I have 2. The People's Republic of Walmart is one. Maybe I feel this way because I work in the industry and I'm a little familiar with central planning techniques... but I just thought it was all fluff with little substance. I felt like more than one chapter was just "Walmart and Amazon do central planning so it's possible" without getting into a lot of the details. Very little about the nuts and bolts of central planning. Throw in a good dose of anti-Stalinism when the man oversaw successful central planning... I just didn't get anything out of it. Might be OK if you want a real basic introduction behind the ideas of planning but honestly I bet like 95% of you already know more about it than you realize.
And I love Graeber but jeez, I couldn't even finish Bullshit Jobs. It felt like a good article that was blown out into a book. Maybe my expectations were too high but I felt like he spent way too many pages getting into minutiae about what is/isn't a bullshit job without actually making a broader point.
I agree about Graeber, mostly because Bullshit Jobs was a good article (read it here) that got so popular Graeber felt compelled to turn it into a book. I'd encourage you to read his other work, all of which is better than Bullshit Jobs because they were all intended from the start to be books.
Oh yeah, his debt book is great and I imagine the article is good too, but article-length sounds about right for that topic.
Debt is definitely the best of his books and most justifies its length.
You can feel Graeber dialogue tree-ing his audience as he writes. It’s basically a book-length FAQ for people who didn’t think the article was thorough enough.
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lmao
is that such a bad thing though? i haven't read the book btw
I think it's an alright enough read. It is a bit circular sometimes but funny enough in places that it's compelling to read.
I preferred Debt tbh