The best essays and articles by David Graeber, ranked and collected by readers on ponder.
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To Have is To Owe
David Graeber To Have Is to Owe December 7, 2010 Originally published in Issue 10 of Triple Canopy. Contains excerpts from Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
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★ 4.3 · 13 ratings on Open LibraryBureaucracy2016
"Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, anthropologist David Graeber... traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice"--Jacket.
★ 4.6 · 45 ratings on Open LibraryMoney2013623 pages
The author shows that before there was money, there was debt. For 5,000 years humans have lived in societies divided into debtors and creditors. For 5,000 years debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates, laws and religions. The words “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption” come from ancient debates about debt. These terms and the ideas of debt shape our most basic ideas of right and wrong. [source][1] [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Updated-Expanded-First-Years/dp/1612194192/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
*Bullshit Jobs: A Theory* is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of bullshit jobs, in which workers pretend their role isn't as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history, and proposes universal basic income as a potential solution.
