I think saying capitalism requires the state ignores the problem of defining capitalism—certainly many definitions require a state but a freed market does not (on the contrary). Whether we would actually call a freed market “capitalism”…

I’ll have to check out more of your blog and Possibilities. I admit I have trouble with a lot of the issues raised specifically because “alternative methods of decision-making” are so often too collectivist for my liking by their very nature. I don’t write or discuss this stuff much personally because a lot of it is too underdeveloped in my mind and I try not to get overly radical on this blog, but I’m excited to have found yours.

Anyway, I’d like to make a couple very late small contributions to this post if you don’t mind (nice to see that Graeber stopped by himself!). First, it seems to me that “anarcho-capitalists” get left out for very good reasons. Chief among them being that capitalism absolutely requires the state. Second, I think Steven Shaviro (who I generally like a lot) is being rather simplistic in his complaint about consensus. One of the purposes of bringing anthropology to study of anarchism is to explore alternative methods of decision-making. In Possibilities, Graeber spends a fair amount of time discussing such matters in the context of how certain cultures come to their own kinds of consensus. The idea is not that we simply exchange coercion for tortuous committee meetings.

I have other observations, for example in response to the kinds of understandable points raised here by Amateur Reader, but really I spend enough time on my blog exploring these problems (along with literature! yes, of course art is important; I strongly doubt Graeber thinks otherwise), so I don’t want to overstay my welcome, esp. given that this is an old post. Thanks!

Thanks again.

the 4 hours was just a thought experiment – the point was just that a lot of the work we might well be happier without. Of course it’s not an enforceable program really. Though I do think if people were guaranteed their basic necessities, most would not work nearly as much as they do now, and we’d all be better off for it. So would the planet.

Some would probably work twice what they do now. People are all different. Many would spend their time on the arts. (Me for instance.)

I always find the argument that it would take force to ban things like wage labor contracts vaguely hilarious. If history shows anything, it’s that people _never_ rent themselves out as slaves to other people (which is basically what wage labor is) if they have any other viable options. It requires systematic state violence to create a situation where people will be wiling to do that. That’s why stateless societies never produce wage labor. Anuyway you’d hardly need force to prevent people from doing so! People get that entirely backwards.

As for markets – well, we’ll see what people do. Some people, like Michael Albert, spend their time laying out detailed models for how a stateless non-market economy might work. That’s useful just to show it’s possible, but obviously we don’t really know what problems people would face if they actually tried to do it, and it seems silly to claim otherwise. Anyway I’m not interested in laying out an economic system. I’m much more interested in seeing what it would take to put people in a condition they could choose what sort of economic system they’d like to live under for themselves. If some communities end up choosing to created a system where no one is guaranteed anything, everyone is in competition over even basic survival needs like food, shelter, and medical care, and large portions of the population run around following orders five or six days a week from people whose parents happened to have accumulated more stuff than theirs did, then who’s going to stop them? I’m just not holding my breath.

This is why I think the role of the arts is so important to the overall argument, and such a big blind spot for Graeber. The arts are central to how many people (including me) create meaning for their lives outside of work. Carlyle thought the coal miners and bottle blackers would, under the right conditions, be able to find meaning in those terrible jobs. I’m not so sure; I think most people need something else – family, culture, something.

Curious that Graeber singles out “top scientists and engineers,” isn’t it? That’s what I mean by a blind spot. Why not Twyla Tharp and Toni Morrison and Tony Kushner? Don’t they have to spend part of their day jigging squid, too, alongside E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins and the top engineers, whoever they might be? This ends up sounding more like resentment than thoughtfulness.

Nate, stretch SUVs, very bad taste, definitely. I get nervous when people start regulating the world based on their tastes. To switch to good taste, though, I took a look at your playlist website (DJ rupture, all right!). There are some things there I want to track down.

nate: One thing I would keep in mind is, there really is not a single anarchist theory. This essay eliminates from consideration a rather large body of thought that would likely treat work quite differently, and the division of labor. I confess to not having spent nearly enough time myself reading the primary literature, and it’s something I’m hoping to start fixing in the near-distant future.

At any rate, I am confounded by the division of labor and leadership issues. I see division of labor as something that is intrinsically freeing and productive – but as practiced within a highly class conscious society one that can be used to repress. I would have hoped anarchist theory would acknowledge the value of division of labor even while addressing its problematic sides. The entire counter-power strand is one I will have to look into more.

