DOCSLIB.ORG

David Graeber, Anthropologist and Architect of Occupy Wall Street, Dies at 59 - CBS News

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
David Graeber, Anthropologist and Architect of Occupy Wall Street, Dies at 59 - CBS News 9/4/2020 David Graeber, anthropologist and architect of Occupy Wall Street, dies at 59 - CBS News Sign Up For Newsletters Battleground Tracker Coronavirus Updates "The Power Of August" "Censorship L I V E David Graeber, anthropologist and architect of Occupy Wall Street, dies at 59 S E P T E M B E R 3 , 2 0 2 0 / 3 : 3 8 P M / C B S / A P Anthropologist David Graeber, who worked on the initial stages of the Occupy Wall Street movement, has died in Venice at 59, his agent said. A professor of anthropoloy at the London School of Economics, Graeber studied anarchism and anti-capitalist movements, and challenged the world to consider the plight of the Kurds in the Middle East. His agent, Melissa Flashman, on Thursday announced his death. Graeber authored many books skewering aspects of modern society, including "Debt: The First 5,000 Years." He is perhaps best known for his role in the Occupy Wall Street movement, a grassroots response to the 2008 nancial crisis that highlighted the domination of the economy by the richest 1% of the population. Get Breaking News Delivered to Your Inbox enter your email Sign Up By signing up, you agree to the CBS Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. Receive updates, offers & other information from the CBS family of companies & our partners. Opt out through the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-graeber-dies-59-occupy-wall-street/ 1/6 9/4/2020 David Graeber, anthropologist and architect of Occupy Wall Street, dies at 59 - CBS News While Graeber is often credited with the slogan "We are the 99%," he said on his website it was a communal eort. "I did rst suggest that we call ourselves 'the 99%,'" he wrote. "Then two Spanish indignados and a Greek anarchist added the 'we' and later a food-not-bombs veteran put the `are' between them. And they say you can't create something worthwhile by committee!" Activist and anthropologist David Greaber speaks in Vienna in 2012. F L I C K R / I N T E R N A Z Born in New York, Graeber taught at Yale University before moving on to Goldsmiths, the University of London and nally the London School of Economics. Tributes poured out across social media from fellow academics, former politicians and publishers. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-graeber-dies-59-occupy-wall-street/ 2/6 9/4/2020 David Graeber, anthropologist and architect of Occupy Wall Street, dies at 59 - CBS News Trending News Mike Bloomberg gives $100 million to Black medical students GSK and Sano to start testing COVID19 vaccine on Americans Delta has banned 270 passengers for refusing to wear masks "He was monstrously original," essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote. Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb David Graeber He was a real intellectual; very real: not one fake cell in his brain, not one fake bone in his body. He thought independently. He was monstrouly original. He had intellectual courage. The world seems much much smaller today than before Sep 2. David, RIP 1:20 PM · Sep 3, 2020 4.8K 973 people are Tweeting about this The anarchist collective CrimethInc called him "a brilliant and wide-ranging thinker and an indomitable anarchist who saw freedom even in the workings of electrons." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-graeber-dies-59-occupy-wall-street/ 3/6 9/4/2020 David Graeber, anthropologist and architect of Occupy Wall Street, dies at 59 - CBS News CrimethInc. @crimethinc It breaks our hearts to report the passing of our friend and comrade David Graeber, a brilliant and wide-ranging thinker and an indomitable anarchist who saw freedom even in the workings of electrons. Please read something he wrote today. For example: thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-t… 10:30 AM · Sep 3, 2020 1.8K 683 people are Tweeting about this First published on September 3, 2020 / 3:38 PM © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-graeber-dies-59-occupy-wall-street/ 4/6.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire by David Graeber
    POSSIBILITIES Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire POSSIBILITIES Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire David Graeber Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire by David Graeber ISBN 978-1904859-66-6 Library of Congress Number: 2007928387 ©2007 David Graeber This edition © 2007 AK Press Cover Design: John Yates Layout: C. Weigl & Z. Blue Proofreader: David Brazil AK Press 674-A 23rd Street Oakland, CA 94612 www.akpress.org akpress @akpress.org 510.208.1700 AK Press U.K. PO Box 12766 Edinburgh EH8 9YE www.akuk.com [email protected] 0131.555.5165 Printed in Canada on 100% recycled, acid-free paper by union labor. TABLE OF CONTENTS In tro d u c tio n ....................................................................................................................... 1 PART I: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGINS OF OUR CURRENT PREDICAMENT 1 Manners, Deference, and Private Property: Or, Elements for a General Theory of Hierarchy................................................................................................... 13 2 The Very Idea of Consumption: Desire, Phantasms, and the Aesthetics of Destruction from Medieval Times to the Present...............................................57 3 Turning Modes of Production Inside-Out: Or, Why Capitalism Is a Transformation of Slavery (short version).......................................................... 85 4 Fetishism as Social Creativity: Or, Fetishes Are Gods in the Process of C onstruction.................................................................................................................113
