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Quote by David Graeber

“You can't have cutthroat competition when there's no one stopping you from actually cutting each other's throats. In order to build up trust we also have to think about each other's needs and it creates an entirely different dynamic.”

Quote by David Graeber

Author

David Graeber is an American anthropologist known for his research on economic anthropology, anarchism, and critical theory. His work explores the issues of economic relationships and power structures in modern society. more

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“We need each other to do things that we can't do for ourselves. If we are intimately connected with each other, we just give things to each other; if we don't know each other we find another way to handle it. If you think about it, each according to his or her abilities and each according to his or her needs is sort of the same thing as supply and demand.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Way Needs Giving Ability Demand Connected Handle Another Way Supply And Demand We Need Each Other

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“When you take away the violence from the market, even it starts shifting into something else - not exactly paradise, but it doesn't become the market in the way we see it now.”

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“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?”

People Thinking Knows Should Stills Care Used House White Common All Things Agree Communism Narrative Someday White House Epic Irrelevant Who Cares Once Upon A Time Maybe Someday

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“All societies are based on a sort of minimum level of communism. Otherwise, you couldn't have any social relations at all.”

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“Communism is the basis of all sociality and it's the basis of cooperation.”

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“Within a capitalist corporation, someone says, "Lend me a wrench," and someone asks, "Yeah, what do I get?" You assume that the idea of each according to his or her abilities, each according to his or her needs - in solving a problem - is actually the only thing that works. And in situations of disaster, there are often communistic notions of improvisation, where you basically exchange hierarchies and all of a sudden all those things that are luxuries that you can't afford, you have them in an emergency.”

Needs Ideas Problem Asks Ability Situation Yeah Assuming Notion Disaster Luxury Corporations Capitalist Emergencies Hierarchy Improvisation Wrenches

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“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.”

Thinking Way Needs Capitalism Communism

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“Anarchism is surprisingly effective in solving actual problems largely because anarchists have thought a lot about solving actual problems on a micro level in ways that other political ideologies don't really feel they have to until after they seize state power.”

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“The best way to think about anarchism is as a combination of three levels. On the one hand, the sort of instinctual revulsion against forms of inequality in power; on the other hand, a reappraisal of what one is already doing in egalitarian relations; and then the projection of these principles on all sorts of relations.”

Thinking Way Hands Form Three Levels Principles Relation Best Way Inequality Combination Projection Anarchism Revulsion

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“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.”

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