Discussion
RE: https://universeodon.com/@flyhigh/116896062838808528
Taking a break from *gestures wildly* to read Graeber's "little pamphlet" and already it's striking some chords.
"It’s not just that anarchism does not tend to have much use for high theory. It’s that it is primarily concerned with forms of practice; it insists, before anything else, that one’s means must be consonant with one’s ends; one cannot create freedom through authoritarian means"
About Marcel Mauss describing economies without money or markets and the barter myth:
"such economies were really “gift economies.” They were not based on calculation, but on a refusal to calculate; they were rooted in an ethical system which consciously rejected most of what we would consider the basic principles of economics."
This is me and my dad. He wants to give me money for the internet and I should give him money for the electricity to my outdoor kitchen.
I refuse to keep score. We care about each other and we care about not taking advantage. And that's enough for me. He comes from a long line of score keepers and it's caused harm before. He goes along with my way. Less math. But I can see he's uneasy about it.
No, I am wrong. What I just described is still a barter. It's leaving out the meals I bought for him and he bought for me, me cooking this and him fixing that. Giving each other this or that thing out of storage that might be useful. Using my U-Haul account to install his trailer hitch, etc.
If we just do these things and trust each other, it works out. No ledgers needed.
@springdiesel
> If we just do these things and trust each other, it works out. No ledgers needed
I love Graeber's description (in Debt, I think?) of a village society in which women routinely trade in herbs and spices and other domestic condiments, with the implicit goal of *not* balancing a ledger. The rudest thing you can do to someone in this society is settle your account, effectively telling them you intend to have nothing more to do with them.
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