The Next Time Someone Asks Me for a Cigarette...

...I am going to denounce them as a communist and suggest they move to Russia with their like-minded brethren. 

I suppose this post would be more accurately titled:  "Some Thougths on the First 100 pages of David Graeber's "Debt the First 5000 Years", but the cigarette example, lifted from Graeber's book, has more literary flair.

I have been reading Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber
In "Debt" Graeber is bold enough to suggest that at the most basic level many human interactions are communistic in nature. He suggests that  "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" is how we respond to many situations in life.  Graeber suggests that people act according to this tenant of communism in many daily situations including those in which a smoke is "bummed".   

I have the ability to give someone else a smoke, they have the need for it.  The person asking me doesn't think much of the asking (according to Graeber they think far less of asking for a smoke than they would think of asking me for an equivalent amount of money or food), and I am not meant to think much of the giving.  It is second nature to provide for each other in a community setting.  If nothing else being a communist costs me at least half a pack of smokes a week.  That aside, Graeber's book seems interesting so far:  The argument that "communism" is not a system of political organization (he brings up the point that most prominent regimes have tagged themselves as "socialist" and "communism" will come far in the future after Marx's "withering of the state"), but rather something that is one of the basic (Graeber describes 3) ways in which humans interact with each other daily in regards to our material world is something that I would like to explore further.

An idea that has been nagging me for awhile is that as we form groups and arguments, (and yes...institutions as well) to organize production, we are essentially just expanding upon interactions that we are already familiar with from the processes of our daily lives, childhoods, etc.   The past is of course the strongest predictor of the future.  Reading the beginning of Debt, (for the record, is itself critical of capitalism), has brought back to the front of my consciousness the idea that the way out of capitalism (as well as its contradictions and problems), and into another system (albeit with its own sets of contradictions and problems to be sure), with a stronger sense of justice from a class perspective, might be steps towards decentralization of power and slightly more anarchy in our organizational processes (both political and economic).  The idea, somewhat re-introduced by Graeber that many humans default to a variety of communistic practices in our daily interactions revives my hope that post 20th century capitalism our material lives can remain rich, while at the same time becoming less institutionally exploitative of each other, if we work at it that is. 

There is tone to Graeber's analysis that suggests an arrogant rationalism behind many of his arguments, This is perhaps not a bad thing as the implications I have drawn out of the first 100 pages of his book seem quite positive, and possibly even hopeful for our future as a society.  So far "Debt" is proving to be an enjoyable and thought provoking read.  Chances are I will have more to write about it here in the coming days (especially if I find something to be more critical about).  

"Money Ain't A Thang" A Response To Robert Paul Wolff on "The Philosopher's Stone"

At the end of the day, revolutionary change to our system of exploitation in production requires massive cultural change as well. 
Who better than Jay-Z to usher it in?  If only we could get him to read Marx...



Wolff claims that "The Left Has All The Best Songs for Half A Century". 
I Strongly Disagree!
The following is the text of my comments on his post. 
Do any of you care? 
You will, when I am in a Ferrari or Jaguar switching four lanes. ....


Apologies in advance for this. If I hadn't just returned from a concert I would never bother to nitpick at something like this.

Respectfully speaking as both a Marxist and a fan of your blog...

People that are aiming to be in, singing about, etc. the bourgeois elite have released some musical masterpieces in the last 20 years.

The bourgeois culture I spend much my life subverting has given us a lot of good music. To be honest about it, I find most of the contemporary music of the left does nothing more than whine about being on the left.
The other side of this coin is that people unabashedly trying to get rich in our society have provided much of the best music of the past two decades.
For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK-KFfYA2Vk
All good Detroit boys like myself love Seger, so I am not going to argue his greatness, I just want to point out that over the past 20 years or so leftist music has been much like the American social left: Unappealing to those without a vested interest, and fragmented.
The left used to have all the good songs, sure. The left today needs something to unite it, a good song would be a start, and it has been a while since we have had one. 

A Thought on the French Bourgeois Revolution

A Thought on the French Bourgeois Revolution specifically because I was reading about it when this occurred to me.

I think a really important aspect of the French bourgeois revolution was the formation of institutions that lead to a feeling of entitlement within the oppressed classes. Property ownership in the peasant class is a good example.

Land ownership (at least for myself) breeds a sense of power and of my place in the world. I view the place I am currently sitting as my house, in the back yard is my garden, on my property and I would fight to the death to protect that (I dare you to test me on this Dan).

Serfs, or slaves, or whoever, that feel that they are in their "proper" or "god given" or predestined place in the world will not start a revolution. It is only when there are feelings (arguably determined at least in part by the existing institutions in society, be they cultural, economic or political) that lead to a sense of being entitled to more than a person currently has, or treatment better than what is currently being recieved, that revolution becomes a possibility.

People will not act in a revolutionary fashion if they feel that everything is as it was meant to be.

Local Government and Revolution

Local government in the United States has relatively less power than State government, which has relatively less power than the federal government. This is not a groundbreaking statement. As such, the creme de la creme of bourgeois politicians inhabit the federal government. These are usually people who come from great privilege, who have well established families, and lots of money.

As we get down to local levels, the people in government are both in better touch with the needs of their constituents and also less likely to be out of touch with "the common man". They also have far less vested in the system they are currently serving (as a sweeping generalization)

It seems logical to me then that the area to direct our revolutionary activities is towards local governments. In the long run we will need to control the national state, however the current national state is institutionally stuck in its role as protector of processes that perpetuate the conditions of existence of the the current system. This state most likely cannot be changed from within, but rather needs to be removed.
Legitimization of the removal process (or at very least its beginnings) can start with a bottom up revolution. Just as Gramsci wrote that revolutionary activity has to start with individuals within the party, it also has to start at small levels of government.

Top down reforms will be just that, changes to the system of bourgeois exploitation, without removing bourgeois exploitation, not revolution. "Bottom up" can apply to the state just as much as it does to individuals.