undifferenziert dazu benutzt werden linke oder andere unbequeme Positionen zu denunzieren. Dieter Nuhr tut das in seiner Rede, und damit schadet er dem Preis, den er bekommen hat. Im Grunde verwendet er alte Manipulationstechniken, um Greta Thunberg und die Fridays for Future zum einen als antisemitisch und zum anderen als zivilisationsfeindlich zu denunzieren.

Vielleicht darf ich, ohne dass das anmaßend ist, einen Text zitieren, den David Graeber vor 10 Jahren geschrieben hat:

The problem is that exploiting Jewish issues in ways guaranteed to create rancor, panic, and resentment is itself a form of antisemitism. (This is true whether or not the architects are fully aware of what they’re doing.) [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/first-time-my-life-im-frightened-be-jewish/]

Muss man diese Ausbeutung nicht auch Nuhr vorwerfen, wenn er so wie in seiner Rede gegen einen großen Teil der Klimabewegung polemisiert?

What Leads to Administrative Bloat?

I’ve commented many times before on this blog about runaway expenditure on management resulting in the diversion of resources away from the core missions of a university, i.e. teaching and research, while producing no significant improvement in the efficiency, and indeed often a deterioration, of administrative processes. David Graeber wrote a book called Bullshit Jobs about this phenomenon. Management response to this is generally to assert that this administrative bloat is a response to regulatory burden. Many of us working in higher education would instead argue that the entire sector has been hijacked by self-serving parasites who are deliberately sucking the lifeblood out of the system.

I just came across a paper on the Physics and Society section of arXiv that tries to explain management bloat from the point of view of systems theory. The title is What Leads to Administrative Bloat? A Dynamic Model of Administrative Cost and Waste, the authors are Vicky Chuqiao Yang and Levi Grenier of MIT and the abstract is here:

The functioning of complex systems depends on the coordination of diverse components, often supported by regulatory structures that incur costs. In human organizations, such costs manifest as administrative burden, which has been rising despite often reducing efficiency. Classic explanations point to bureaucrat self-interest or regulation, yet they do not explain variation across organizations or clarify how this burden can be reduced. Here, we develop a dynamical model of administrative growth that integrates known behavioral mechanisms of process creation, obsolescence, and removal. The model conceptualizes processes as developed for problem solving, but becoming obsolete as conditions change, while continuing to consume resources until actively pruned. This interplay generates two long-term outcomes: stable equilibrium or run-away growth. The threshold separating these outcomes is shaped by organizations’ propensity to create new processes when faced with problems, and their propensity to prune obsolete ones in response to administrative burden. Importantly, their effects are asymmetric: sufficiently high creation propensity leads to bloat regardless of pruning propensity. Faster environmental change shifts this threshold, making bloat more likely. Simulations of interventions show that lasting reductions in administrative costs and waste require permanent shifts in priorities and investments in distinguishing obsolete from useful processes. Temporary efforts or indiscriminate cuts provide only short-lived relief, and counterintuitively, prioritizing direct production can increase waste. Our work highlights a general mechanism by which well-intentioned problem-solving can create self-reinforcing inefficiencies in complex systems, offering insights possibly generalizable to broader applications, such as legal, policy, and software systems where obsolete elements accumulate.

Here’s a a figure from the paper that provides ample illustration of the problem:

You will find a similar phenomenon on display at universities across the world. In my view this is a large part of the crisis engulfing higher education in the United Kingdom.

It’s an interesting paper, based on a very simple model. The authors also suggest various ways in which this burden could be reduced. The problem with that is that there is no incentive at all for The Management (who hold all the power) to improve the situation, as that would involve eliminating the bullshit jobs held by many of their cronies. With university governance structures notoriously weak and compliant, who manages the Managers? The most likely response from my University would be to appoint a new Vice-President for Self-reinforcing Inefficiency…

Viens de découvrir la bibliothèque musicale de #DavidGraeber. C'est la première fois que j'ai accès à ce genre d'information au sujet d'une personne décédée qui m'a beaucoup marqué intellectuellement !

https://music.davidgraeber.org/

#Musique #Anarchisme

Viens de découvrir la bibliothèque musicale de #DavidGraeber. C'est la première fois que j'ai accès à ce genre d'information au sujet d'une personne décédée qui m'a beaucoup marqué intellectuellement !

https://music.davidgraeber.org/

#Musique #Anarchisme

Como si fuéramos libres: el legado pirata y anarquista de #DavidGraeber: Cinco años después de su muerte, las ideas del antropólogo neoyorquino, muy influyente para pensadores como Piketty, Solnit o Latour, siguen ayudándonos a imaginar otra democracia y otra economía más allá de lo que se nos vende como inevitable #pensamiento https://elpais.com/ideas/2026-05-26/como-si-fueramos-libres-el-legado-pirata-y-anarquista-de-david-graeber.html

David Graeber attempted an answer in his 2015 book The Utopia of Rules. Particularly in an essay first published in 2012, entitled Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit;

"Given a choice between a course of action that would make capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and one that would transform capitalism into a viable, long-term economic system, neoliberalism chooses the former every time."

