We are usually told that democracy originated in ancient Athens - like science, or philosophy, it was a Greek invention. It's never entirely clear what this is supposed to mean. Are we supposed to believe that before the Athenians, it never really occurred to anyone, anywhere, to gather all the members of their community in order to make joint decisions in a way that gave everyone equal say?

The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed.

It's true that most American citizens think of themselves as living in a democratic country. But when was the last time that any Americans actually sat down and came to a collective decision? Maybe if they are ordering pizzas, but basically never.

Debt - like sin - implies that one party in the transaction didn't live up to expectations, at least in the moment, and has done something wrong.

Anarchism and anthropology go well together because anthropologists know that a society without a state is possible because so many exist.

Neoliberalism isn't an economic program - it's a political program designed to produce hopelessness and kill any future alternatives.

Look at labor policy. What's the point of making everybody work too much? It's not very useful. It is destroying the planet, actually. But it's great at keeping people off the streets.