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I think you have to be pretty far on the right for the Economist to be at all left of you. They're very much liberal yes, in the old school sense Milton Friedma
by simonh 5y ago
I think you have to be pretty far on the right for the Economist to be at all left of you. They're very much liberal yes, in the old school sense Milton Friedman used when he described himself as a liberal. Nowadays in American political discourse liberal is a code word for socialist, and that's not the Economist at all.
Not that I have any particular hostility to socialism either. I think it's generally wrong and misguided, but mostly in a well meaning, bumbling Sir Kier Starmer sort of way. Occasionally in a pernicious, righteous, nasty minded Jeremy Corbyn sort of way. I can often work with socialists though, but I'm European so you get used to it.
I think Graeber is most likely a Marxist, and I've commented on that and what I think of it elsewhere in the thread. Spoiler - not much.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago>I think Graeber is most likely a Marxist, and I've commented on that and what I think of it elsewhere in the thread. I think that is the misinterpretation. Graeber and Sahlins' work seems to me to be interpreting things from outside a left/right capitalist/communist framework entirely, at least as much as possible, considering how much we have been trained to think within those frameworks.
- simonh 5y agoThat's fair enough, but I think the same criticisms I have of Marxist theories of value also apply to Graeber.
- SaberTail 5y ago> I think Graeber is most likely a Marxist Graeber was a self-proclaimed anarchist[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110629033208/http:/www.villagevoice.com/2005-05-31/people/take-it-from-the-top/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110629033208/http:/www.village...
- SyzygistSix 5y agoWow. Thanks for that. That is interesting that he even mentions Bob Black. From what little I have read from Graeber I got the impression that he, like Black, considers communism/Marxism as authoritarian and irreconcilable with anarchy as capitalism.