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

(9/?)

#DavidGraeber #neoliberalism

David Graeber attempted an answer in his 2015 book The Utopia of Rules. Particularly in an essay first published in 2012, entitled Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit;

"Given a choice between a course of action that would make capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and one that would transform capitalism into a viable, long-term economic system, neoliberalism chooses the former every time."

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

(9/?)

#DavidGraeber #neoliberalism

Sobre esto, extraído de face, nota antropológica, “Un antropólogo propone una teoría sobre los espacios que matan tu imaginación sin que lo notes.

El trabajo más agotador del mundo es imaginar lo que piensa el de a lado.

Por Redacción Nota Antropológica…
Sobre las dificultades burocráticas,
El antropólogo David Graeber, en una conferencia que dio en 2006 en la London School of Economics y que luego se publicó en la revista HAU

#DavidGraeber #Burocracia

@Luk @dallo

C'est assez incroyable effectivement !

Dans les mois et années qui viennent, il serait intéressant de récolter différents exemples de ce type afin de mettre en lumière la version #ia de ce qu'un certain #davidgraeber appelaient les #bullshijobs :rotflpuke:

@Luk @dallo

C'est assez incroyable effectivement !

Dans les mois et années qui viennent, il serait intéressant de récolter différents exemples de ce type afin de mettre en lumière la version #ia de ce qu'un certain #davidgraeber appelaient les #bullshijobs :rotflpuke:

https://scuolalibertaria.blogspot.com/2026/05/burocrazia-scuola-lutopia-delle-regole.html

#DavidGraeber

Analyse intéressante des motivations du vote populiste de droite. La préface de Véronique Dutraive reprend ces propos, mais aussi les mets en perspectives d’autres positions scientifiques et politiques.

https://bibliothequefahrenheit.blogspot.com/2026/03/valeurs-politique-et-democratie-aux.html#more

#davidgraeber #populisme

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116454270791245630

been thinking about #DavidGraeber a lot lately. i think the Venn Diagram of people trapped in #BullshitJobs and aisloppers is a circle.

i would bet you that if people could earn a living without a bullshit job ―and, yes, a lot of tech work is bullshit― they’d have whole careers and lives outside of this capitalist hellscape.

capitalists are using #AI to gaslight us into believing we need them as the middlemen between our lives and a life worth living.

it’s a lie.

cut the middlemen out.

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116454270791245630

been thinking about #DavidGraeber a lot lately. i think the Venn Diagram of people trapped in #BullshitJobs and aisloppers is a circle.

i would bet you that if people could earn a living without a bullshit job ―and, yes, a lot of tech work is bullshit― they’d have whole careers and lives outside of this capitalist hellscape.

capitalists are using #AI to gaslight us into believing we need them as the middlemen between our lives and a life worth living.

it’s a lie.

cut the middlemen out.

#caturday finally I have a picture of #thedawnofeveryrhing worth #sharing !
#davidgraeber #davidwengrow

#caturday finally I have a picture of #thedawnofeveryrhing worth #sharing !
#davidgraeber #davidwengrow

Great book.

#DavidGraeber #debt

Great book.

#DavidGraeber #debt

Some *light* reading -- history and prophecy...

I read #FrankWaters "#TheBookOfTheHopi" many years ago, but misplaced my old copy. Refreshing myself on #HopiProphecy and what it all means for the times we are living in.

#EricCline's "#1177BC" has been a good read. I'm finding his chapter about a "perfect storm of calamities" to be relevant to the age we are living in now, especially with regard to #ClimateCrisis and #Polycrisis.

Graeber/Wengrow's "#TheDawnOfEverything" has taken me a while to get through... So much to take in. Learning about power and systems of power and their origins.

"The Occult Features of #Anarchism" by #EricaLagalisse also deals with systems of power -- and how #MutualAid is part of true autonomy (I agree).

#Bookstodon #AmReading #ReadWithPride #BannedBooks #ToBeBanned? #ReadWhileItsStillLegal #BigBrother #Fascism #Authoritarianism #DavidGraeber #DavidWengrow

Some *light* reading -- history and prophecy...

I read #FrankWaters "#TheBookOfTheHopi" many years ago, but misplaced my old copy. Refreshing myself on #HopiProphecy and what it all means for the times we are living in.

#EricCline's "#1177BC" has been a good read. I'm finding his chapter about a "perfect storm of calamities" to be relevant to the age we are living in now, especially with regard to #ClimateCrisis and #Polycrisis.

Graeber/Wengrow's "#TheDawnOfEverything" has taken me a while to get through... So much to take in. Learning about power and systems of power and their origins.

"The Occult Features of #Anarchism" by #EricaLagalisse also deals with systems of power -- and how #MutualAid is part of true autonomy (I agree).

#Bookstodon #AmReading #ReadWithPride #BannedBooks #ToBeBanned? #ReadWhileItsStillLegal #BigBrother #Fascism #Authoritarianism #DavidGraeber #DavidWengrow