11–20 of 253 posts
I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
Which one might I ask?
Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.
It's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
His last book was discussed here the other day fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28908960 His passing also discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24365811
It's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
When you make it work. They aren't free by magic; if the freedom isn't enforced and maintained, they rapidly become unfree, and that's what appears to be happening (or has already happened).
I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabbing.
David Graeber would have been the greatest mind of our era if he adopted the writing style of @pg: straight to the point essays that form a cult following.
As much anti-estabilshment as he was, he was trying too much to fit his brilliant mind into XX century academia writing standards.
I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
>I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read. Which one might I ask? Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.
It's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.
I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
The one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabb…
Do you have a link to the article about bullshit jobs?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read. Which one might I ask? Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.
Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.
It's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.
Anarchism can be capitalist or communism. Anarcho-communism for example.
In a proper free market, the telephone poles would have 50 wires, most of which wouldn't be functioning. Afterall, how would anyone provide you internet? Without government regulation any startup has to put their own wires up. This leads to rats nests of wires. Tons of expensive wires being put up for customers you used to have. Free market obviously doesn't work, you must come in and fix that.
Communism on the otherhand is misuse of people. Everyone must be employed full time in communism. In the USSR, there would be multiple cashiers you would have to go through. Just to ensure people have something to do. You also have to have government slaves. USSR had the gulags. China has the uyghurs. Vietnam has their slaves in forced labour centers.