The Democracy Project

nerd teacher [books] reviewed The Democracy Project by David Graeber

Okay but ahistorical and neglects a lot.

3 stars

People, including anarchists, often hold David Graeber up as some bright light of philosophy. He's not horrible, but he's always got a lot of glaring holes.

In this particular book, he has some really frustrating points where he applies a regional history to an entire movement or moment (e.g., applies a lens of NYC's way of doing OWS while neglecting to recognise how OWS operated in other places). This is something he always does, and it's really to the detriment of whatever he's developed to share. It's pretty ahistorical because it just neglects that many other areas have our own needs, even while stating otherwise. It also acts as if OWS was a primarily anarchist movement, which is something that I feel is very context dependent. Perhaps it was in some places, but others? Not so much. If that were true, I feel like it wouldn't have been very welcoming …

People, including anarchists, often hold David Graeber up as some bright light of philosophy. He's not horrible, but he's always got a lot of glaring holes.

In this particular book, he has some really frustrating points where he applies a regional history to an entire movement or moment (e.g., applies a lens of NYC's way of doing OWS while neglecting to recognise how OWS operated in other places). This is something he always does, and it's really to the detriment of whatever he's developed to share. It's pretty ahistorical because it just neglects that many other areas have our own needs, even while stating otherwise. It also acts as if OWS was a primarily anarchist movement, which is something that I feel is very context dependent. Perhaps it was in some places, but others? Not so much. If that were true, I feel like it wouldn't have been very welcoming to US-liberals and right-libertarians, and it very much was.

It's very odd.

The beginning of this book also sets a tone that is constant throughout Graeber's work: Despite pointing to feminisms (scarcely, as he only ever seems to have referenced them when specifically engaging with feminism and never any other moment), he often plays into the same patriarchal structures and attitudes. A very clear example of this is the desire to call things "drama" or "infighting," as if there can't possibly be any other reason for there to be tension between people in a group; he points to "low numbers" of cases of reported sexual assault as being an indicator that it wasn't common, but he neglects to recognise that most people aren't reporting it because it's not taken serious (and in a movement that he claims as primarily anarchist, it's understandable that they wouldn't report to the police at all).

Even if the tensions weren't from any form of abuse, he neglects the ways in which a lot of manarchists often try to push other people out and retain the same hierarchies they're supposed to be fighting against. This isn't "drama," and it's not "infighting." It's actually holding people accountable, and that was rarely (if ever) done by people of hegemonic demographics.

It's not bad, but these are the things that annoyed me most.

Vincent Tijms reviewed The Democracy Project by David Graeber

Review of 'The Democracy Project' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

While the arguments aren't presented as coherently as they should have been, Graeber makes some excellent points about the shape that contemporary politics is taking, as well as about the rich history from which democratic movements can draw their inspiration. Democracy, argues Graeber, is not a singular concept that was at one point invented -- or even rediscovered -- by French, British and American intellectuals. Instead, peoples across both world and time have experimented with collective decision-making by consensus and have found many different ways to do so. According to Graeber, the so-called democratic revolution mostly consisted of selecting those ways that were compatible with existing power structures, while disposing of those that challenged established hierarchies. To do so, both the New World and Old World projects were molded into a Roman, essentially aristocratic form. In fact, Graeber shows, up until the 1800s, admitting to being a 'democrat' was tantamount …

While the arguments aren't presented as coherently as they should have been, Graeber makes some excellent points about the shape that contemporary politics is taking, as well as about the rich history from which democratic movements can draw their inspiration. Democracy, argues Graeber, is not a singular concept that was at one point invented -- or even rediscovered -- by French, British and American intellectuals. Instead, peoples across both world and time have experimented with collective decision-making by consensus and have found many different ways to do so. According to Graeber, the so-called democratic revolution mostly consisted of selecting those ways that were compatible with existing power structures, while disposing of those that challenged established hierarchies. To do so, both the New World and Old World projects were molded into a Roman, essentially aristocratic form. In fact, Graeber shows, up until the 1800s, admitting to being a 'democrat' was tantamount to claiming to be a radical crackpot -- the democratic project was considered to be an aristocratic enterprise by its own architects.

This admittedly revisionist account is one that fits well with [a:Bakunin|5447290|Bakunin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-a7c55399ea455530473b9f9e4da94c40.png]'s view of social structure being built around a managerial class or, in the words of [a:Michael Albert|112947|Michael Albert|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1346936675p2/112947.jpg], the coordinators. Graeber fully subscribes to this view and argues that our current political dynamics is, at least at its fringes, dominated by resistance against different kinds of coordinators. While left-wingers (e.g. Occupy) take aim at CEOs, hedge funds and other capitalists who constrain the lives of others, Graeber believes right-wingers (e.g. the Tea Party) take aim at technocrats, media personalities and academics for similar reasons.

Both the historical account and the analyses of current events are argued for convincingly. Graeber seems to share my personal belief that the direction of current politics is not immediately towards liberty, nor towards equality or brotherhood, but towards the autonomy that is a necessary condition for the former triad to flourish. As this is basically an anti-ideological stance, he isn't able to formulate what a free society looks like, or how it should be run.

But he tries anyway.

And that is where the greatest weakness of the book lies. It's impossible to be specific about tomorrow's society and Graber realizes this, so his view of the future is clouded with abstractions and slogans. He is right not to draw a blueprint, but should have also refrained from sketching a vague outline in flowery prose that even Barack Obama would find insubstantial.

Yet, even despite these and other misgivings, The Democracy Project is an inspiring read for anyone who is willing to entertain the possiblity of genuine democracy in a free, horizontalist society.