Capitalism is like this fractal thing where anything that contains an element of capitalism anywhere inside it is just something that turns into capitalism. It is an incredibly defeatist attitude. If you choose to look at reality that way, I suppose you can, but you have to do enormous violence to reality to do so consistently.
David GraeberStates created markets. Markets require states. Neither could continue without the other, at least, in anything like the forms we would recognize today.
David GraeberAll societies are based on a sort of minimum level of communism. Otherwise, you couldn't have any social relations at all.
David GraeberStudent loans are destroying the imagination of youth. If thereโs a way of a society committing mass suicide, what better way than to take all the youngest, most energetic, creative, joyous people in your society and saddle them with, like $50,000 of debt so they have to be slaves? There goes your music. There goes your culture. There goes everything new that would pop out. And in a way, this is whatโs happened to our society. Weโre a society that has lost any ability to incorporate the interesting, creative and eccentric people.
David GraeberDirect action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.
David GraeberI would like, then, to end by putting in a good word for the non-industrious poor. At least they arenโt 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, theyโre probably improving the world more than we acknowledge.
David Graeber