David Graeber (1) (1961–2020)

Interesting book. It's mostly pretty readable - more so than most academic books, although there are some difficult parts - although it's definitely focused towards a somewhat more academic audience and you'll have problems unless you understand some basic anthropological concepts. I like his talk about focusing on actions and potentials creating a society rather than the common idea of seeing rules that get put into practise with a clear separation between the two. His more typical anthropological discussions are fascinating. Pointing out that market ideology prioritises individual consumption as the only pleasure when almost all pleasures are really social (for example love, friendship) is important to show how market ideology is a poor understanding of "human nature". The idea of separation between external visible power - a representation of how you want to be treated based on how people have treated you in the past - and internal invisible power - the capacity for action based on internal powers - is interesting and useful. There's lots of individual interesting stuff.

However, he sort of doesn't really have a conclusion or summation of what he's been saying anywhere. I understood some points he was making but I felt a bit confused as to what he really wanted the take away points to be and how exactly he wanted to improve discourse around value. The ending just sort of peters out. I didn't really feel like I got a coherent set of ideas, more like lots of stuff that's kind of separate. I mean that's obviously still worthwhile, just a bit frustrating cause I feel it could have been improved with another 10 pages focusing as a retrospective and linkage.

Ultimately: good, worthwhile book if you're interested in anthropology, leftist politics, and ideas about value and how society is constructed, but let down a bit by a non-ending and a lack of clarity in how everything ties together. Good book but not essential.… (more)

An excellent, highly readable history of debt, our conceptions of it and how it has affected our entire political life. Has a LOT of stories and anecdotes and stuff from various times in history. Skimpy on some details but that's inevitable when you're doing such a wide ranging history and he always says enough to illustrate his point. I disagree with some of the stuff he says from a Marxist perspective but it's not totally shit - it's just I think he does the typical anarchist thing of ascribing changes to an amorphous "state." Ultimately though I thoroughly enjoyed it. A radical book that does a great job of challenging our preconceived notions of economics and what's "natural", pointing the way towards radical change and providing a fascinating historical primer along the way.… (more)