david on care and freedom
image from (more on museum of care page) https://www.diaphanes.com/news/gedenkkarneval-fuer-david-graeber-6707
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david graeber talk (2019) at chaos communication congress – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Communication_Congress – (like a current talk/recap of bs jobs)
Holy shit how TF did I miss this, I didn’t know Graeber spoke at CCC
CC @Doctorow just because
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/bajabanjo/status/1322054806471495680
notes/quotes from 60 min video:
32 min – that phrase ‘well everything was legal’ gives the game away.. ie: if make bribery legal then ok.. et al.. all about form against content.. as long as follow rule/regulation
35 min – it strikes me that we need to rip up the game and start over.. we’re in another world economically than we used to be..
way to do that.. when asked why people thought jobs were bs ‘didn’t help anybody’.. there is a premise that work is meaningful if it helps people and improves people’s lives.. caring labor has become the paradigm for all forms of labor
36 min – to a degree.. the left is really stuck in a notion of production rather than caring.. and the reason we have been out maneuvered in the past is precisely because of that.. work is supposed to be suffering.. so productivity
our paradigm for value is production.. but if you think about it.. most work is not about production.. most work is about maintaining things.. it’s about care.. ie: tea cup.. produce it once wash it 1000s times
norton productivity law et al
39 min – most work consists of taking care of other people.. so what i think we need to do is start over:
1\ re define working classes (not as producers but) as caring classes..
people who take care of other people.. poorer you are more you understand other people.. rich people don’t have to care.. literally
deeper.. actually start over and let go of working ness..
trust that if we’re all legit free.. 1\ less things to take care of – because more health 2\ when we do.. it won’t be noticed as ‘taking care of ness’
ie: ‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
2\ move away from paradigm of production/consumption as what the economy is about
if going to save the planet.. we really need to move away from productivism
and save the people
norton productivity law: it takes getting nothing done to make us human again – Quinn Norton
40 min – so i would propose we just rip up the discipline of econ as it is and start over..t
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
my proposal: take the ideas of production/consumption and throw them away and substitute for them the ideas of care and freedom..t
museum of care ness
41 min – what we do as human beings is we take care of each other.. but care.. which is something we don’t often recognize.. is closely related to the notion of freedom..t because.. normally care is defined as answering to other people’s needs and certainly that is an important element of it.. but it’s not just that.. if you’re in a prison they take care of the needs of the prisoners.. usually at least.. but you can’t really think of a prison as caring for it’s prisoners.. it’s more than that.. so why isn’t a prison a care giving institutions whereas something else might be
if you think about care.. the paradigm for caring relations is a mother and a child.. mother takes care of child so that child can grow.. be healthy.. flourish.. but at the immediate level.. you take care of a child so the child can go and play.. that’s what children actually do when you take care of them..t
graeber care/free law
1 yr to be 5 ness
42 min – what is play.. play is action done for its own sake.. it’s in a way the very paradigm of freedom.. because action done for its own sake is what freedom really consists of .. play and freedom are ultimately the same thing.. t
spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove
gray play deprived law et al
iterate play
so.. a production/consumption paradigm for what an econ is .. is a guarantee for ultimately destroying the planet and each other.. even when you’re talking about degrowth.. if you’re working w/in that paradigm.. you’re essentially doomed.. we need to break away from that paradigm entirely..
yes.. legit different experiment
care and freedom on the other hand are things you can increase as much as you like w/o damaging anything..
so we need to think.. what are ways that we can care for each other that will make each other more free and who are the people who are providing that care.. and how can they be *compensated themselves w greater freedom..
*that’s diff .. yay
ie: cure ios city
imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data to augment our interconnectedness.. we might just get to a more antifragile, healthy, thriving world.. the ecosystem we keep longing for..
what the world needs most is the energy of 8b alive people
43 min – to do that we need to scrap almost all of the discipline of econ as it currently exists..t
i’d say all..
