David Graeber

The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.

The most common way that we are controlled is by being convinced that we are free.

The bureaucracy is not just a collection of rules, but a way of organizing human relationships.

The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.

Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed.

Debt is what happens when obligations are not met, but it is also the very basis of sociality itself.

One of the great crimes of war is that its cost is not born by those who start it.

To use an extreme example: Why does the word 'assassin' come from the word 'hashish'? It turns out that although hashish is a drug, in the medieval period it was a drug used by a specific group of warriors who were willing to kill for their beliefs.

The world has lost its stories.

Anarchism is the philosophy of direct action.

Bullshit jobs are jobs that even the employee admits are pointless.

Money is a way of creating, accumulating and transferring debt.

Revolutions happen when people realize they can do things differently.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Freedom is the ability to do what one ought to do.

In our own society, we tend to imagine that crises are natural. In fact, they are almost always the result of our own stupidity.

The true revolutionary is the one who can see the world as it is and imagine it as it could be.

Work without effort does not bear fruit. Desire without knowledge is worse than grotesque.

Anthropology is the science of human possibilities.

The problem with capitalism is not that it is inefficient, but that it is unjust.