Fancy Forms of Paperwork and the Logic of Financial Violence

[Tuuvi]

So I was reading this interview with anthropologist David Graeber last night that was pretty interesting and I thought it would be fun to discuss it here:

https://roarmag.org/magazine/david-g...w-debt-occupy/

I remember some Italian journalist who was asking me which I thought was the better course to take: the German industrial model of capitalism or the American financial one. And I said, well, it’s not like these are options available to everyone! We have this fantasy that Wall Street or the City rake in the money because somehow people around the world are dazzled by the brilliance of their financial instruments. But what are these “financial instruments” really? They’re just fancy forms of paperwork. In fact I’ve argued that they are the very pinnacle of this newly bureaucratized form of capitalism we have now, where it almost makes no sense even to make a distinction between public and private bureaucracies because they’ve totally merged, and where we’re all supposed to think that value emerges from the paperwork rather than from whatever it is the paperwork is regulating or assessing.

What these new bureaucratized forms of capitalism are really about is making state power an intrinsic element of the extraction of profit: you collude with government to create a regulatory regime that will guarantee widespread debt, for instance, then you use the court system to enforce it. There’s a perfect synthesis of public and private power to guarantee a certain rate of profit to those who essentially fund the politicians. But it all ultimately comes down to a monopoly of coercive force inside the country.

I think there’s a very interesting essay to be written about the whole notion of “unelectability.” It’s quite fascinating to see so many people, thousands and thousands, on blogs proclaiming how no one else will vote for Corbyn. It shows something profound about the nature of contemporary ideology, which I’m becoming increasingly convinced is not based on convincing the public that the system is good or fair, but only on convincing them that other people think the system is good and fair. Everyone is sitting there saying: “it’s all a scam, but people are sheep, they actually buy this shit!” — whereas in fact the only people being fooled are those who believe everyone else is.

What are your thoughts?

[Montmorency]

Anarchist.

Hunter-gatherers, even in the Palaeolithic, could be very hierarchical, but they tended to go back and forth over the course of the year between almost state-like arrangements and extreme equality. They were always experimenting with different forms and any top-down arrangement was inherently temporary. So the question isn’t where inequality came from but how we somehow got stuck.

Equality comes often when there are only a few variables and only a few individuals to apply them to. The state is the stable equilibrium phase.

[Husar]

I think the pattern of political votes easily proves the second quote in the OP wrong.
If people aren't fooled, why do they vote for all the wrong parties and candidates to change something about the status quo?

The first quote is my pet issue of sorts, of course it is correct and everyone who disagrees is being fooled.

[Tuuvi]

Anarchist.



Equality comes often when there are only a few variables and only a few individuals to apply them to. The state is the stable equilibrium phase.

Why do you think the state is the stable equilibrium phase? Please elaborate, I'm not sure that I understand what you're getting at.

I think the pattern of political votes easily proves the second quote in the OP wrong.
If people aren't fooled, why do they vote for all the wrong parties and candidates to change something about the status quo?

For some people at least I think they half-heartedly vote for a candidate or party because they feel like it's better than nothing, or as a protest vote in the case of a party/candidate that has no chance of winning.

[Montmorency]

Why do you think the state is the stable equilibrium phase? Please elaborate, I'm not sure that I understand what you're getting at.

Without state organization, large populations must disperse. If they grow too much again, they will again disperse. In an area with growing population density and nowhere to disperse easily, state organization must emerge or be adopted, or the population will die off, possibly causing a ripple through other populations. Who would tend to adopt state structures to defend themselves. Everything tends toward state production and reproduction above the family or smallhold level.

[HopAlongBunny]

It can be questioned whether the state and business were ever separate.
Government has to set the rules ie: where the law is silent, everything is permitted; so law as a check on behavior and as enabler:

http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/carriers-case%20/

The subject matter may have changed. The exchange of goods seems pretty straight forward (at least given acceptance of the assumptions made under law), but what about the exchange of paper, the terms of which are rarely understood by the parties, let alone the legislators. So the "...making state power an intrinsic element of the extraction of profit"... may not be the issue, rather the relationship between the state and profit extraction; does the gov't represent the business or the electors? and if both, to what degree each?

[Husar]

For some people at least I think they half-heartedly vote for a candidate or party because they feel like it's better than nothing, or as a protest vote in the case of a party/candidate that has no chance of winning.

And it would have been too hard to register as a democrat and vote for Sanders in the primary?
Is this some kind of most amount of anarchy for the least amount of effort thing?
In that case it could backfire quite hard with Trump anyway.

[Fisherking]

There are a few complex issues at work here in the article.

What most have not examined is that both the Tea Party and Occupy movements were founded on the same principles. Not on the peripherals with which the parties tried to co-op them on. Neither actually joined with either party. The sentiment and ideas are still there awaiting some form of leadership to bring them to the fore.

The established order is hostile to these leading to the media colouring both as Crazies and generalising them with false stereotypes to reinforce that perception.

The issue of the American Bureaucratic Oligarchy is another. Most do not recognise it for what it is or prefer to call it by some other name. Few know how it arose or its provence.

Do we have any students of history that can put a proper name to it?