to leap/transition.. let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence..w/ubi as temp placebo.. needs met w/o money..people forget about measuring
we’re actually just starting to think about this.. economics as it currently exists is based on assumptions of human nature that we now know to be wrong.. t
ie: black science of people/whales law; tragedy of the non common; et al
our findings:
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b free people
ie: fundamental assumptions of the maximizing individual that econ theory is based on .. turns out not true.. it tells you something about the roll of econ that this has had almost no effect on econ teaching whatsoever.. they don’t really care that it’s not true
44 min – one of the things we have discovered.. human beings have actually a psychological need to be cared for.. but they have an even greater psychological need to care for others.. or to care for something.. you don’t have that you basically fall apart..t
ie: maté basic needs
imagine if we org’d ourselves around that ie: 2 conversations
44 min – so.. what would happen to mirco econ if we started from that..t
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
we’d org with oikos ness as infra
ie: imagine if we
we’re doing a workshop tomorrow on the museum of care..which we are going to imagine in rojava.. it’s in places like that where they are trying to completely reimagine econ.. .. relation of freedom, aesthetics and value..
museum of care.. rojava’s third way.. et al
because at the moment the system of value that we have is set up in such a way that this kind of trap that i’ve described.. the gradual bs ization of employment.. yet we’re essentially production-work has become a value onto itself in such a way that we’re literally destroying the planet
and in order to reimagine the type of econ that wouldn’t destroy the planet.. we have to start all over again..
46 min – q&a starts
q1 – on admin in hospitals.. and competition
a1: bs ization is exactly what’s not supposed to happen w competitive jobs.. and the complete opposite has happened.. both in private/public sectors.. one reason seems to be.. system we have is essentially not capitalism as it is .. profit/redistribution is from rent.. so more feudalism than capitalism.. soak up as much money as possible in order to redistribute.. econ and political so intertwined.. you can call it if you like.. but doesn’t resemble way people would like capitalism to work
graeber f & b same law et al
50 min – q2: how create a class consciousness for the care giving class
q2: think about who class enemy is.. why are people suspicious of the left.. class relations in hospital and schools.. because that’s where most employees are.. we need to reconstitute the language.. we need new terms
a nother way: cure ios city.. a means to undo our hierarchical listening.. because it has to be all of us.. even the inspectors of inspectors
52 min – q3: to what extent can tech help.. lots of projects to auto mate management.. used to remove this class?
a3: people talk about it all the time.. but this is where power comes in.. why is it that automation means.. actually workers (delivery guys) get more labor to be efficient.. and co hires more admin.. if an exec in large corp.. prestige/power is proportional to how many are working under you.. so no way going to get rid of people.. who gets eliminated and who doesn’t has everything to do w power
55 min – q4: care and freedom sounds vague.. i think of bi as means.. what do you think of that
a4: i totally support that..
except.. that’s like what you said about degrowth.. still in the same system.. still will destroy us.. that’s why (if we use it) we need it to be coded as planned obsolescence
a4 cont: major objections people have to ubi is people don’t trust people to come up with useful things to do w themselves.. either they think they’ll be lazy and won’t do anything.. or they think if they do do something.. it’ll be stupid.. like ie: millions of people creating perpetual motion devices or becoming annoying street mimes or bad musicians/poets.. et al..
57 min – a4 cont: and i think it masks an incredible condescending elitism that a lot of people have.. which is really the mindset of the professional managerial classes who think they should be controlling people
people telling other people what to do.. huge red flag we’re doing it/life wrong
a4 cont: because ok.. if you think the fact that huge percentages.. perhaps a third of people already think they’re doing nothing all day and they’re really miserable about that.. i think that demos quite clearly why that isn’t true.. 1\ the idea that if people given a bi won’t work.. actually there are paid to sit there all day and do nothing and they’re really unhappy.. they’d much rather be working
yeah.. i don’t think anyone would choose (if legit free) to be working for other people.. no matter how much value they see in it.. i think the energy level toward that work would dwindle..
we have the means to let go of the whole work idea.. (of solving other people’s problems.. working other people’s dreams/itch).. again.. like the degrowth ie you gave.. we have to let go of that whole mindset.. in this case saying ‘people like work’
2\ if 30-40% of people already think their jobs are pointless/useless.. how bad could it be.. ie: if everybody goes off and becomes bad poets.. at least they’ll be a lot happier than they are now.. and one or two of them might be really good poets.. and you got your money back right there
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nika‘s thread from link to talk of david on care and freedom
So we need to think what are ways that we need to care for each other that will make each other more free?
5/Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1368564980296130570
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
let’s org for/around that (as infra)
ie: maté basic needs
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be you. 