New collection of essays on art, revolution, and strategy by David Graeber…
Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination
David Graeber
Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial
institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. There
is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will
no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain
an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Yet faced with
this prospect, the knee-jerk reaction is often to cling to what exists
because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even
more oppressive and destructive. The political imagination seems to have
reached an impasse. Or has it?
In this collection of essays David Graeber explores a wide-ranging set
of topics including political strategy, global trade, debt, imagination,
violence, aesthetics, alienation, and creativity. Written in the wake of
the anti-globalization movement and the rise of the war on terror, these
essays survey the political landscape for signs of hope in unexpected
places.
At a moment when the old assumption about politics and power have been
irrefutably broken the only real choice is to begin again: to create a
new language, a new common sense, about what people basically are and
what it is reasonable for them to expect from the world, and from each
other. In this volume Graeber draws from the realms of politics, art,
and the imagination to start this conversation and to suggest that that
the task might not be nearly so daunting as we’d be given to imagine.
“TINA, they say, there is no alternative. The essence of neoliberalism,
David Graeber suggests, is its systematization of depression, its
exclusion of all alternatives to an obviously catastrophic system. These
stimulating essays rupture the wall of enclosure, push forward, and open
paths that lead in hopeful directions. So important.” – John Holloway,
author of Change The World Without Taking Power
“I find the practical politics tendentious, but the theoretical elements
provocative and intriguing” – Kanellos the Greek Riot Dog
David Graeber is an anarchist, an anthropologist, and a member of the
Industrial Workers of the World. He teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths.
He is the author of multiple books including Towards an Anthropological
Theory of Value and Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and
Desire.
PDF available freely online: (http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=284),
discounts for ordering multiple copies (reading groups, occupation
libraries, etc).
Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing
from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of
everyday life.
Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia
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