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hopebrasfield's review
5.0
Absolutely great. Too many notes and quotes to put in a little review like this.
I knew next to nothing about the actual occupy project before reading this book. I was a grad student while it was active, still believed in the meritocracy, and wasn't paying attention to the news or pop culture (and I certainly didn't have any sort of substantial political awareness at the time). This book helped to de-propagandize me and situated the movement within larger movements I've been reading about and taking part in.
I've read and re-read this essay a few times over the past year without realizing it's essentially the last part of this book. Definitely recommend giving it a read, especially if you're not able to read the book as a whole! https://thebaffler.com/salvos/a-practical-utopians-guide-to-the-coming-collapse
I knew next to nothing about the actual occupy project before reading this book. I was a grad student while it was active, still believed in the meritocracy, and wasn't paying attention to the news or pop culture (and I certainly didn't have any sort of substantial political awareness at the time). This book helped to de-propagandize me and situated the movement within larger movements I've been reading about and taking part in.
I've read and re-read this essay a few times over the past year without realizing it's essentially the last part of this book. Definitely recommend giving it a read, especially if you're not able to read the book as a whole! https://thebaffler.com/salvos/a-practical-utopians-guide-to-the-coming-collapse
eholtzman217's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
4.0
David Graeber is one of my favorite nonfiction authors and this books was a pleasant surprise! I wasn’t sure what to expect because it seemed it may be very different from his more impersonal anthropological works. The second half of the book turned out to be quite similar to those books, but my favorite part was Chapter 2, in which he detailed a lot of the on-the-ground experiences he had before and during Occupy Wall Street. I was in seventh grade at the time, and mired in my hometown’s politics, so it’s utterly fascinating to hear about OWS from a completely opposite and significantly more informed perspective. I do think Graeber does a great job making anarchism sound powerful and meaningful on the local level, but i dislike the way he poo-poos the questions of how to scale it and how X, Y, or Z would work under anarchism. He responds, “did Florentine merchants plan how the stock exchange would work? No,” but it’s completely different because we already have certain technologies — it’s normal to ask what might happen to them under a different system. If these questions are outside the scope of the book, it’s fine to just say so rather than act like they’re bad questions that no true Scotsman would ask. Still, the book was overall really interesting and eye-opening, and gave me a new perspective on the OWS movement.
mothwing's review
3.0
Back in the day I half followed the Occupy movement, and then it suddenly just... disappeared from news coverage. There one day, gone the next. This book helps explain why.
It also looks at the development of democracy in the West and different forms of democracy. A lot of it is reassuringly common-sensical. The most interesting thing I took away from this is that elections/voting are essentially a public contest/spectacle and ought to be avoided in situations which require earnest cooperation afterwards, unless it's like, a straw poll. I find this to be very true in my experience and makes so much sense.
It also looks at the development of democracy in the West and different forms of democracy. A lot of it is reassuringly common-sensical. The most interesting thing I took away from this is that elections/voting are essentially a public contest/spectacle and ought to be avoided in situations which require earnest cooperation afterwards, unless it's like, a straw poll. I find this to be very true in my experience and makes so much sense.
vtijms's review
4.0
While the arguments aren't presented as coherently as they should have been, Graeber makes some excellent points about the shape that contemporary politics is taking, as well as about the rich history from which democratic movements can draw their inspiration. Democracy, argues Graeber, is not a singular concept that was at one point invented -- or even rediscovered -- by French, British and American intellectuals. Instead, peoples across both world and time have experimented with collective decision-making by consensus and have found many different ways to do so. According to Graeber, the so-called democratic revolution mostly consisted of selecting those ways that were compatible with existing power structures, while disposing of those that challenged established hierarchies. To do so, both the New World and Old World projects were molded into a Roman, essentially aristocratic form. In fact, Graeber shows, up until the 1800s, admitting to being a 'democrat' was tantamount to claiming to be a radical crackpot -- the democratic project was considered to be an aristocratic enterprise by its own architects.
This admittedly revisionist account is one that fits well with [a:Bakunin|5447290|Bakunin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-a7c55399ea455530473b9f9e4da94c40.png]'s view of social structure being built around a managerial class or, in the words of [a:Michael Albert|112947|Michael Albert|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1346936675p2/112947.jpg], the coordinators. Graeber fully subscribes to this view and argues that our current political dynamics is, at least at its fringes, dominated by resistance against different kinds of coordinators. While left-wingers (e.g. Occupy) take aim at CEOs, hedge funds and other capitalists who constrain the lives of others, Graeber believes right-wingers (e.g. the Tea Party) take aim at technocrats, media personalities and academics for similar reasons.
Both the historical account and the analyses of current events are argued for convincingly. Graeber seems to share my personal belief that the direction of current politics is not immediately towards liberty, nor towards equality or brotherhood, but towards the autonomy that is a necessary condition for the former triad to flourish. As this is basically an anti-ideological stance, he isn't able to formulate what a free society looks like, or how it should be run.
But he tries anyway.
And that is where the greatest weakness of the book lies. It's impossible to be specific about tomorrow's society and Graber realizes this, so his view of the future is clouded with abstractions and slogans. He is right not to draw a blueprint, but should have also refrained from sketching a vague outline in flowery prose that even Barack Obama would find insubstantial.
Yet, even despite these and other misgivings, The Democracy Project is an inspiring read for anyone who is willing to entertain the possiblity of genuine democracy in a free, horizontalist society.
This admittedly revisionist account is one that fits well with [a:Bakunin|5447290|Bakunin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-a7c55399ea455530473b9f9e4da94c40.png]'s view of social structure being built around a managerial class or, in the words of [a:Michael Albert|112947|Michael Albert|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1346936675p2/112947.jpg], the coordinators. Graeber fully subscribes to this view and argues that our current political dynamics is, at least at its fringes, dominated by resistance against different kinds of coordinators. While left-wingers (e.g. Occupy) take aim at CEOs, hedge funds and other capitalists who constrain the lives of others, Graeber believes right-wingers (e.g. the Tea Party) take aim at technocrats, media personalities and academics for similar reasons.
Both the historical account and the analyses of current events are argued for convincingly. Graeber seems to share my personal belief that the direction of current politics is not immediately towards liberty, nor towards equality or brotherhood, but towards the autonomy that is a necessary condition for the former triad to flourish. As this is basically an anti-ideological stance, he isn't able to formulate what a free society looks like, or how it should be run.
But he tries anyway.
And that is where the greatest weakness of the book lies. It's impossible to be specific about tomorrow's society and Graber realizes this, so his view of the future is clouded with abstractions and slogans. He is right not to draw a blueprint, but should have also refrained from sketching a vague outline in flowery prose that even Barack Obama would find insubstantial.
Yet, even despite these and other misgivings, The Democracy Project is an inspiring read for anyone who is willing to entertain the possiblity of genuine democracy in a free, horizontalist society.