“Political economy tends to see work in capitalist societies as divided between two spheres: wage labor, for which the paradigm is always factories, and domestic labor – housework, childcare – relegated mainly to women. The first is seen primarily as a matter of creating and maintaining physical objects. The second is probably best seen as a matter of creating and maintaining people and social relations. [...] This makes it easier to see the two as fundamentally different sorts of activity, making it hard for us to recognize interpretive labor, for example, or most of what we usually think of as women’s work, as labor at all. To my mind it would probably be better to recognize it as the primary form of labor. Insofar as a clear distinction can be made here, it’s the care, energy, and labor directed at human beings that should be considered fundamental. The things we care most about – our loves, passions, rivalries, obsessions – are always other people; and in most societies that are not capitalist, it’s taken for granted that the manufacture of material goods is a subordinate moment in a larger process of fashioning people. In fact, I would argue that one of the most alienating aspects of capitalism is the fact that it forces us to pretend that it is the other way around, and that societies exist primarily to increase their output of things.” FeminismCapitalismCommunismFree MarketAlienation Book:Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination Source: Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination
“Now, we're used to thinking of communism as being once-upon-a-time-all-things-were-owned-in-common, maybe-someday-this-will-come-again. And people agree that there is a sort of epic narrative going on here. I think we should just throw this narrative out, it's irrelevant anyway, and who cares who owns things? I don't. You know, we all own the White House. So what? I still can't go in, right?” PeopleThinkingKnowsShouldStillsCareUsedHouseWhiteCommonAll ThingsAgreeCommunismNarrativeSomedayWhite HouseEpicIrrelevantWho CaresOnce Upon A TimeMaybe Someday Author:David Graeber
“All societies are based on a sort of minimum level of communism. Otherwise, you couldn't have any social relations at all.” SocialLevelsRelationCommunismMinimumSocial Relations Author:David Graeber
“Communism is the basis of all sociality and it's the basis of cooperation.” BasesCommunismCooperation Author:David Graeber
“I think we need to think of capitalism as a very bad way of organizing communism. Much of what we do is already communism, so just expand it.” ThinkingWayNeedsCapitalismCommunism Author:David Graeber
“What we're already doing is communism. The first step we have to make is to realize that we're already closer to it than we think.” ThinkingFirstsRealizingStepsCommunismFirst Steps Author:David Graeber
“We don't live in a capitalist totality. Capitalism couldn't survive as a totality anyway. We live in this complex system and we already live communism and anarchism in a million forms everyday.” FormMillionsCapitalismComplexesEverydayCommunismCapitalistAnarchismTotalityComplex Systems Author:David Graeber