    [Show full text]
  • Critique of Anthropology
    Critique of Anthropology http://coa.sagepub.com Turning Modes of Production Inside Out: Or, Why Capitalism is a Transformation of Slavery David Graeber Critique of Anthropology 2006; 26; 61 DOI: 10.1177/0308275X06061484 The online version of this article can be found at: http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/61 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Critique of Anthropology can be found at: Email Alerts: http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://coa.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations (this article cites 9 articles hosted on the SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms): http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/61#BIBL Downloaded from http://coa.sagepub.com at OREGON STATE UNIV LIBRARY on July 1, 2007 © 2006 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. Article Turning Modes of Production Inside Out Or, Why Capitalism is a Transformation of Slavery David Graeber Department of Anthropology, Yale University Abstract ■ Marxist theory has by now largely abandoned the (seriously flawed) notion of the ‘mode of production’, but doing so has only encouraged a trend to abandon much of what was radical about it and naturalize capitalist categories. This article argues a better conceived notion of a mode of production – one that recognizes the primacy of human production, and hence a more sophisticated notion of materialism – might still have something to show us: notably, that capi- talism, or at least industrial capitalism, has far more in common with, and is historically more closely linked with, chattel slavery than most of us had ever imagined.
    [Show full text]
  • Socialism and the Blockchain
    future internet Article Socialism and the Blockchain Steve Huckle * and Martin White Creative Technology Group, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Chichester 1, 128, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QT, UK; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +44-0-1273-606755 Academic Editor: Carmen de Pablos Heredero Received: 5 August 2016; Accepted: 10 October 2016; Published: 18 October 2016 Abstract: Bitcoin (BTC) is often cited as Libertarian. However, the technology underpinning Bitcoin, blockchain, has properties that make it ideally suited to Socialist paradigms. Current literature supports the Libertarian viewpoint by focusing on the ability of Bitcoin to bypass central authority and provide anonymity; rarely is there an examination of blockchain technology’s capacity for decentralised transparency and auditability in support of a Socialist model. This paper conducts a review of the blockchain, Libertarianism, and Socialist philosophies. It then explores Socialist models of public ownership and looks at the unique cooperative properties of blockchain that make the technology ideal for supporting Socialist societies. In summary, this paper argues that blockchain technologies are not just a Libertarian tool, they also enhance Socialist forms of governance. Keywords: Bitcoin; blockchain; cryptocurrency; fiat money; libertarianism; socialism; Marxism; anarchism 1. Introduction Bitcoin (BTC) is referred to as cryptocurrency because it is a form of electronic cash that relies on cryptography. Since its inception in early 2009 [1], it has achieved a degree of prominence, not least in terms of market value; at the time of writing, its total market capitalisation was over US $6 billion [2]. Furthermore, governmental institutions are beginning to examine the blockchain technology underpinning BTC [3] because some of its properties, which we discuss below, may have implications that extend beyond economics and into social, political and humanitarian domains [4].
    [Show full text]
  • Anarchism, Past and Present
    ANARCHISM, PAST AND PRESENT Spring 2021; PHIL 32091 / CRN: 17068 “Seminar on Philosophical Reflections” Mondays/Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45pm Synchronous; Remote Delivery Dr. David Pereplyotchik [email protected] This course begins with the history of anarchism in 19th-century Europe, covering figures such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Pyotr Kropotkin. These thinkers laid down the foundations of the anarchist philosophy regarding the relationship between an individual and society. Though similar in some respects to the socialism of Karl Marx, we will see that anarchist ideas differ sharply from Marxism, and even more so from the historically disastrous doctrines of V. I. Lenin. We then move our attention to the United States in the early 20th century, where Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, and many others made profound contributions to our understanding of both women’s rights and Black rights, and made clear the injustices of the modern-day prison system. Later in the century, a revival of anarchist philosophy was wrought by Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin, David Graeber, and Ruth Kinna, this time focusing more heavily on contemporary issues, such as the battle against neo-fascism and neoliberalism, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, for animal welfare, and for substantive solutions to the ecological and social problems stemming from global anthropogenic climate change. We’ll round out the course with a foray into two related areas—one historical, the other literary. The first of these is Taoist philosophy, which articulated core anarchist themes as early as the 6th century BC. The second is a literary work of futuristic fiction, The Dispossessed, by the Taoist and Anarchist author, Ursula K.
