![]() ![]() there are thousands of Marxists working in colleges and universities, but only handfuls of anarchists. The first is the one he begins the book with, “Why are there so few anarchists in the academy?” In the U.S. However, there are two main topic fragments in this book. As I do, Graeber sees anarchism as a form of direct, radical, democracy, unlike those anarchists who reject democracy. ![]() This is an important topic which shows the different ways anarchists and Marxists relate to their “founders.” Other tid-bits include a fragment on democracy and consensus. For example, early on he raises the differences between anarchism and Marxism as movements. They include brief comments and (relatively) longer commentaries. These scattered thoughts are in a short book (105 small pages). “Why are there so few Anarchists in the Academy?” Instead, it is, he explains, “a series of thoughts, sketches of potential theories, and tiny manifestoes,” which he hopes will contribute someday to a “body of radical theory.” That is, it is “fragments.” If you want that, you should read Barclay (whom Graeber never mentions, oddly enough). It does not examine political and economic structures of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to show what anarchy has been like in practice, how societies without rulers have made decisions and maintained order. This little book by the anthropologist David Graeber is not the same thing. That work is now out of date, of course, but still interesting (see the Introduction by Eleanor Burke Leacock, pp. When it comes to understanding the state, the market, and the family, even Marxists look to anthropological data, as in the classic The Origin of the Family, Private Propery, and the State by Engels (1972). Anarchists have examined this anthropological data, such as Harold Barclay’s People without Government, An Anthropology of Anarchy (1990, see also Barclay, 1997). Rather than there being one kind of “human nature,” people have been very flexible about how they interact and organize themselves. Anthropology demonstrates that, for most of human existence, people have lived in stateless, non-market, societies. In attempts to build an anarchist theory, there has been a natural interest in anthropology. Instead, he favors a gradualist approach which leaves the state alone. David Graeber argues against the need for a revolutionary confrontation with the state or its eventual overthrow. A review of David Graeber (2004), Fragments of an Anarchist AnthropologyĪ collection of scattered thoughts about anarchism, anthropology, and academic studies is reviewed. ![]()
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