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"Debt", for me, was one of those life-changing books that completely revised how I think of money and macroeconomics. But I found "On Kings" to be unreadable, d

"Debt", for me, was one of those life-changing books that completely revised how I think of money and macroeconomics. But I found "On Kings" to be unreadable, deeply mired in esoteric academic theory debates. "The Beginning of Everything" was somewhere in the middle -- it successfully challenged the conventional "Noble Savage" and Lockean views of the emergence of the state. But it was filled with a TON of conjecture, and ultimately made the unsatisfying point that things were very different at different places and times. I'm sad there won't be any more from him.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eightysixfour 3y ago
I found the conjecture in “The Beginning of Everything” to be so obviously lacking in evidence - like the ideas he was critiquing - that I couldn’t help but think it was intentionally ironic. Much of what Graeber criticized others for, extrapolating physical evidence based on their worldview, is exactly what he did using his own (not as mainstream) worldview. Graeber’s own conjecture further illuminated the breadth of possible interpretations of the evidence, making his own arguments weaker but also, IMO, reducing the believability of competing perspectives as well. I wonder if recognition of this is why Graeber was taking a more stereotypical liberal perspective later in his life. It is unfortunate that he is not around to share more about how his perspective evolved.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > I wonder if recognition of this is why Graeber was taking a more stereotypical liberal perspective later in his life His ideas had gained a certain acceptance. That meant is was time to hone, to refine, to heap on the nuance. What better tool to use than his usual foil, status quo liberalism? Seems like a page out of Hegel.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  I feel that Graeber had made a conscious choice to create a new fable, in a sense. That is, to the extent that most people think about the beginnings of civilization at all, they repeat just-so stories invented during the Enlightenment. Those stories wove themselves into our collective subconscious, and guide our collective decisions today. They help provide limits on what we think it is possible for government to be -- or not to be. Graeber, I think, wanted to change our perceived limits by challenging the old stories and weaving a new one.
  - eightysixfour 3y ago
    This is my excuse when others critique the book as well. I don’t know if it is true, but I like it. The contrast of a new story is needed to understand the limitations of the existing one.
    - namaria 3y ago
      Precisely my view. Just showing people that the default story taught in schools and echoed in documentaries and popular non fiction is arbitrary and full of holes is very useful. A lot of political manipulation found in the wild rests on using these archaic narratives. Even the idea that "civilization started in Mesopotamia" seems to be a gross oversimplification that needs to be revised. Too much of Western world politics rests on obsolete Enlightenment narratives and questioning them seems to elicit strong reactions.
acheron 3y ago
Real enlightenment comes when you realize “Debt” was mostly nonsense too.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  I have proactively searched for factual critiques of Debt. I've only found quibbles about the phrasing he uses to describe the Federal Reserve. If you can show me a more substantive critique, I'd love to read it.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    /r/AskEconomics is a good start. Later Does this read snarky? I don't mean it that way; AskEconomics just doesn't seem to be a fan of Graeber, so if you're looking for critiques, that's a quick way to find some.
    - trevyn 3y ago
      HN just hates reddit.
    - khrbrt 3y ago
      It would be helpful to link to a specific thread or an FAQ page for the subreddit instead of vaguely suggesting to search its archive or create a new thread.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    The majority of complaints I’ve seen have been of the sort “he says X is true and doesn’t even bother to consider that Y!” … but he does. Like two paragraphs later. He states that specific criticism, and addresses it. Maybe not well! But that’s rarely the complaint. I think the form of the book threw some folks who weren’t used to that sort of thing—a series of assertions and statements unbroken by digression, spanning one or more paragraphs, followed by paragraphs directly stating and addressing many criticisms a reader may have come up with.
    - 3y ago
tsunamifury 3y ago
“Bullshit jobs” was one of the poorest researched and thinly veiled biased judgements in a supposed academic work I had ever read. After reading it I couldn’t take any of his work seriously at all as he misunderstood basic concepts of productivity.
- bhaak 3y ago
  Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you still need to acknowledge that the raw data is there. That is that many people consider their job useless. Draw your own conclusions from that.
  - unmole 3y ago
    What was the data that Graeber used? Fan mail from people who didn't like their jobs?
    - Biologist123 3y ago
      People he met at parties. That said, it was a popular essay, not academic research. I’d also say, it is an important question to ask: do our economies deliver meaningful work? Does it matter? Is my job meaningful to me, and what does that mean?
      - graemep 3y ago
        Yes, Bullshit Jobs has a lot of interesting ideas and narratives. I found it worth reading for that.
      - immibis 3y ago
        My job is meaningful because I get paid for it. The actual work output produces no value to society - maybe negative value. The same is probably true for lots of people here.
  - Keysh 3y ago
    This is a serious study of actual "raw data" that directly contradicts Graeber: "Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this [Graeber's] theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypotheses. Although we find that the perception of doing useless work is strongly associated with poor wellbeing, our findings contradict the main propositions of Graeber’s theory. The proportion of employees describing their jobs as useless is low and declining and bears little relationship to Graeber’s predictions." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015067 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

