Thanks for the link
. A few preliminary thoughts.
There are anarchists who would dismiss a lot of what Graeber advocates as 'lifestyle anarchism'; they advocate direct confrontation with the state and the police, violence and damage to property. I'm not an anarchist, so don't 'agree' with them: but Graeber's piece does come over rather as cool, hip, alternative etc. in ways that plenty of anarchists would repudiate.
Traditional Marxism, of course, aspired to the same ultimate goal but there was a key difference. Most Marxists insisted that it was necessary first to seize state power, and all the mechanisms of bureaucratic violence that come with it, and use them to transform society - to the point where, they argued such mechanisms would, ultimately, become redundant and fade away. Even back in the 19th century, anarchists argued that this was a pipe dream. One cannot, they argued, create peace by training for war, equality by creating top-down chains of command, or, for that matter, human happiness by becoming grim joyless revolutionaries who sacrifice all personal self-realisation or self-fulfillment to the cause.That's a caricature, & Graeber must know that. Marx was enthusiastic about the Paris Commune, which was popular & largely undirected. & if pipe dreams are involved, I don't see anywhere Graeber explaining how his non-violent anarchism will deal with the brute facts of the police & military wings of the state in any revolutionary situation. Some of what he writes ("top-down chain of commands") reads worryingly close to 'creatives' & management jargon to me.
" ... consensus process (a tradition that has emerged from a confluence of feminism, anarchism and spiritual traditions like the Quakers)."
It really does read like "lifestyle" politics to me. Eclectic, niche market, activism ....
