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

T OWARD AN A NTHROPOLOGICAL T HEORY OF V ALUE
Copyright David Graeber, 2001. All rights reserved. No part of this bookmay be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles orreviews.

First published 2001 by PALGRAVE
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ISBN 0-312-24044-9 (cloth)ISBN 0-312-24045-7 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graeber, David
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our OwnDreams

p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-240449 ISBN 0-312-24045-7 (alk. paper)1. Values.2. AnthropologyPhilosophy.3. Social values.

4. Ceremonial exchange.I. Title.
GN469.5.G732001
303.372dc21
200121794

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First edition: December 2001
10987654321Printed in the United States of America.

W

hen I originally set out to write this book, the goals I had inmind were relatively modest. I was interested, first of all, inmaking a contribution to anthropological theories of value.

Many anthropologists have long felt we really should have a theory of value:that is, one that seeks to move from understanding how different culturesdefine the world in radically different ways (which anthropologists have always been good at describing) to how, at the same time, they define what isbeautiful, or worthwhile, or important about it. To see how meaning, onemight say, turns into desire. To be able to do so promises to resolve a lot ofnotoriously thorny problems not only in anthropology but also in social science more generally. I wanted to see if I could map out at least the outlinesof such a theory and also, to relate them to certain ideas about wealth andpower and the nature of money that I had first set out in an essay severalyears before (Graeber 1996).

In the course of writing, however, something started happening. Themore I wrote, the more I was forced to confront the fact that my own assumptions and priorities were in many ways diametrically opposed to muchof what now stands as common wisdom in the social sciencesor at leastthose disciplines (sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, etc.) thatsee themselves as most politically engaged. As I found myself increasinglyobliged to clarify points of difference, I realized the book was turning intosomething much more ambitious: in some ways, it was acquiring the qualities of political tract, or at least, an extended reflection on the relation between disciplines like anthropology and politics.

The standard historythe sort of thing a journalist would take as self-evident factis that the last decades of the twentieth century were a time whenthe American left largely retreated to universities and graduate departments,spinning out increasingly arcane radical meta-theory, deconstructing everything in sight, as all around them, the rest of the world became increasinglyconservative. As a broad caricature, I suppose this is not entirely inaccurate.

xToward an Anthropological Theory of Value

But recent events suggest there might be very different ways to tell this story.The last several years have seen the rapid growth of new social movementsparticularly, movements against neoliberalism (in the United States referredto as free market ideologies)in just about every corner of the world, including, somewhat belatedly, the United States itself. Yet the so-called academic left in America has played almost no role in this; in fact, many of itspresumed members seem only vaguely aware that such movements exist. Perhaps this is not all that surprising: neoliberalism itself remains a subject onwhich modern critical meta-theory has never had very much to say.

But why is that? It seems to me that in a surprising variety of ways, thiscritical theory actually anticipated neoliberal arguments. Take, for example,the concept of postmodernism. Now, admittedly this is a somewhat trickyone because there were never many scholars willing to actually call themselves postmodernists. But in a way, this was precisely what made the termso powerful: postmodernism was not something anyone was proposing buta fait accompli that everyone simply had to accept. From the 80s on, it hasbecome common to be presented with a series of arguments that might besummarized, in caricature form, as something like this:

1.We now live in a Postmodern Age. The world has changed; no one isresponsible, it simply happened as a result of inexorable processes;neither can we do anything about it, but we must simply adopt ourselves to new conditions.