graeber bday 2026
John Holloway – David Graeber Memorial Lecture – feb 12 2026
notes/quotes:
127 here when started.. then 142
my recollection – gentle/kind person.. so honor to do this.. in order to say thank you to him
name of talk: we want to win.. subtitle: how
we want to win.. we all do.. we need to win.. we want to win lots of things.. struggles.. rid of trump et al.. abolish ice/immigration.. stop violence against women.. warlords.. extreme right.. fossil fuels.. global warming.. stopping of critical thought in unis.. nothing i say is a criticism of particularity of struggles.. important thing is to overflow.. many can be achieve w/in capitalism.. but even then.. not enough.. because aggression keeps on coming.. pressures keep on.. society based on aggression of money for life.. we feel trapped.. closer and closer to abyss/catastrophe/extinction.. so things of urgency.. possibly end game of humanity
so just in this moment of everything getting worse.. we need to not withdraw into defense.. go back to revolution.. resistance/rebellion.. of course.. but let’s not forget 3rd word.. revolution
go into streets and think.. how can there be a revolution here.. answer: you’re mad.. but a necessary madness.. so talk is invitation to join me in my madness
we feel trapped because we are .. shaped thru exchange of commodities.. forms of exchange.. leads to development/dominance of money.. activity into abstract/alienated labor.. wealth/power from extraction of vast majority of us
if we think of social cohesion.. thinking of how people relate/join.. we are defined by opacity.. frozen social forms .. that appear to be separate.. focus on obliging us to convert our activity to labor.. for only reason – profit.. these forms.. labor/money/state/capital.. sustain perverted creativity thru money form.. so hardship et al
internet/ai.. extraordinary.. but contained as there are in grind of profit.. so leave a trail of destruction/destortion
marxist anal – focus not on who/what but how.. how do we relate w one another.. central point of what i want to say.. how do we move away from what/who to think of how.. and esp in terms of revolution
marx puts how in center.. we do it thru commodities/etc.. but the how exists in thoughts.. labor/money simply a thing we have to do rather than a peculiar form of behavior.. the feticiziation can be understood as quantification.. also a who-ification.. breaks the communal we into a number of individual i’s.. the how becomes supplanted by who
we are confined/contained w/in existing system.. constrained by labor/money/capital.. these are the forms w/in which we live.. then breaking of this or creation of diff.. must be an overflowing of these forms.. but how.. how to confront how of containment w how of overflowing to create diff..
revolution is the replacement of established cohesion of social movement.. so it’s a how against how.. revolution is a how vs how.. sure to be expressed as a who vs who.. those fighting to defend those fighting for change.. this how vs how shouldn’t be reduced to who vs who.. how vs how must shape our struggle for creation o fdiff world
marxist tradition reduced how vs how to who vs who.. lenin: power is a question of who/whom.. a fab phrase w disastrous consequences.. a complete blindness to the question of form.. money/labor assumed characteristics of any society
we need to get out of these forms.. as long as stay w/in them.. we do nothing to stop the reproduction of the system that is destroying us.. there must be some way out of here.. but how.. not enough to just scream/dream.. let’s do it.. we need to win.. have to think scientifically about how we can transform society.. material basis of dreams/hope
(nothing) has worked.. but that failure leaves us w challenge of how then.. a radical transformation of mode of social cohesion.. there’s an obvious answer: we don’t know how.. it’s important to say that.. 50-60 yrs ago perhaps we had the answer.. but we know now it was no answer at all
not knowing is part of the answer.. if we know then we tell other people the answer.. and we reproduce a monological discourse that reproduces society we want to transcend.. if we say we don’t know we enter a diff politics.. already breaking w hierarchical grammar of existing society.. entering into anti grammar of society we want to create.. i hope this talk can be understood in this way.. i don’t know.. this is as far as i’ve thought.. maybe you can take it farther
the orthodox answer didn’t work.. because working class understood on basis of id of working class.. et al
so what i want to suggests.. 1st point: think in terms of how 2nd point: possible way to move forward by turning to blocks concept of the not yet.. he says the world that could exist exists already.. as not yet.. as misfitting.. as dream.. as rebellion..