    [Show full text]
  • Graeber on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations
    OAC PRESS Working Papers Series #6 On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations A Maussian Approach1 David Graeber2 Goldsmiths © 2010 David Graeber Open Anthropology Cooperative Press www.openanthcoop.net/press This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 1 This paper was published in French in Revue du MAUSS Semestrielle No 36 (October 2010), ‘Mauss vivant -- The Living Mauss’, 51-70. An online version of this issue containing 42 articles (a number of them in English) originally produced for a 2009 conference at Cerisy-la-Salle, may be purchased for 29 euros. 2 Reader in Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Debt: The first 5,000 years (Melville House, New York, 2011). 1 For all the vast literature on “the gift,” the concept is surprisingly under-theorized. This is because everyone assumes that there is something called “the gift”, that all transactions not involving payment or the promise of payment are the same thing. Whether seen as a matter of generosity, lack of calculation, creating social relations or a refusal to distinguish between generosity and self-interest, the possibility that “gifts” operate according to different transactional logics is often overlooked. In challenging the assumption of the gift’s conceptual unity, I follow Marcel Mauss whose great contribution to social theory was to recognize not only the diversity of “economic transactions” across human societies, but also that all important economic and moral possibilities are present in any human society.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Anarchists
    A Movement of Movements?—5 david graeber THE NEW ANARCHISTS t’s hard to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between intellectuals and activists; between theorists of Irevolution and its practitioners. Writers who for years have been publishing essays that sound like position papers for vast social movements that do not in fact exist seem seized with confusion or worse, dismissive contempt, now that real ones are everywhere emerging. It’s particularly scandalous in the case of what’s still, for no particularly good reason, referred to as the ‘anti-globalization’ movement, one that has in a mere two or three years managed to transform completely the sense of historical possibilities for millions across the planet. This may be the result of sheer ignorance, or of relying on what might be gleaned from such overtly hostile sources as the New York Times; then again, most of what’s written even in progressive outlets seems largely to miss the point—or at least, rarely focuses on what participants in the movement really think is most important about it. As an anthropologist and active participant—particularly in the more radical, direct-action end of the movement—I may be able to clear up some common points of misunderstanding; but the news may not be gratefully received. Much of the hesitation, I suspect, lies in the reluc- tance of those who have long fancied themselves radicals of some sort to come to terms with the fact that they are really liberals: interested in expanding individual freedoms and pursuing social justice, but not in ways that would seriously challenge the existence of reigning institu- tions like capital or state.
    [Show full text]
  • Without Borders Or Limits
    Without Borders or Limits Without Borders or Limits: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Anarchist Studies Edited by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun Without Borders or Limits: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Anarchist Studies, Edited by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4768-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4768-1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... ix Preface ........................................................................................................ xi Anarchist Studies After NAASN-III: Where Are We Going? Jesse Cohn Introduction ............................................................................................. xvii Nathan Jun and Jorell Meléndez Part One: Theory and Philosophy Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3 A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating
    [Show full text]
  • Kings for UCP.Png
    In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are fgures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime ministers can never be. Tis collection of essays by two of the world’s most distinguished anthropologists—David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins—explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropo- logically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the study of kingship ofers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition. Refecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and utopia—not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial—Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and ubiquitous political fgure. * * * If you deem that anthropology is neither a form of pompous navel- gazing, nor an exercise in making preposterous generalizations out of sketchy personal experiences, this book is for you. With impecca- ble scholarship, conceptual imagination, and wit, David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins think anew, and within a broad comparative scope, an ancient and illustrious question: why and how can a single man come to rule over the many as the embodiment or the delegate of a god? Such a question, they show, can only be answered by shifting towards an analysis where human, non-human, and meta-human persons are treated on the same ontological level as parts of a hierarchical cosmic polity.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridging the Chasms: Contemporary Anarchists in the U.S
