- By Paul Farrell
- Updated Sep 3, 2020 at 12:24pm (heavy.com)
Twitter/David GraeberDavid Graeber pictured on his Twitter page in December 2019.
David Graeber, the anthropologist who was influential in the Occupy Wall Street movement and is believed to have coined the phrase, “We are the 99%,” has died at age 59.
Graeber’s death was confirmed on the morning of September 3 by his wife, Nika Dubrovsky. Dubrovsky tweeted, “Yesterday the best person in a world, my husband and my friend . @davidgraeber died in a hospital in Venice.”
Graeber was a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and wrote the book Debt: The First 5000 Years which was published in 2011. His other books include 2015’s The Utopia of Rules and 2018’s Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. In addition to his involvement with Occupy Wall Street, Graeber was also known for his activism with the Global Justice Movement. On his Twitter page, Graeber described himself as “an anthropologist, sometimes I occupy things & such. I see anarchism as something you do not an identity so don’t call me the anarchist anthropologist.”
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Graeber Said on August 28 That He Was ‘Under the Weather’ but Was Starting to Feel Better
apologies and about that exciting new pirate book!sorry we’ve been sick and on holidays but the kings book is ready! Also, we’re going to do another one. The next one will be about pirates. And pirates are much better than kings.2020-08-28T20:27:27Z
On August 28, Graeber said in a YouTube video that he had been feeling “a little under the weather” but was beginning to feel better. The same day, Graeber tweeted that he had “not been in tip-top shape.”
On August 31, Dubrovsky tweeted a photo from Venice with the caption, “Venice. Dark, wet and chilly.” Graeber was active on Twitter until the day before his death.
In August 2020, Graeber was interviewed in a special edition of the street newspaper The Big Issue. The special edition was edited by British singer Jarvis Cocker.
David Graeber on the Occupy Wall Street Protest & Forgiving Debt of the American PoorDemocracyNow.org – As President Obama prepares to outline a deficit-reduction plan that includes tax increases, as well as cuts to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, anthropologist David Graeber proposes a radical solution: cancel the debt of the nation’s poor. “Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history. They are not anything set in stone,” says Graeber, author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” on Democracy Now! today. “It’s generally speaking when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich, debts becomes a sacred situation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable.” On the Occupy Wall Street protest, Graeber says, “If you look at who showed up [in Egypt and Spain], it was mostly young people, and most of them were people who had gone through the educational system who were deeply in debt and who found it completely impossible to find jobs. … The system has completely failed them … If there’s going to be any kind of society worth living in, we’re going to have to create it ourselves.” For the complete transcript, to download the podcast, or for additional Democracy Now! reports about the U.S. financial crisis, visit http://www.democracynow.org/ FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: @democracynow Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/democracynow Daily Email News Digest: http://www.democracynow.org/subscribe Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit http://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT2011-09-19T15:04:33Z
According to Graeber’s LinkedIn page, he is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and attained a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1996. Graeber’s first teaching job was as an assistant professor of anthropology at Haverford College. In 1998, Graeber began working as an associate professor at Yale University. He remained in that role until June 2007. Since September 2007, Graeber had been teaching at the University of London’s School of Economics, according to LinkedIn. A profile on SUNY Purchase’s website referred to Graeber as “one of the most brilliant minds of his generation.”
2. Graeber Suspected His Teaching Contract at Yale Was Discontinued Because of His ‘Radical Actions’
Getty
A 2011 Rolling Stone article attributed the phrase “We are the 99%” to Graeber in a piece on the Occupy Wall Street movement. The phrase had been mentioned by economist Josep Stiglitz’s in a May 2011 article for Vanity Fair. Rolling Stone reported that Graeber suspected his teaching job at Yale was discontinued because of his “radical actions.” The article also said he decamped to Austin, Texas, four days after the physical protest began in Zuccotti Park in New York City.
