The Democracy Project

Nice book, but few new things if you know Graeber

Was hat Ihnen am allerbesten an The Democracy Project gefallen?

It's not only a history of Occupy Wallstreet (how it began and ended, which was not really covered by the media), but also broad strokes about democracy in general. About the US' Founding Fathers and greek influence and obviously a bit of ethnography (Graeber's profession). I imagined a few more nitty gritty details about organizing, but here Graeber only gives short references to other authors and talks more about the general experience. I've heard some of his talks and also read his book Debt, so for me there were a few things I'd already heard.

Was mochten Sie an der Handlung am liebsten?

Graeber explains why they refrained from making demands. The argument is basicly, that the occupation was Direct Action (as in what anarchists do), to show in practice how democratic organizing can work and sort of rub it in Wallstreet's face. Apart from that, they more or less consciously wanted to leave it to people's imagination what the movement would achieve, so as to mobilize more people. Consequently the crowd was so diverse that it would have been really hard to formulate demands everybody would be onboard with, had they wanted to.

In the TV series The Newsroom there's an episode where a woman from Occupy Wallstreet is interviewed and the interview goes rather badly for her. In the end she's asked: "What is your best case scenario for how this [the Occupy Movement] ends?" Her answer: "That it doesn't end."

I thought - just like the liberal protagonists of the series - that's kind of dumb, you've got to have an agenda. You can't just go on protesting. Now I kind of get it. It was more than just a protest, it was an experiment in democracy. But Graeber explains that way better and also I've already written enough.

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