Doug wrote:
> I don't think that Graeber has any sense of what capitalism is.
This was a big topic of debate on Louis Proyect's blog, where Graeber posted some comments.
Graeber argued that the existence of non-free forms of labor was as prevalent in capitalism as wage labor, and that therefore neither one nor the other is essentially capitalist.
I asked him how he defined "capitalism", but I don't think he ever answered (to be fair, he was fielding a lot of questions).
But yeah, I don't understand the point of even using a concept like "capitalism" if you aren't going to claim for it some essential characteristics. Then you might as well go the route Andre Gunder Frank did toward the end of his life, and argue that there is no such thing as "capitalism".
I personally find it more useful to distinguish, like Althusser/Poulantzas do, between "capitalist societies" and the "capitalist mode of production". There can be other, non-capitalist ways of producing within capitalist societies, but they are all ultimately subordinate to the capitalist mode of production.