I was wondering if there's anything like what our :large-adult-son: did for DoE? I've been enjoying the book, but I'd love for more directed and structural turns than what Graeber gives. Not that arguments for "spiritual warfare" against capitalist hell aren't useful (they are, individually, I'm sure!) - but I'd love for interventions from the ML side on the argument. Especially because he also occasionally uses old 20th century AES as comparison and critique of neoliberalism.

Currently on Chapter 5, thinking it might be a good read for my undergrads in my rhetoric classes, but I want to pair it with some other material (gonna include some :citations-needed: pods, among other things).

Anyway, also just a general place for comrades to converse about it/Graeber. Personally, I like him more than :large-adult-son: did, but I definitely recognize the limits of his anarchist approach to things.

Let's try to be :left-unity-4: in this too - I'm not trying to start a struggle session! I just want to know how to incorporate Graeber's ideas into a more statist framework (because I'm a :sicko-pig: like that).

  • blight [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    i can't and won't read anything longer than 50 words, but i do listen to slop, so here's my Opinion:

    i don't know to what extent Graeber himself makes a connection between bullshit jobs and labor aristocracy, but i think there has to be one. a pain point in organizing first world workers is exactly that they know subconsciously that their jobs are bullshit, and then make the liberal conclusion that therefore they don't deserve the fruits of that labor. so there is a contradiction here that can't be ignored, and the question has real tactical consequences.

    also did someone say "baristas"? graeber patsoc confirmed

    • ChestRockwell [comrade/them, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Good news is baristas, etc fall under his category of "shit job" I think, so he's good on that point. I'm still working my way through and I think the labor aristocrat camp has what has been nagging me pegged.

      • blight [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        yeah baristas are funny in that they are both shit and bullshit. 99% of the job is taking abuse from adult toddlers, but still, society would have a huge crisis without coffee. and cafes are one of the last remaining remotely "public" type areas, commodified as they are.

        i think one of the stronger points of his argument is that even universally loved jobs like doctors and teachers have been increasingly bullshitized, with ridiculous amounts of paperwork.

    • FuckItNewName [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      a pain point in organizing first world workers is exactly that they know subconsciously that their jobs are bullshit, and then make the liberal conclusion that therefore they don’t deserve the fruits of that labor

      I feel this :pain:

      I’ve found a group of factor workers who aren’t bigots and I cling to them nobody’s business. Organizing my coworkers was like herding cats.