eightysixfour 3y ago

I found the conjecture in “The Beginning of Everything” to be so obviously lacking in evidence - like the ideas he was critiquing - that I couldn’t help but think it was intentionally ironic. Much of what Graeber criticized others for, extrapolating physical evidence based on their worldview, is exactly what he did using his own (not as mainstream) worldview. Graeber’s own conjecture further illuminated the breadth of possible interpretations of the evidence, making his own arguments weaker but also, IMO, reducing the believability of competing perspectives as well. I wonder if recognition of this is why Graeber was taking a more stereotypical liberal perspective later in his life. It is unfortunate that he is not around to share more about how his perspective evolved.

drewcoo 3y ago
> I wonder if recognition of this is why Graeber was taking a more stereotypical liberal perspective later in his life His ideas had gained a certain acceptance. That meant is was time to hone, to refine, to heap on the nuance. What better tool to use than his usual foil, status quo liberalism? Seems like a page out of Hegel.
ProjectArcturis 3y ago
I feel that Graeber had made a conscious choice to create a new fable, in a sense. That is, to the extent that most people think about the beginnings of civilization at all, they repeat just-so stories invented during the Enlightenment. Those stories wove themselves into our collective subconscious, and guide our collective decisions today. They help provide limits on what we think it is possible for government to be -- or not to be. Graeber, I think, wanted to change our perceived limits by challenging the old stories and weaving a new one.
- eightysixfour 3y ago
  This is my excuse when others critique the book as well. I don’t know if it is true, but I like it. The contrast of a new story is needed to understand the limitations of the existing one.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Precisely my view. Just showing people that the default story taught in schools and echoed in documentaries and popular non fiction is arbitrary and full of holes is very useful. A lot of political manipulation found in the wild rests on using these archaic narratives. Even the idea that "civilization started in Mesopotamia" seems to be a gross oversimplification that needs to be revised. Too much of Western world politics rests on obsolete Enlightenment narratives and questioning them seems to elicit strong reactions.

acheron 3y ago

Real enlightenment comes when you realize “Debt” was mostly nonsense too.

ProjectArcturis 3y ago
I have proactively searched for factual critiques of Debt. I've only found quibbles about the phrasing he uses to describe the Federal Reserve. If you can show me a more substantive critique, I'd love to read it.
- tptacek 3y ago
  /r/AskEconomics is a good start. Later Does this read snarky? I don't mean it that way; AskEconomics just doesn't seem to be a fan of Graeber, so if you're looking for critiques, that's a quick way to find some.
  - trevyn 3y ago
    HN just hates reddit.
  - khrbrt 3y ago
    It would be helpful to link to a specific thread or an FAQ page for the subreddit instead of vaguely suggesting to search its archive or create a new thread.
- wharvle 3y ago
  The majority of complaints I’ve seen have been of the sort “he says X is true and doesn’t even bother to consider that Y!” … but he does. Like two paragraphs later. He states that specific criticism, and addresses it. Maybe not well! But that’s rarely the complaint. I think the form of the book threw some folks who weren’t used to that sort of thing—a series of assertions and statements unbroken by digression, spanning one or more paragraphs, followed by paragraphs directly stating and addressing many criticisms a reader may have come up with.
  - 3y ago

tsunamifury 3y ago

“Bullshit jobs” was one of the poorest researched and thinly veiled biased judgements in a supposed academic work I had ever read. After reading it I couldn’t take any of his work seriously at all as he misunderstood basic concepts of productivity.

bhaak 3y ago
Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you still need to acknowledge that the raw data is there. That is that many people consider their job useless. Draw your own conclusions from that.
- unmole 3y ago
  What was the data that Graeber used? Fan mail from people who didn't like their jobs?
  - Biologist123 3y ago
    People he met at parties. That said, it was a popular essay, not academic research. I’d also say, it is an important question to ask: do our economies deliver meaningful work? Does it matter? Is my job meaningful to me, and what does that mean?
    - graemep 3y ago
      Yes, Bullshit Jobs has a lot of interesting ideas and narratives. I found it worth reading for that.
    - immibis 3y ago
      My job is meaningful because I get paid for it. The actual work output produces no value to society - maybe negative value. The same is probably true for lots of people here.
- Keysh 3y ago
  This is a serious study of actual "raw data" that directly contradicts Graeber: "Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this [Graeber's] theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypotheses. Although we find that the perception of doing useless work is strongly associated with poor wellbeing, our findings contradict the main propositions of Graeber’s theory. The proportion of employees describing their jobs as useless is low and declining and bears little relationship to Graeber’s predictions." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015067 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...