Even in the most market-obsessed society, we're still spending half of our time on something other than just getting cash.

It's a difficult business, creating a new, alternative civilization.

People don't have an ongoing relation unless it's a form of debt because everything is an exchange, so ongoing relationships are incomplete exchanges, and therefore one party is probably to blame - more likely than not, both are. Sociality itself seems to become like a matter of sin, and inherently wrong.

The working poor are the people suffering out subprime mortgages and fatal loans and more and more of our money - you know, capitalism is operated by extracting money, not so much directly being paid.

The example of Russia reminds us that keeping up that enormous dead weight of the security apparatus required to enforce the ideological conformity to preempt anything that looks like an alternative or a social movement is destroying capitalism.

I would like, then, to end by putting in a good word for the non-industrious poor. At least they aren’t hurting anyone. Insofar as the time they are taking time off from work is being spent with friends and family, enjoying and caring for those they love, they’re probably improving the world more than we acknowledge.

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.