    BRIDGING THE CHASMS: CONTEMPORARY ANARCHISTS IN THE U.S. By Benjamin Steinhardt Case BA University of Pittsburgh, 2006 , MPA, New York University, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This thesis was presented by Benjamin Steinhardt Case It was defended on April 10, 2015 and approved by John Markoff, Distinguished Professor, Sociology Suzanne Staggenborg, Professor and Department Chair, Sociology Committee Chair: Mohammed Bamyeh, Professor, Sociology ii Copyright © by Benjamin S. Case 2015 iii Committee Chair: Mohammed Bamyeh BRIDGING THE CHASMS: CONTEMPORARY ANARCHISTS IN THE U.S. Benjamin S. Case, MA University of Pittsburgh, 2015 Studies of anarchists across disciplines have largely focused on famous personalities and major historical events or on contentious protest actions and violence. In a 21st century context in which anarchism has an ever more significant influence on social movements in the U.S. and around the globe, understanding how anarchists understand that label is increasingly important. This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of the meaning of anarchism through the words of anarchists themselves. In this study, I interview 22 anarchists from three U.S. cities about what anarchism means to them and about if and how they practice their ideology in their everyday lives. I find a high level of unity around several core values regardless of the interviewees’ backgrounds or affiliations. Beyond that base level of unity, we see extensive variation across the sectarian divisions asserted by dominant theoretical works, both findings suggesting that such dichotomous, antagonistic frameworks may be overly simplistic.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of World-Systems Research
    JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH ISSN: 1076-156X | Vol. 27 Issue 1 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2021.1043 | jwsr.pitt.edu All Economies are Ultimately HumanVol. Economies 1 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.11 David Graeber David Rolfe Graeber (1961-2020) was an American Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author known for his books Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), The Utopia of Rules (2015) and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018). He worked at the Anthropology department at Yale (1998- 2005), as reader in social anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London (2007-2013), and afterwards, until his death, as a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. Or, what are the material conditions that would produce the kind of people one would most wish to have as friends? They asked me to talk about human economies which is a phrase that actually originally developed in a book about anthropology. Noticing that money is used very different ways in different economies that anthropologists observed. There are places where money is used, as we do, primarily to get goods and services. There is also places where money is used mainly to rearrange social relations and you can’t buy and sell anything. An idea which is extremely odd and unfamiliar to most people. So I decided to call these human economies. But in a larger sense it occurs to me that all economies are really human economies. The strange thing about capitalism is that it is the only system that can make us forget this. And I was particularly struck by the confluence and thinking on this when I was in Rojava.
    [Show full text]
  • Finance Is Just Another Word for Other People's Debts
    INTERVIEW Finance Is Just Another Word for Other People’s Debts An Interview with David Graeber Hannah Chadeayne Appel Odd things happened in fall 2011 as Occupy Wall Street began to inhabit down- town Manhattan. People rode the subway carrying signs that touted the merits of the Glass- Steagall Act; they started sidewalk conversations about corporate person- hood and about the social purpose of derivatives. Legislation, legal precedent, and financial products that had once been obscure emerged in public in new ways. In the months after city officials forcibly evicted occupiers from Liberty Square (née Zuccotti Park), this public conversation — like the occupiers them- selves — dispersed. The talk did not stop so much as it spread out, changed forms, and took route through and beyond New York. Those signs on the subway and the initial conversations about financial regulation (and its discontents) yielded to new referents and signifiers, not least among which were debt — whether student, medi- cal, foreclosure, municipal, or sovereign — and a substantial red- jacketed book by the same name. Debt: The First 5,000 Years established an intellectual reference point almost immediately, but it also became the visual sign of membership in a new kind of political dialogue about who owes what to whom.1 I sat down with David Graeber in late fall 2012, more than a year after he had been among Occupy’s first organizers and after Debt had been widely reviewed as one of the year’s most influential books — not only within anthropology, or even aca- demia, but in the New York Times Book Review, the Financial Times, the Guardian, Radical History Review Issue 118 (Winter 2014) doi 10.1215/01636545-2350939 © 2014 by MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • Debt – the First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber
    Sophia Hoffmann Sophia Hoffmann DEBT – THE FIRST 5,000 YEARS, BY DAVID GRAEBER David Graeber’s book Debt – The First 5,000 Years is a treasure trove of exciting ideas, brilliant analysis, rich ethnographic detail and fascinating historical facts. It is a great shame that this important work of scholarship and political argument is marred by a sloppy editing/publishing job, which undermines its overall coherence and punch. Graeber, who teaches at Goldsmiths anthropology department, has recently received significant media attention for his support of the various Occupy movements and his left- wing activist credentials. Yet it would be a mistake to consider Debt as a primarily activist or policy-focused book. While throughout the book Graeber displays compassion for the human suffering of historical ‘underdogs’, Debt is an accessibly written, academic analysis of the meshed history of states, markets, currencies, slavery and debt, and their embeddedness in human relations and morality. To achieve this ambitious, and ultimately successful, goal, Graeber brilliantly draws on a variety of disciplines including anthropology, history, sociology, law, economics, war/military studies, theology, archaeology and politics. His breadth of method is equally impressive, as Graeber mobilizes and combines an overall Braudelian longue durée perspective with detailed vignettes of specific historical events, archaeology of knowledge techniques, and discourse and policy analysis to first demolish mainstream economic assumptions, and then tell his story of how money, slavery and debt arose out of the urban bureaucracies of ancient Mesopotamia. Graeber’s book is split into two broad sections. The first section deals with several key conceptual issues, such as the convincing destruction of several mainstream economic assumptions and an introduction to various important but lesser known ideas about debt, morality and economic relations.
    [Show full text]