Skip to content

Throughout most of recorded history, the only people who actually did wage labor were slaves. ... It’s only now that we think of wage labor and slavery as opposite to one another.

— David Graeber

Another quote →

Topics

Finance

More quotes by David Graeber

It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor.

Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all the social relationships that make one a human being.

Before we can apply the tools of anthropology to reconstruct the real history of money, we need to understand what's wrong with the conventional account.

Exchange is all about equivalence.

Honor is the same as credit; it's one's ability to keep ones promises, but also, in the case of a wrong, to "get even".

All David Graeber quotes →

You may also like

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

Buckminster Fuller

Economics is on the side of humanity now.

Isaac Asimov Empire novels (1950)

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

John Stuart Mill Principles of Political Economy (1848)

Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all taste and comfort.

Sydney Smith Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: David Graeber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.