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Quote by David Graeber

“Together we create the world we inhabit. Yet if any one of us tried to imagine a world we'd like to live in, who would come up with on exactly like the one that currently exists? We can all imagine a better world. Why can't we just create one? Why does it seem so inconceivable to just stop making capitalism? Of government? Or at the very least bad service providers and annoying bureaucratic red tape?”

Quote by David Graeber

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Bullshit jobs

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Author

David Graeber
David Graeber

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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“The Luddites knew exactly who owned the machinery they destroyed. They saw that automation is not a faceless phenomenon that we must submit to. And they were right: Automation is, quite often and quite simply, a matter of the executive classes locating new ways to enrich themselves.”

“The biggest reason that the last two hundred years have seen a series of conflicts between the employers who deploy technology and workers forced to navigate that technology is that we are still subject to what is, ultimately, a profoundly undemocratic means of developing, introducing, and integrating technology into society.”

“The graver evils of the capitalist system all arise from its uneven distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers or their services to the community. They control almost the whole of education and the press; they decide what the average man shall know or not know”

“—El dinero. ¿Qué es el dinero? Bienes de consumo en forma de pura fantasía. —Un asentimiento solemne de la cabeza, el ceño repentinamente fruncido, un suspiro-. No me gustan los marxistas, ya lo sabes. Ni su Estado ni su dictadura. Ni su forma de hablar, con esas explicaciones en bloque, reduciendo el mundo a un argumento único. Igual que la religión. No, no me gustan los marxistas. Pero Marx... —Y volvía a poner aquella cara, como si lo estuviera torturando una visión demasiado hermosa—. Tenía razón en una cosa. El dinero es una mercancía fantástica. Una fantasía. Ni lo puedes comer ni te abriga, pero representa toda la comida y toda la ropa del mundo. Por eso es una ficción. Y eso mismo lo convierte en el patrón con el que valoramos todas las mercancías. ¿Qué comporta eso? Pues que el dinero se convierte en el bien de consumo universal. Pero recuerda: el dinero es una ficción; bienes de consumo en forma de pura fantasía, ¿entiendes? Y eso es doblemente cierto en el caso del capital financiero. Las acciones, los valores, los bonos. ¿Crees que alguna de las cosas que compran y venden esos bandidos del otro lado del río representan algún valor real y concreto? No, para nada. Las acciones, los valores bursátiles y toda esa porquería no son más que promesas de un valor futuro. Así pues, si el dinero es una ficción, el capital financiero es la ficción de una ficción. Con eso comercian todos esos criminales: con ficciones.”