in his book.. the principle of hope.. block traces the transcendance of hope.. his conclusion is that the constant push of the not yet becomes practical force for transcendance.. opens a diff way of thinking about material basis.. that push all the time against existing forms..
for me.. the not yet isn’t opposed to our struggle.. but diff interp.. ie: working class authoritarian.. but in not yet anti authoritarian.. opens up concept of labor
underlying alienating labor.. the creative not yet ness of latent ness.. against/beyond bounds of abstract/profit labor .. the not yet is an overflowing.. workers push beyond their classification.. seen thru prism of not yet .. working class is anti labor/class
the not yet.. coming back to david.. is closly related to the notion of a baseline communism that is so present in work of graeber.. and kropotkin.. et al.. basic idea.. in any society.. exists on mutual support.. seen as a yes but.. to usual reading of marx..
marx: we relate to each other via exchange.. communism missing from that.. freely shared activity et al.. destructive society depends upon basis of this mutual support for its own survival..
so hope then lies in the strength of this baseline communism.. where is the material basis of your hope.. that even w/in your madness there’s some sense of talking about.. hope lies in this not yet.. this baseline communism.. this invites us to rewrite history.. in terms of the force of every day communism
yes.. entangled in money.. but also exists in mutual support.. central thesem in much of david’s work.. esp doe
it is also central theme
so baseline communism is the not yet.. to the existing.. the mutual support cannot stand outside the dominate capitalism sociality.. it is opposed to it and penetrated by it
to talk about forms..human sociality exists in form of money/state/capital/etc.. is to say that our sociality/interaction exists in the form of being negated.. in the form of things.. that meanssocial relations are also a struggle against that negations.. if we think of the not yet.. this baseline communism exists.. but not yet.. in the form of that negation
it will always be contradictory.. mutual support in form of giving money or finding a job.. so no purity here.. social cohesion in which we live is antagonistic.. important not to idolize this baseline communism
we want revolution.. but.. we are damaged subjects.. capital is a constant aggression.. living in/against/beyond damaged condition
revolution is a question of how.. we need to replace how of present social condition w another.. the pattern of coming together thru commodity w diff pattern of social relations.. now it’s based on against ness.. so how can we strengthen that not yet against/beyond ness
if we think in terms of who/who.. we’re lost 1\ reproduce same 2\ who against powers.. both ways lost.. have to think in terms of how
so how do we do it.. book i wrote: crack capitalism.. create cracks in texture of capitalism in which we say no to logic of c and create others.. revolution is expansion et al of such cracks
i’ve never really known how to talk about the confluence.. i think it has to be thought of in non institutional terms..
but one other thing that’s really coming thru in present discussions more and more is the idea of the commune.. the confluence of cracks.. in terms of communizing..
if we think of working class not as sociological grouping but of oppressed.. revolution is a movement of communizing .. communal org against state.. the state.. any state.. excludes people by its form.. the commune includes.. seeks to articulate ideas from below and recreate society into society..
the commune seeks to free itself from subordination by capital accumulation by other types of production.. tradition of commune from paris to rojava has been strongly anti racist/nationalist
how in an indefinitely postponed tomorrow.. the commune already a cohesion.. to struggle for diff way of coming together is to communize
if class struggle is how vs how.. commune then is class struggle.. best thought of as an assembly of damaged subjects.. zapatista’s insistence that they are just ordinary people.. we ordinary/damaged people are very often patriarchal.. so that the revolution in relations to commune.. we’re thinking of verb to overcome rather than a noun.. pulling ourselves up thru bootstraps
now more than ever it is time to talk of revolution.. time of great upheaval.. and despite it’s violence.. a time of great fragility.. space has become much smaller.. so now is time to overflow.. time to say no.. time to struggle from emancipatin of doing for labor.. from state
the 2 davids in conclusion of doe: greek notion of cairos.. one of those occasional moments.. when frames of ref undergo a shift.. lines between myth/history/science/magic.. therefore real change is possible.. i agree with them.. this is the time
this is what i thought.. what do you think
q&a
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so much good said above.. but today we have the means to do more.. to actually have a global nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem
wish we could talk.. so many good pts.. but today we can do so much more.. today we have the means for a global leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync.. the dance
nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..
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be you. 