In a March 2015 interview with The Guardian, Graeber referred to the Occupy movement as an “experiment in a post-bureaucratic society.” Graeber said demonstrators wanted to show the public that people could perform the functions of a bank without bureaucracy. He said during the protests there was a plastic bag in Zuccotti Park holding $800,000 in donations because “Occupy Wall Street can’t have a bank account.” Graeber said, “I always say the principle of direct action is the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.”
3. Graeber Previously Described Himself as an ‘Eternal Optimist’
David Graeber: debt and what the government doesn’t want you to know | Comment is FreeThere is one taboo of economics that the government is hiding from the public, argues David Graeber: it is the fact that if the government balances its books, it becomes impossible for the private sector to do the same. Subscribe to The Guardian ► http://is.gd/subscribeguardian And, he claims, this inevitable debt often gets landed on those in society least able to pay it back. Guardian website ► http://is.gd/guardianhome Endboard videos: ► ► Guardian playlists: Comment is Free ► http://is.gd/cifplaylist Guardian Docs ► http://is.gd/guardiandocs Guardian Animations & Explanations ►http://is.gd/explainers Guardian Investigations ► http://is.gd/guardianinvestigations Other Guardian channels on YouTube: Guardian Football ► http://is.gd/guardianfootball Guardian Music ► http://is.gd/guardianYTmusic Guardian Australia ► http://is.gd/guardianaustralia Guardian Tech ► http://is.gd/guardiantech Guardian Culture ► http://is.gd/guardianculture Guardian Wires ► http://is.gd/guardianwires Guardian Food ► http://is.gd/guardianfood Watch Me Date ► http://is.gd/watchmedate More Guardian videos: Mos Def force fed in Gitmo procedure ► http://is.gd/mosdef Edward Snowden interview ► http://is.gd/snowdeninterview2014 Bangladeshi Sex Workers take steroids ► http://is.gd/sexworkers How your phone spies on you ► http://is.gd/phonespying What is freedom today? ► http://is.gd/zizekcif 30 Stone man enters Mr Gay UK ► http://is.gd/stavros Fighting Isis in Kobani ► http://is.gd/fightingisis How does Ebola kill? ► http://is.gd/ebolakills The SlumGods of Mumbai ► http://is.gd/slumgods Jesus “would have been an atheist” ► http://is.gd/dawkinsjesus The new global menace ► http://is.gd/owenjonescif2015-10-28T13:00:02Z
In 2018, Graeber told the New Statesman that he was born in New York to self-educated parents. His father, Kenneth, fought on the side of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, Graeber said. Later, his mother, Ruth, worked as a garment worker and was active in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, he said. Graeber said in the interview that he was raised in an environment that embraced anarchism.
Graeber told the New Statesman that he thought of himself as an “eternal optimist.” He added that he felt that in 50 years a new system would be in place that was not capitalist. Graeber warned, “It could be something even worse. It’s therefore imperative that we end this taboo around trying to figure out something that might be better. If we don’t get something better, it will be something worse – it won’t be the same.”
4. Graeber Married His Wife Nika Dubrovsky in April 2019
Twitter/Nika DubrovskyGraeber pictured with his wife on their wedding day in April 2019.
Graeber married Nika Dubrovsky in April 2019. On April 25, Dubrovsky tweeted a photo of the couple with the caption, “Going for a wedding.” Graeber retweeted the photo and added, “I’ve never been married before.” He also said, “I have never been more moved than that someone who actually knows me would want to be with me forever.”
Graeber has tweeted in the past that his wife is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, and grew up in the Soviet-era. Graeber tweeted that his wife struggled to watch the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster the BBC because it reminded her too much of the Soviet propaganda of her youth. In 2019, the couple founded Yes Women, an art group that sought justice for ostracized women in the former East Germany.
5. Graeber Is Being Mourned on Social Media by His Peers as One of the Greatest Minds of His Generation
Twitter/Nika DubrovskyGraeber and his wife pictured in Berlin, Germany, on August 4.
As news spread of Graeber’s death, his peers and fans took to Twitter to mourn him. Here are some of the most poignant messages of remembrance:
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