Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams by David Graeber

Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams Reviews

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  my name is corey irl

  DAvid grubber im goin to try readin all your books even the real boring ones. wish me luck
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  Andrew Tang

  not as dense and academic as other are saying imo, though probably at least an introductory level of anthropology & its history is needed before going in. Graeber presents diverse and fascinating views on value, exploring the histories of formalism vs substantivism and other debates around anthropology (especially concerning value, economic anthro and exchange), while maintaining a normative framework to imagine a better world and how examining and changing these value systems in question can do just that. Mind you he does introduce certain technical anthropological terms, but these are explained adequately. His writing flows like conversation, which is a great relief to an easily distracted reader :) bonus: his injection of critical realist philosophy is a fantastic rebuttal to some of postmodernisms' uglier, idealist outgrowths. If only the peddler's of the ontological turn had done the same...
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  DeAnna Knippling

  Crap, I have no idea how to review this book. So complex, and written for people more familiar with the field. But it did underline how difficult it is to extricate the idea of value from culture. I've been looking around and going, "Really? That ____ makes you feel like you're an individual? How's that working out for you?" and "stuck doing the invisible work again" and "antagonistic gift exchange." Maybe in a year or two I'll be able to tell you what the title means :)
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  Esteban

  Después de haber leído algunos de sus ensayos más recientes, y especialmente Debt, the first 5,000 years, las reflexiones de Graeber en este libro resultan algo desordenadas. El primer capítulo sugiere una contrastación entre las axiologías filosóficas y las reflexiones antropológicas sobre el valor (dispersas y asistemáticas, estas últimas), pero el resto del texto desaprovecha esa oportunidad perdiéndose en episodios interesantes, pero ya agotadísimos para cualquier antropólogo: el ensayo del don y la noción del hau, la disputa entre formalistas, sustantivistas y neomarxistas, etc.
  La conclusión añade un punto crucial que desgraciadamente está desatendido en el cuerpo del texto: la insatisfacción con las teorías del deseo y del placer contemporáneas. El rechazo de Graeber de la obra de Deleuze en este punto me parece muy taxativa, y aparece agrupada bajo el amplio paraguas de las filosofías de inspiración Nietzcheana. Desgraciadamente sus referentes teóricos (Marx, Mauss y Piaget en primer lugar) no tienen mucho que decir sobre el deseo y el placer, y los intentos de exprimir de ellos alguna reflexión al respecto me refuerzan la impresión de que Toward an Anthropological... fue una oportunidad perdida.
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  Eric Pecile

  A commendable attempt to define value according to anthropology. Unfortunately the conclusion leaves one wanting more as no set definition or theory of value is established, but considering the title, one should not be too disappointed.
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  Rasmus Tillander

  Kolmas Graeberin kirja, kolmas kerta kun joutuu painamaan päänsä Graeberin nerokkuuden edessä.
  
  Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value on genreltään huomattavasti akateemisempi kuin Fragments of Anarchistic Anthropology tai Bullshit Jobs mutta siitä huolimatta se oli elävöittävä lukukokemus. Graeberilla on käsittämätön lahja yhdistellä briljantilla tavalla ensi silmäykseltä yhteensopimattomia asioita (kuten marxismia ja piaget'laista kasvatusfilosofiaa) ja toisaalta yhtä käsittämätön kyky nostaa havainnollistavia, mieltä kutkuttavia esimerkkejä antiikin jokien metafysiikasta 1700-luvun asusteiden sukupuolipolitiikkaan.
  
  Kirjan ytimessä on kysymys: "Miksi asiat ovat jonkin arvoisia?" Graeberin ongelma on kahtalainen: käsitystämme arvosta häiritsee taloustieteen hyödyn maksimoinnin periaate, mutta myös paljon perusteellisempi asioiden staattisuuteen liittyää parmenidialainen perinne. Graeber itse on sitä mieltä, että arvossa on kyse siitä, että teot tulevat merkittäviksi toimijoille kun ne sijoitetaan laajempaan, keksittyyn tai todelliseen, sosiaaliseen yhteyteen.
  
  Tätä ajatusta Graeber pallottelee kahden hyvin erilaisen sosialistin Karl Marxin ja Marcel Maussin ajatusten välissä. Etnografiset esimerkit heittelevät Graeberin omalta erikoisalueelta Madagascarilta Irokeeseihin, Maoreihin ja Kwakiutleihin, unohtamatta kuitenkaan ajottaisia hyppyjä nykykapitalismin syövereihin. Näissä esimerkeissä nousee esiin se miten tärkeä nimenomaan toiminta ja sen mahdollisuudet ovat suhteessa arvon muodostumiseen.
  
