wtf, 2020 is brutal... hell world
Just read his book bullshit jobs this year.
Debt: The First 5000 Years really great as well.
Fuck this year just keeps getting worse.
I’ve read a few sections of Bullshit Jobs over and over again. His analysis of organization dynamics, why capitalism perpetuates unproductive work and the utility thereof feel sspot on. What inspired me the most and hit the hardest in that book was his descriptions of how pre-capitalist man thought of himself, the economy, and his relations to other people and classes. I almost wept at the thought of medieval peasants demanding rights and obligations that I was too conditioned to ever think to demand for myself.
Finally, the egalitarianism of his approach was something to be celebrated. The whole project of Bullshit Jobs was to take the observations of workers seriously, rather than treating their views with distrust, instrumentalizing their experience to reify your own notions. He treated those who contributed their views as collaborators, experts in their own experience and added his own expertise as an anthropologist to synthesize and draw connections. Its a powerfully horizontalist approach, and one we should take seriously if we are to theorize our way to a better society.
I still remember reading the story of "Eric" a young guy working in IT at a job where no one needed him to actually do his job, he was merely hired to postpone a dispute between his bosses indefinitely, and never do anything. The story of personal self destruction that followed rang very true to me, even without capitalism work is important to people, it's a part of their identity and feeling of self worth. We want to know that we are good at something, good for something, and denying a person that is just cruel.
didn't even reach 60 yet Charles Murray is still alive. Kissinger is still alive!!!
Holy shit. This dude gave us the phrase "we are the 99%". Part way through Debt rn and loving it. We lost a real one today.
o7
Debt is the best book on money I've ever read. Give it to your lib friends, or share the librevox audiobook. It's narrated by an old British dude who sounds like he's narrating a sherlock holmes book
It's so so damn good. It reminds me of the world building in great fiction in the way it's presented, except the world being built is our current one. I linked a youtube playlist of that audiobook didn't know it was on librevox.
this fucking sucks. bullshit jobs was such an eye-opening book and it really inspired me to look at the organization of work in the current world in a different way. he died too young. RIP
How to change the course of history (at least the part that's already happened)
And
What's the point if we can't have fun?
Are two of my favorite essays by him. He's so much fun to read.
Edit: but also, the man is the reason I'm halfway into a anthro degree, so he's the reason I'm reading wildly interesting shit, but also the name I'll curse when I can't find work.
Rest in power, comrade. 2020 takes another.
Rather than recommending Bullshit Jobs or Debt, I think more people should read his On Kings (co-authored with Marshall Sahlins). A truly amazing account of all the ways our specific form of kingship has poisoned our minds and still reverberates in the supposedly post-monarchy era, and how many different peoples across the world conceived of kingship and sovereignty differently.
On Kings is brilliant and way more anthropologically dense than his other work. I wouldn't say it's necessarily aimed at a lay audience, but you can still slog your way through it. This is such a shitty loss though.
Yeah it's definitely not a casual "hmmm what shall I read tonight" kind of book, but I truly do love it. The dense-ness made it only more impressive in my eyes, since as a lay person who is not an anthropologist I was still able to make it through and take away tons of insights. Huge loss.
