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After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

theanarchistlibrary.org

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Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#41

Post by thinkmassive »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20
lordwarnut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.

>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…

> 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.

Seems like a poor example. If there’s all these unused wires owned by people who are losing money, surely a startup could rent capacity on an existing network, or outright buy it if the capital was already available.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20
lordwarnut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.

>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…

[deleted]

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#43

Post by fileeditview »

soared wrote: post #39

Meh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else. Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But yo…

I agree. He writes about how we lived in a dream but for me what he writes is also a dream of some sort.

Just stop doing our dream-work.. and then? What do I do to provide for my family? Should we all get a patch of land and grow food for ourselves? This idea does not seem realistic or scalable.

But maybe I am just misunderstanding the essay or my thoughts are just not deep enough.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#44

Post by guerrilla »

orwin wrote: post #17
lordwarnut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.

Anarchists, like communists, have a marxist or post-marxist view of the society and its organization.

No, not all communists are Marxists and the predominant tradition, anarcho-communism, is not post-Marxist but derives from a different set of authors who opposed Marx during his lifetime. [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Other_types_of_commu...

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#45

Post by netizen-936824 »

chasd00 wrote: post #35
smitty1e wrote: post #9

> At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over Our governments seem to move from crisis to crisis, though the cart/horse roles are ambiguous here.

Yes, if you can keep the people living in fear with the belief their government is the only answer then they will beg for subjugation.

Comment seems to forget that humans are naturally fearful, its not some conspiracy. Just human nature

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#46

Post by twic »

cies wrote: post #38
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Anarchism can be capitalist Nope. That'd be neo-feudalism, as the super rich will be our defacto oppressive over lords. Anarchism is against oppression. There are market anarchists, they like markets but in no case they like unlimited wealth accumulation.

There is a significant school of thought literally called anarcho-capitalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#47

Post by sleepysysadmin »

freeflight wrote: post #31
difosfor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what communism has to do with everyone needing to be employed full time. That's just what they made of it in the USSR etc. > Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

I concur, there's nothing "communistic" about the idea of full employment, if anything it strikes me as something rather capitalistic in its nature: Full employment would mean there's an oversupply of labor, which means labor would be dirt cheap and easily replaceable. That would be the dream for anybody trying to exploit others labor for their own gains, something that's generally seen as a very capitalistic mindset…

>I concur, there's nothing "communistic" about the idea of full employment, if anything it strikes me as something rather capitalistic in its nature: Full employment would mean there's an oversupply of labor, which means labor would be dirt cheap and easily replaceable.

There have been nobel prizes on labour participation rate and unemployment rates. The reality is that you have so much population, you have requirements of productivity to produce things for your population.

Cuba is an exception, they do still have government owned slaves. Mostly political prisoners, you can't say anything negative about the government. However, only 30% of their population has a job.

What's the consequence? You only get about 1lb of meat a month. Literally I will eat 1 month's of food in a single meal.

Also what's up with other consequences? Doctors are forced to work ~65hours/week while 2/3rds of the population stays home? Wow. While taxi drivers who work less hours earn more than you.

>That would be the dream for anybody trying to exploit others labor for their own gains, something that's generally seen as a very capitalistic mindset.

Not capitalistic at all, what capitalist society has enforced near full employment? I don't know of any. This is a communist thing. Only communism has ever done this. It's something Marx never said needed to happen. It's just the reality of productivity and how society works.

>The USSR attempting to have full employment was yet another misplaced attempt at trying to "Beat the capitalistic West at their own game".

The even more interesting thing. Graeber obviously says that communism is where you typically get all the bullshit jobs. Yet here they are in capitalism. The reality is that he's right. The reason for the rise of bullshit jobs in capitalism is all the socialism/communism being introduced.

Japan isn't communist and yet they also have government slaves, 99.9% of people accused of a crime are forced to work in a gulag. Why? They implemented loads of socialist policies and blew up their debt. Their public debt to GDP is 266%. That's actually worse than Greece during their collapse. The only thing holding Japan together is the government slaves.

Why does communism(or whatever name) always seem to come with full employment and government slaves in gulags? I actually don't fully understand why, but that's not a capitalism.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#48

Post by refurb »

Wasn’t this guys book on bullshit jobs completely debunked? I mean yeah, filing TPS sheets might seem pointless on their own but in the grand scheme of things someone needs to checkboxes. It might be unglamorous work but it necessary for the whole system to function.

We talk about productivity gains and why we still work 40 hour weeks and my answer is always this - you’re free to trade those productivity gains for free time. Go and find a plot of land 1890 homesteaders would normally claim, grow some food, build a sod house and eschew modern society in all its flavors - technology, healthcare, engineering, etc. i don’t mean to sound like a dick, but that’s why we still work 40+ hour work weeks despite the efficiency gains - because a modern lifestyle costs a hell of a lot more than basic subsistence.

People do this! Ted Kazinsky did it. It is possible. But of course everyone wants their mRNA vaccine technology and 10 hours weeks as well.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#49

Post by soared »

wallacoloo wrote: post #32

> This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting…

Subjectively.

But otherwise I generally agree. The authors paragraph seems to remember occupy Wall Street but forget that most people don’t care at all about finance if/when things return to normal.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#50

Post by bvm »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #15
q-base wrote: post #3

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…

> third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies

he was an anthropologist

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