  Täytyy toki myöntää, että tämä oli niin tiukkaa tykitystä, että en tietenkään päässyt sisään ihan kaikkiin Graeberin teoreettisiin tanssiliikkeisiin. En ymmärrä miten näin paljon on voitu mahduttaa näin pieneen kirjaan. Maailma spleinattuna, uskomaton teos.
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  Lautaro Marcotti

  Graeber es realmente un fuera de serie, probablemente el antropólogo más interesante que he leído, en tanto logra difundir conocimiento a la vez que trae ideas innovadoras para la ciencia social. Este libro en particular es la representación fiel de su estilo. Marx, Mauss, Malinovski, Strathern, Godelier, Levi Strauss, Piaget, Althusser, muchísimos autores recorren estas páginas, dando una muestra de la erudición del autor pero también permitiendo al lector conocer de forma simple algunas ideas que son clave para la ciencia social y encontrar bibliografía para seguir investigando. También se nombra a Derrida, Foucault y Bourdieu y se reconstruyen sus ideas, pero sin dudas para criticarlas y mostrar la necesidad de una nueva teoría crítica no posmoderna para la emancipación, lo que personalmente me agrada, pero puede resultar chocante. Para quienes no somos antropólogos la reconstrucción de las ideas más contemporáneas del campo nos permite ver en qué anda la disciplina a inicios del siglo XXI, más allá de los clásicos ya conocidos. Incluso creo que estudiantes de antropología también van a encontrar buena información sobre el tema. Es un poco difícil luego seguir la teoría central del libro sobre que el valor refiere a la creatividad humana y su capacidad de accionar en base a eso, pero vale la pena gastar ceso en releer para entender porque lo que plantea es sumamente interesante. Quizás hacía el final no termina de concluir todo de forma clara pero igual se entiende. Es de destacar la experiencia etnográfica de Graeber en Madagascar, que le otorga al libro una narrativa en primera persona que suma mucho a la teoría. Sin más, un libro para cualquier estudiante de ciencia social que no tenga miedo a las ideas nuevas.
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  Alex Kartelias

  Having read his book, "Debt" I was curious about his notion of there being 3 modes of being which overlap each other in all social relations, independant of the institutional forces at play. This book is an in-depth elaboration on that suggestion. He gives fragmentary commentaries on important anthropological ideas and seeks to suggest a kind of 'dynamic-structuralism' which accomadates both the top-down Ideal based approach to value, and the more bottom-up approaches of say, Lacan, Piaget, Derrida, Bordieu and others. Ultimately, it's Marx's notion of creativity and unalienated magical labour along with Maus's notion of The Gift that creates a picture of what an Anarcho-Communism could look like even amidst the outward flux of Capitalism. The very end hints towards Deleuze and Nietszche which is not at all surprising: this political vision is a Subterranean Creativity not without it's magical and esoteric implications, a rhizomatic and dialectical movement of possibility.
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  Riar

  This demands multiple reading. Understanding and memorising many of technical and anthropological terms is not an easy task. However, the book offers interesting account in exploring the theoretical aspect of understanding value. I like how Mauss and Marx meshed in this book to see the possibility of dialogue from both established theories; to see value not only from the labour and market perspective but from action and cosmological approach.
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  David Hunter

  A fantastic book! I agree with many other reviewers who wished for a more developed theory, but the title does say "Towards..."
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  Sourov Kabir

  dg's commentary on relevant marcel mauss simply other worldly.
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  Kevin Wilson

  RIP Graeber. This is one of his best books.
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  Roman Schuster

  Started off extremely interesting - he challenges the post-structural assumption that all-encompassing systems of value judgment have been made impossible by an increasingly complex world by pointing out that global trade and the acceptance of the greenback as a world reserve currency has in fact brought nearly all human action into the same "totalizing mechanism". Within the first maybe 50 pages he brilliantly postulates that value is nothing more than the means through which society reproduces itself. And then... not much. The rest of the book is largely devoted to discussing the social hierarchy and associated rituals of various indigenous peoples, with interspersed mentions of how the attitudes of such peoples about such rituals played nice with the theory. I kind of wish I hadn't spent a month reading the last 100 pages.
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  Stacy Moore

  This is an academic and rigorous text. This review is not. The book is also not for the armchair teabagger who's only knowledge of Marx or Mauss is Groucho and Mickey. Graeber, who is well-known for his work on debt, takes on the theory and meaning of value from an anthropological perspective. Value is by no means universal. Modern capitalism, as we experience it today, takes some of the social values from our smaller tribal experiences and enhances them. You'll never look the same way at exchange again.
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  Xavier Shay

  I am not the target audience for this book. I would have gotten a lot more out of it if I was a) an anthropologist, and b) more familiar with primary source material such a Mauss and Marx. Not that he doesn't explain them, it's just a lot to take in on a first pass.
  
  It's more detailed that what I needed, but still plenty of interesting (technical) stuff about why different societies want different things and what might unify them.
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  Jesse Cohn

  Excellent, but a pity it's not more informed by the anarchist tradition -- Graeber reinvents the wheel a few times.
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  Peter

  Interesting synthesis of Marx and Mauss. More soon.
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  Stephen CM

  Good book. I feel like it's fairly important, and I'd like to re-read it.