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Social Imagination 101: how do we change the world if we cannot even imagine it?

Preamble:
--Graeber’s magnum opus is his 2011 Debt: The First 5,000 Years, a masterpiece of theory.
…However, the first Graeber book I read was this 2013 follow-up, where Graeber tries to synthesize:
a) theory (professor of anthropology)
b) practice (firsthand experience with Occupy Wall Street activism).
--This was easily one of my most influential (and inspirational) early reads. Re-reading this 11 years later was a good test for the tools I’ve gathered since (esp. the critiques of Graeber’s final major project, 2021’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity)...

The Brilliant:

1) ���𳾴dz�����������?:
--I’ve yet to read a writer who has synthesized so much fascinating research (often buried in dense academic writing) and presented it in such an engaging, accessible manner.
--Graeber starts with a stark contradiction in the US: why does the public have such low approval for politicians, yet such high approval for “democracy��?
a) Elitist influences:
--Roots in aristocracy (“rule of the best��), which under capitalism is plutocracy (rule of the wealthiest). Property-holding white male voters represented “the people��.
--Elections are a crude form of democracy, being divisive competitions promoting narrow factionalism, a logic suited for militaries where a majority of armed men would rule by force.
--Assuming people already have all the answers of what they want to vote for crudely dismisses the learning process of discussion. It’s the elitist/patriarchal assumption of “rational calculations�� by those used to giving commands and not having to empathize with others.
--Liberalism/capitalism was long hostile to Populist “Democrats�� (the most mainstream being Thomas Paine), smeared as “m�Dz�-���ܱ�����/“a�Բ���������� during 1770-1800. Those who started to use the label often used it provocatively (ex. Robespierre, Jefferson). “Democrats��/“democracy�� became coopted in 1830-1850. “Western civilization�� innovating “democracy�� only became popularized in post-WWI Western universities.
b) Populist influences:
--“Direct democracy�� does not revolve around centralized competitive elections where voters are mere spectators; most decisions are instead done locally in participatory public assemblies; cooperation in consensus (unlike crude “rational calculations��, the higher standard of being “r�𲹲��DzԲ��������� requires listening/facilitation/empathy) is more constructive than divisive competition (direct winners/losers are not optimal neighbors/communities); lottery (“sortition��, like jury) prevented charismatic demagogues manipulating elections, etc.
--The US was particularly influenced by Native American democracy; here, Graeber is referring to the “influence debate��, see: Donald A. Grinde/Bruce Johansen. In The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Graeber/Wengrow expands this further to the “indigenous critique�� of Western hierarchies influencing the European Enlightenment. At the core is the belief that equality ensures personal liberty (prevents despotic rule).

2) ���������?:
--For a sample of the brilliance of Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, we can apply the above to the debates on what to do with the US Revolution’s war debts (Graeber is referencing Charles A. Beard/William Hogeland/Terry Bouton/Woody Holton):
a) Elitist approach:
--The mythical Founding Fathers/Continental Congress were the richest Americans, the major bondholders/creditors/speculators who bought war bonds at depreciated prices and insisted they be paid back in full.
--A central bank (like Bank of England) was created to circulate the war debt as currency.
b) Populist approach:
--The rejected alternative promoted the masses (debtors) who would benefit from letting the war debts inflate away, replacing it with paper money currency issued by local land banks under public control (i.e. public banks; The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity).
--Local control of printing own currency allows control over depreciating the value through inflation, helping debtors pay off debts against speculators (not to mention control to promote local investments). Furthermore, populist debtors wanted to abolish debts, more equality in property ownership, etc. For a future design of economic democracy (micro and macro), see: Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present

The Questionable:

1) Revolutions as Transformations in Common Sense?:
--Graeber cites Immanuel Wallerstein (World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction) in considering how the processes surrounding the French Revolution ushered in the “Modern World System�� (liberalism/capitalism, i.e. towards a single world market and world politics of colonial empires), revolutionizing our common sense:
i) Change is good (“progress", paired with capitalism’s economic growth),
ii) Government policy should manage this change,
iii) Government power/legitimacy comes from “the people��.
--Let’s consider 2 general lenses to analyze history:
a) idealism: start with ideas driving social change, thus focus on culture/morality/common sense; the above Wallerstein/Graeber analysis fits here.
b) materialism: start with material conditions and how social groups relate to such conditions (esp. production/distribution/reproduction), driving social change; this gets coded into culture/ideas. Ex. both Wallerstein/Graeber use this lens in agreeing that by the 1960s, crisis in productive profits led to shift towards short-term speculation/parasitic rent-seeking (��Neoliberalism��).
…Why did the above liberalism/capitalism changes in common sense (ex. change is good) happen? Were people swept away by new ideas (idealism)? Or perhaps human society always feature a wide range of ideas (given our diversity and contradictions), so we should start with how changing material conditions alter bargaining powers, elevating corresponding ideas (materialism); ex. how capitalism is inherently disruptive, giving more bargaining power to the idea that change is good. Graeber skips Wallerstein’s materialist lens analysis.
…Ex. genders competing for bargaining power is foundational to human society (ex. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding). Under capitalism, seismic material disruptions of the world wars changed relations in production/distribution/reproduction (esp. forcing women into the workplace to fill in for male soldiers). This drastically changed bargaining power for feminist ideas (women leaving private households to socialize/organize at workplace) and eventually shifted culture/common sense.
--See , which includes comradely critiques of Graeber's idealism. Start from the first episode, and note these episodes:
-"6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works and Why"
-"7. The Origins of Male Dominance and Hierarchy; what David Graeber and Jordan Peterson get wrong"
-"7.1 Material Conditions: Why You Can't Eliminate Sexism or Patriarchy by Changing Culture"
-"8. Materialism vs. Idealism: How Social Change Happens"
--Graeber’s targets for revolutionizing common sense:
i) Debt/money: Debt: The First 5,000 Years
ii) Work: productivism (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) vs. leisure/care (The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values)/ecology (The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World)
iii) bureaucracy, i.e. Leftist critique (The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy)
iv) communism, i.e. baseline rather than property rights (see Graeber’s Debt).

…see comments below (message #5) for rest of the review��