I guess I was thinking of the arts as something that could just flourish on their own outside of any decision making or work context– forgetting about the obvious mass production aspect of a lot of art.

When you addressed this Nicole, you put the word work in quotes; which points to the importance of sorting out the definition of work in a discussion like this. By the same token, that very need points to the limitations of wages and salary being the primary way we define the value of work. There are so many dimensions to work and how it can enrich or diminish peoples lives depending on the person and the context.

I guess I don’t know that much about consensus theory as defined by others either, but I have a lot of ideas about it and have spent many an exasperating meeting in a group run by consensus. For two months a person with obvious (to me anyway) mental health issues hijacked the meetings and drove people away. I would have thought that common sense would trump any misguided sense of inclusiveness in that context. The rub that kept coming up in my arguments with those who refused to tell her to stop it or leave was trying to get them to see the difference between telling someone they don’t have an intrinsic right to a say in important decisions vs. telling them they aren’t at present able participate. More insidious and indicative of the deeper trouble with consensus decision making is the way in which a very sly and charismatic individual subverted the process over time.

Regarding the stretch limo SUV: I chafe at the idea of enforced asceticism also, but on simple grounds of taste I find the traditional stretch limousine to be a far classier display of luxury, comfort, and power.

Nicole’s answer about Graeber and the arts is excellent, so I’ll leave it at that, almost. I’ll just point out that Graeber won’t let me rent a stretch SUV for my wedding. Is he going to be any happier about me having one of those cakes with the perfect, shiny frosting, or watching “High School Musical 3″, or whatever other wretched excesses don’t fit his particular tastes? Is this how the consensus model works? I’m having trouble seeing how the example of the Tiv help me here. The division of labor stuff Nicole just mentioned reinforces the strong whiff of enforced asceticism.

I’m definitely envisioning a world. The only way I know to engage with ideas like these is to envision the world in which they are true.

Your first sentence, is, alas, too true. If I put blurbs on my website I would include yours. Fair warning and all that.

Nicole – if only there were some system to convert my criticism into books. By the way, lively, huh? Well done.

Based on this particular essay (my knowledge of consensus process is not deep), the answer would likely be no. I imagine Graeber would object that this would amount to something too close to representative democracy, when clearly only direct democracy based on consensus is allowable. It would be precisely the kind of policy-making elite that he denounces very early on.

As far as what you refer to as “natural leadership,” I would say that leadership not connected to enforced authority is precisely the kind of consensual relationship that would have to be allowed, but, in some circumstances, could easily be condemned by the kind of counterpower Jeremy (and Graeber) mentions.

On the arts…I really don’t know what to say on the subject because it’s really not discussed. And it’s hard to read minds about it. We would apparently be trying to narrow functions down to something “necessary” and “sustainable.” Different people at different times with different agendas have had wildly varying ideas about how the arts falls into that kind of enterprise. Of course, as you say, the purpose of narrowing down those functions is to “work” as little as possible.

But it would be a mistake to think of art-making as something that isn’t any work at all, and I think it would be a real mistake to lose the division of labor (for more reasons than just art). Based on a brief discussion of “who will do the dirty jobs?” Graeber may not be the biggest fan of the division of labor (“If one divided up the unpleasant tasks equally, that would mean all the world’s top scientists and engineers would have to do them too; one could expect teh creation of self-cleaning kitchens and coal-mining robots almost immediately.”)—but on the other hand, “top scientists and engineers” would imply that maybe we only share out the unpleasant stuff.

Which also means that if we got together and, via consensus, decided that novels and plays and paintings and sculpture were necessary, they could be someone’s four-hour-plus job. You’re right that the capital-intensive would be a problem, and I think that would go for more than just art, but even in other circumstances it’s not entirely clear that that’s true.

If your comment was meant as a response to me it seems you have missed the nature of my comments. A)
In my third paragraph I allude to the value of division of labor according to skills and desire. B)My allusion to the capital needed for cinema should hint that I am not envisioning a simple world of hunting fishing and herding followed my making arts.

In fact I was not envisioning any world at all but trying to engage in the discussion of these ideas as points of inquiry- which seemed to be the point of the thread.