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David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

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Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#61

Post by crabmusket »

agumonkey wrote: post #23

How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ? physical labour -> boston dynamics office labour -> ~cloud + smartphones (i'm in an office job right now, and it's near zero work, it's full on redundancy, ambiguous and contradictory information, political friction.. any computer could replace the entire building and operate faster 24/7) it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of ta…

> it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of tasks will just vanish

You may be falling for AI propaganda: https://monroelab.net/attack-mannequins-ai-as-propaganda

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#62

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

cynicalkane wrote: post #56
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled From a short piece of writing from the St. Louis Fed itself, linked to in another comment below: >The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress. Now, we could quote the next few lines too, for a bit more context: > So i…

American debt is issued entirely by Congress and the Treasury, and its monetization controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors, which is appointed by the government and independently operated. There's no means of control over these two things outside the U.S. government. There's also the FOMC, but this is relatively unessential such that it's unlikely to be related to whatever "essential truth" Graeber has in mind. I…

I wasn't making an argument about the behavior of the Fed.

You stated that Graeber had told "an essential lie" in claiming that the Fed was privately controlled. I quoted from the St. Louis Fed. their own text which (a) confirms that it is not part of the government (b) it's complicated.

I don't really give a damn about the argument on whether the Fed is or is not part of the government; what I care about is people claiming that someone is lying when they are not.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#63

Post by cynicalkane »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #62
cynicalkane wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American debt is issued entirely by Congress and the Treasury, and its monetization controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors, which is appointed by the government and independently operated. There's no means of control over these two things outside the U.S. government. There's also the FOMC, but this is relatively unessential such that it's unlikely to be related to whatever "essential truth" Graeber has in mind. I…

I wasn't making an argument about the behavior of the Fed. You stated that Graeber had told "an essential lie" in claiming that the Fed was privately controlled. I quoted from the St. Louis Fed. their own text which (a) confirms that it is not part of the government (b) it's complicated. I don't really give a damn about the argument on whether the Fed is or is not part of the government; what I care about is people c…

The point is issuance of American debt, and the Fed's role in it, is not privately controlled, neither in fact or in essence. Saying otherwise is an obvious lie in both senses.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#64

Post by [deleted] »

ocschwar wrote: post #32

David Graeber had a wonderful talent for finding innovative and fascinating ways to be wrong about something. That will always make his writings worth reading and rereading. But before thinking he's right, remember he's guy behind the Occupy movement's rules of order, which is why the meetings took so torturously long. I remain a little irked by it, because a whole cohort of 18 year old activists sat at Occupy meetin…

[deleted]

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#65

Post by Eebocia »

diego_moita wrote: post #57
jhbadger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of Westerners who were concerned with inequality -- there were numerous failed peasant rebellions throughout Europe ever since the Middle Ages.

He fully addresses that in the book. Don't take my word for it, I don't have his explaining skills. But what he addresses is radical equality, as a fundamental value, as opposed to "less inequality". Equality under a ruler or rebellion against abuses is not the same as thinking the whole society as composed of equals. Think of no-slavery, equality among genders, sexual freedom, etc. Even thinkers that thought about e…

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

- Galatians 3:28

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#66

Post by [deleted] »

ocschwar wrote: post #32

David Graeber had a wonderful talent for finding innovative and fascinating ways to be wrong about something. That will always make his writings worth reading and rereading. But before thinking he's right, remember he's guy behind the Occupy movement's rules of order, which is why the meetings took so torturously long. I remain a little irked by it, because a whole cohort of 18 year old activists sat at Occupy meetin…

[deleted]

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#67

Post by allworknoplay »

ocschwar wrote: post #32

David Graeber had a wonderful talent for finding innovative and fascinating ways to be wrong about something. That will always make his writings worth reading and rereading. But before thinking he's right, remember he's guy behind the Occupy movement's rules of order, which is why the meetings took so torturously long. I remain a little irked by it, because a whole cohort of 18 year old activists sat at Occupy meetin…

Surprise, organizing takes an enormous amount of work, which anyone who's involved in any participatory, decentralized, leftist, or anarchist space will tell you.

You may know this! Not clear from your response. Do you have a point about something he's factually incorrect about in his writings, or just that you (unlike many other Occupy participants) didn't like processes he created as much as others?

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#68

Post by rsj_hn »

jhbadger wrote: post #24
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a complicated question around the Federal Reserve. For all practical purposes it is, but technically it may not be under some view points. https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-english/who-owns-the-fed...

And note that the domain name of the St. Louis Fed is ".org" rather than ".gov" like official US government agencies like the NIH, FDA, USDA, etc.

Go look at: https://www.federalreserve.gov/default.htm

Of course the Fed is an arm of the government. The member banks have the "form" of private banks, but they are not really private banks. They are government created, backed, run, and funded entities. Think of a Port Authority, and decide whether it is part of the government or not. Of course it is.

The member banks also have no power in Fed decision making, which rests solely in the hands of the Chairman. The members banks exist solely to provide banking services for commercial banks in their district, and as various jobs programs for economists. Some also have museums and exhibitions.

Back in the day when you travelled the nation on horse and buggy, if there was a banking crisis it was important that there be a nearby bank with money. So yes, you needed a network of local reserve banks. Today, that's not so important anymore.

The distinctions being made here are due to a (quaint) stock issuance system that maybe made political sense in the politics of 1913 - when politicians still remembered Andrew Jackson and the Bank War (https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/bank-war) - but this symbolism is irrelevant today.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of legitimate questions to ask about the Fed in the zone of public/private -- is the Fed acting in the interests of the financial sector or the interests of the public? - how "independent" is the Fed"? But arguments about the Fed being really "private" are deep in the realm of conspiracy theory pamphlets.

Anyone who tries to argue this immediately loses the argument, in the same way that people arguing about the influence of the Rockefellers immediately loses the argument. Maybe in 1913, these were useful questions, but today these are all cringe questions.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#70

Post by 0xBABAD00C »

JasonCannon wrote: post #44
orthecreedence wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ashamed to admit I've never actually read any of Graeber's books, even though I'm fairly anarchist-leaning. I really need to change that. I didn't even know that he finished another one before he died, so I guess I'll have to add that to my list as well.

I recommend Debt the first 5000 years as well as The Democracy Project. Both of which were absolutely fascinating to me. Solidarity forever and rest in power Graeber.

I've seen quite a bit of criticism of the Debt book of basically being a giant exercise in cherry-picking and sort of a politically motivated narrative. However, history and economics are topics where neutrality and objectivity of authors are hardly the norm.
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