[lbo-talk] Graeber by Beggs

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Aug 31 16:04:54 PDT 2012


Doug Henwood:

Wojtek S: It was Graber's book that inspired my line "An anarchist is a neoliberal without money." I'm not sure, however, whether this is a case of an ideology - induced blindness or merely pandering to the tastes of the audience.

DH: I've known David for years. He's totally sincere - he's not pandering in the least.

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I would say that one needed only to read Graeber to know that he was obviously persuaded of the validity of what he wrote. I do not see how anyone capable of reading English could not see that. What was WS smoking at the time he read the book?

And the crude attempt to link anarchism and neoliberal is ridiculous. I think Graeber's conception of capitalism and of the relationship of capitalism to earlier history is fundamentally false, but nothing is gained by throwing around the label "neoliveralism."

And basic theory aside, an attempt to build mass resistance to the assault of international capital on working people is hopeless without political cooperation among anti-capitalists of the most diverse 'starting-points.' Wojtek's perspective is for that reason destructive of anti-capitalist politics and to that extent (I use the forbidden term) objectively pro-capitalist.

Carrol



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