Quotes from Graeber

So I was rereading David Graeber's Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology the other day, and two passages caught me eye. The latter was found on page 73, and it said:

Contrary to popular belief, bureaucracies do not create stupidity. They are ways of managing situations that are already inherently stupid because they are, ultimately, based on the arbitrariness of the use of force.

This makes so much sense to me on an intuitive level I wonder if I'd just normalized this claim, and the reason it caught my eye is simply that I was made consciously aware of it.

Needless to say, writing the above sentence has also made me aware of just how much differently than other people I view the world sometimes.

So the next time you get stuck at the DMV, or at the Registrar's Office, just remember that if you misbehave, somewhere nearby there is a large man with a big stick who will come use it on you.

So! On to the second quote, this time from page 53:

"It is almost impossible to find an example of an American who was born rich and ended up a penniless ward of the state."

Not as, um, intellectually deep, but still a damn good point. It's a bit of commentary on the American Dream - we can't all become rich, can we?

The context that Graeber places it in is one of class mobility. When asked about it, he says, most Americans just think of people who get rich, and never of those who get poor. Pretty telling, I'd say.

Oooh....I just found a GREAT review of Graeber. I will try to blog on it later, I promise!

UPDATE: Just to be clear, I am agreeing with the idea that basing anything on the arbitrary use of physical force is, indeed, stupid.

Sometimes I think I need to be as clear as possible and not trust people to read between the lines. Yes? No?