I became aware of David Graeber’s work around 2012 when I first read his often quoted “Of flying Cars” in The Baffler. I immediately felt we saw key areas of reality from a very similar perspective. The most evident perhaps, jobs and the need to revisit the role of job in our society. That doesn’t mean we saw the same path forward, but I admire people like him able to see things in a different light and help us see them.

We need more David Graebers to see further ahead. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the world he once imagined.

As someone who was eight years old at the time of the Apollo moon landing, I remember calculating that I would be thirty-nine in the magic year 2000 and wondering what the world would be like. Did I expect I would be living in such a world of wonders? Of course. Everyone did. Do I feel cheated now? It seemed unlikely that I’d live to see all the things I was reading about in science fiction, but it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t see any of them.

David Graeber, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit”

____________________

Featured Image: David Graeber speaks at Maagdenhuis occupation, University of Amsterdam, 2015., Wikimedia