David Rolfe Graeber (/ˈɡreɪbər/; February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Bullshit Jobs (2018), and The Dawn of Everything (2021), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.

  • frezik@midwest.social
    5·
    7 days ago

    Unions alone are necessary, but not sufficient. They have to actually take over their companies for this to work. The number of workers in a co-operative in France is about 5%.

    I also know that most office hours are totally wasted, but how come no one seems to have successfully made a job where you only do those effective hours possible?

    That’s a very good question for capitalism.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
      31·
      7 days ago

      I have worked in Sweden too, heavily unionised at the time being.

      What do you mean it’s a question for capitalism? If you can’t solve it, then it will still be a problem for your syndicalism.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        2·
        7 days ago

        Syndicalisim solves it by reducing hours once everyone is in a co-op. I say it’s a question for capitalism because they could just do that right now, there’s some good arguments that they could, but don’t.

        • Pup BiruEnglish
          11·
          6 days ago

          you can’t just hand wave away the problem and say it’s a problem in capitalism and then not tackle it. capitalism solves it with horrible living conditions: work to someone else’s standard or die

          game theory exists - the system only works when everyone is honest, and every human system is going to have selfish, egotistical, and sociopathic people

          • frezik@midwest.social
            1·
            6 days ago

            how come no one seems to have successfully made a job where you only do those effective hours possible?

            That was the original question. It’s so not hard to find a syndicalist answer: when everyone is in a co-op, they all get together and decide that yeah, we don’t need to work as long. Job done. We haven’t done this yet because not everyone is organized into worker co-operatives.

            Capitalism, in contrast, has all sorts of roadblocks to making this happen.

            That’s why I handwave it away and turn it back on capitalism. It’s so easy to solve this in syndicalism once its conditions are met.

            • Pup BiruEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              sorry! i thought i was reading and replying to part of another conversation about getting big projects done!

              you’re absolutely right