"We are the 99%" Occupy Wall Street Organizer & Author David Graeber, Dead at 59. RIP

[Milos Uzelac]

Anthropologist David Graeber, of whom I have first heard off as an often quoted reference in some of my student literature, died on 2th September in Venice at 59 years of age, from internal bleeding due to an unknown cause yet to be determined by an autopsy. 

He was also an anarchist activist and one of the main organisers of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. and helped coined the slogan, from which that movement often came to be associated with, "We are the 99%". 

Here an interview on DemocracyNow! about his activism at Occupy and exceprts about his talk on his 2011. published book ,, Debt: The First 5000 years".

David Graeber: ,, Whenever we have a period of virtual credit money, where money is not understood to be same thing as gold and silver, where money is recognised to be a social relation of promises that people make to each other, which has become increasingly clear since the 70's when we were off the gold standard, and I think really 2008. really brought that home, debts can be cancelled and can be renegotiated and debts are not set in stone. Trillions of dollars of debt can be made to disappear. And we understand now that this is a political arrangement and it can always be readjusted. "

"Debts between the very wealthy, and debts between governments, can always be renegotiated, and always have been through world history, they are not anything set in stone.

And its generally, when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich, that debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else, something that can't be renegotiated." 

David Graeber, quote: ,, The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is just something that we make, and can easily make differently."