The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement

David Graeber, The author of The Democracy Project was one of the key players in the early 2010's Occupy movement. He is an academic, self-proclaimed anarchist and the originator of "the 99%". The book is part history of the Occupy movement and part manual for running an anarchic organization.

He describes the "1%" as the ruling class of the United States. These are the people that are in political and corporate power. They are also those with lots of money that can make donations to political campaigns. While "legal", these contributions are viewed as a form of bribery. The institutions of the state (such as police, laws, courts, etc.) are set up to provide benefit to the 1%. Foreclosures are an example of the apparatus of the state being used to support the 1% against "the 99%". The current system of laws and regulations is so vast that it is impossible to enforce everything. The result is a selective enforcement. The protestors were hit with citations for crimes that were rarely charged. There is almost always "something" illegal that is being performed by somebody. It is up to those in authority to pick and choose what is enforced. This allows for fully "legal" discrimination on those that are out of favor. This also extends out of the state to unions and other organizations. (A bus-drivers union can cause a massive slow down simply by "working to the rule".)

The occupy movement did not have a leadership structure and used consensus to make decisions. Consensus ensures that everybody has a voice and nobody is forced to go along with something they do not believe in. Alas, it does not scale. He does give examples of reducing consensus decisions to those that are important to the body as a whole. (Universal agreement is not needed for designing a logo.) A consensus society would be an ideal. However, implementing it would be close to impossible. Some of the pre-Columbian societies in the Americas may have had the anarchic structure. However, they were also easily destroyed by the hierarchical Europeans.

The author advocates "real" democracy. He criticizes voting as just a means to promulgate the leadership by the elite. The masses are given a small choice between a few elites as a means of keeping them subjugated. There is rarely a choice between vastly different systems. The left can't understand how working class voters chose Republicans, seemingly against their own self interest. However, the voters realize that the Democrats are merely throwing them a few bones. There is little significant difference between the two parties. The constitution specifically did not have direct democracy, but merely a system of elected officials.

Full democracy is common in protest movements, but has rarely succeeded on a large scale. Pirate crews would often implement a democratic structure - after they had mutinied against their original ship leadership. Small communes have also had varying degrees of success with full democratic organization. On a large scale, there are just too many people and too many decisions to maintain direct democracy. These problems eventually led to the downfall of the occupy movement. 

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

The history of "debt" predates the introduction of money. Even today, people will often say they are "indebted" to you due to a favor or other action performed. In Debt, David Graeber explores the history of debt and the origin of money. He presents a view different than the commonly described story. He wasn't able to find viable cases of money rises out of the "barter economy." Instead, he found it rising more out of the "human" economy. People would become indebted to others due to an accident, murder or taking of a spouse. The monetary instruments would come about as a means to satisfy these debts (and help but an end to the cycle of endless retribution.)

The evolution of standardized currency allowed greater exchanges with unknown people. (Now the trust was placed in the type of currency rather than the individual person.) Standardization also better facilitated warfare and plunder.

Slavery was also tied to debt and money. Slavery initially arose in a somewhat positive context. Rather than kill an enemy, they could be enslaved for a time period. Slaves could live relatively normal lives and in some cultures eventually obtain freedom. Slavery became common in societies that undertook large scale projects. Eventually, it fell out of favor in Europe of the middle ages. However, with the plantation demands of the new world, there was a need for increased labor. Slavery had to be "forced" back upon a society that had given up on it. To do this, a racist story had to be introduced to portray the slaves as less than human. As long as people bought this tale, slavery could exist. However, as people realized they had been duped (and the need for slave labor decreased), slavery fell out of favor. It was eventually abolished, yet we are still living the legacy of the marginalization of a group of people and the culture that grew out of it.

Wage labor also grew out of the needs of large scale industry. It bares many similarities to the slave system. The key difference is that people are free to move around and "move up." However, in practice, most people remain wage laborers for their lives. They may move from job to job, yet these jobs tend to be very similar to each other. They are required to do work to pay off their many debts (houses, credit cards, etc.) The many transactions performed also tend to be done in a more anonymous fashion. People rarely communicate directly with an individual holding their debt or producing their product. Debt has become a unifying instrument of an anonymous society.