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

This is more academic than most of his other pieces. You have to have some background in Anthropology to get to the root of his thesis. So, if you liked Debt, just don't go jumping into this right away.However, you see his early voice and style in the pages. This is the grounds for all the other great works he writes (it even has some humor). If you're a fan of Graeber, you will get something out of this.Biggest issue: who ever formatted this for Kindle and charged $25.00 is way out of bounds. Sectons bleed into sections with a bland, bold titles. This page is intentionally left blank galore. Yikes. Get it together next time. Would have gotten more out of it if I didn't have to do more work as a reader to just read the pages...

This is a good, thought-provoking book. But, as another reviewer noted, the writing style makes it so difficult to read that in the end I wondered if my effort was worth the result. And in the final analysis, it was less fulfilling than I'd expected.About the first quarter of the book is comprised of a review and critique of historical economic, anthropological and philosophical theories of value. Eventually, Graeber settles on Munn and Turner's theories to some extent, which are summarized succinctly in the title of Chapter 3 - "Value as the Importance of Actions." Earlier in the book Graeber also makes a distinction in the way in which our language tends to reify action-concepts (verbs become nouns), which is an extremely useful concept that is never revisited.Leading up to Chapter 3, Graeber states that he thinks a better theory (he never states a theory, by the way, the book is "TOWARD an anthropological theory...") of value is one based on action. He calls it a "Heraclitean" approach, and briefly summarizes the split between Heraclitus' and Parmenides' theories of the nature of reality ("all is flux" vs. "all is One" - or "becoming" vs. "being," respectively), and the history of philosophy and science that resulted from Parmenides' victory.This is where things go south. Graeber says that the Heraclitean tradition was revitalized in modern times by Hegel and Marx, and that the modern Dialectical tradition is a result. But Heraclitus was not a dialectician. Dialectic hadn't been invented yet. Zeno did that, potentially after Heraclitus' death. More importantly, the undisputed master of dialectic was Socrates, and Socrates falls within the Platonic tradition, and Plato is a descendent of the Parmenidean world-view. The only (modern...and maybe only, period) disciple of Heraclitus is probably Goethe. Nietzsche could take a close second if he'd ever been a philosopher of ontology, but he was mostly just a critic of ontological theories (though he did side with Heraclitus).From this point forward Graeber spins in several other directions, touching occasionally back on his (toward-a) theory of value as action. Unfortunately he never fleshes this idea out fully. I think his statement of value-as-action is the true "value" of this book. Language in our culture does tend to reify actions. It would be much more fruitful, I think, to understand the history of value-theory, but then to leave it behind in favor of the simple idea that "value" is a reification/nominalization of a process called "valuing."From that view, "value" is a snapshot of the process of valuing, or a concept-bucket that can be filled when the process of valuing moves through it. Explorations from that perspective bear much more fruit than Graeber's, which attempts to cobble together bits of past theories (all of which resist being broken and cobbled, which Graeber admits) into some new synthesis.

Great work that forges a new path in anthropological theory.

This book covers a great deal of theory of importance to a book I am currently writing. The work integrates philosophy, economics, and anthropology similar to what I am trying to do for a particular society. To that extent, it has been very helpful. It covers the substantive and formalist arguments but does not stop there. I found this book an excellent addition to understand how value results in western and non-western societies.

We are all caught up in our individual view of value, it is enlightening to read of other cultures. Intellectually challenging.

Like most of Graeber's work, this is another fantastic book and is a great contribution to social theory and understandings of value.

but some will need a more patient friend to summarize the more important points. Takes resolve and patience but worth it.

Needed the book for grad school. It was in good shape and easy to navigate.

Graeber wanted to title this book 'The False Coin of Our Own Dreams' but at the publisher's request that became the sub-title under the rather more staid and academic 'Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value'.Graeber's preference is indicative of his hope for an audience beyond anthropologists. It's clearly written (for the most part), not over-long and balances expositions of theory with some personal insight. I'd say he succeeded in making it accessible to the non-specialist. The book proceeds by considering three common approaches to value and then examines how our experience of value is contextualised by scholars (with a focus on post-structuralist work). Then it gives exposition to Graeber's understanding of value as action and gradually explores this understanding by examining how value is experienced and conceptualised in different cultures. Finally he concludes with the idea that value exists in the potential for creative action; 'the ultimate social reality'. The social aspect is key because ‘structures of relation with others come to be internalized into the fabric of our being', and so the potential for creative power - and hence value - cannot be (significantly) realized, other than through coordination with others.In reaching such conclusions about the relation of reality to value, the book deals with some arcane material. For example; it details how the Maori's metaphysical concepts of 'mana' and 'tapu' relate to their exchange, politics and society; it considers the how the ancient quarrel between Heraclitus and Parmenides (are things in flux or are they fixed?) echoes through thought and time; and it pays homage to Marc Shell's seminal discussion of the Ring of Gyges and the problems of visibility and invisiblity as they relate to money and value among the Iroquios. You can see why the publisher would have insisted on the more academic title.However, ultimately I sympathise with Graeber's wish to call it 'The False Coin of Our Own Dreams'. The phrase is inspired by a passage from Mauss and Hubert's 'Mana and Magic' quoted at the start of Graeber's odyssey. Simply put, ‘Our Own Dreams’ are our creative potential, and the ‘False Coin’ is our misattribution of the value of that creative potential onto objects. A version, if you like, of fetishism. But a version that digs deeply into the ontology of value. Philosophical musing from an armchair is all well and good, but what Graeber tries to do is combine this ontology with real world observations from anthropology. He creates a compelling picture of the political, social and economic manifestations of value across time and culture, even if sometimes the link between the ethnography and his ontology of value isn't that easy to pick out..I very much enjoyed the book. In particular, I found the discussion of the Iroquoian 'Dream Economy' and the Maori's 'mana and tapu' fascinating and thought-provoking. Towards the end, Graeber says that certain objects can act as 'pivots between the imagination and reality' and, maybe for me, this book might be one such object. Although I disagree with Graeber about some quite fundamental issues - the nature of money in particular - reading this book has really made me consider the relation of value to action and pushed me more deeply into the work of philosopher Roy Bhaskar.I thoroughly recommend it.

Ho preso il libro perché conosco l'autore, ma il formato è solo una trasposizione automatica del pdf, con refusi e le testatine che compaiono a metà della pagina. Ho contattato l'editore per lamentarmi del fatto, ma mi ha detto che dovevo rivolgermi al venditore, cioè ad Amazon. Sono perplesso, qualunque copia piratata (ne girano) sarebbe stata assolutamente identica. Ho comprato volentieri la versione "legale" ma non mi aspettavo un servizio del genere, né da Amazon, evidentemente responsabile del prodotto, né da Palgrave che si è disinteressata del mio problema. O tempora, o mores.

I have not actually finished the book yet, but I'm closing in on the last chapter whith this strange title "The False Coin ... ect". What's for sure is that there's nothing false or fishy obout Graeber's narrative. As always it's a joy to read him. I'm not an anthropologist, but then you don't have to be in order to follow his train of thought. Wildly inspirering. You get to feel that your a little bit smarter after having worked your way through this book, which is kind of a nice feeling. Thank you David, I,m a big fan!

Hi Amazon,Some editorial oversight is needed with regards to this text - the formatting is completely bonkers, with random line-breaks, header interjections mid-sentence, and sudden paragraph breaks, as well as one-letter sentences.This edition looks like a badly converted PDF.I will be inquiring into obtaining a refund shortly, as this is not an acceptable presentation for e-Books, regardless of the price paid.

For anyone interested in our concepts of Value - how we value our values - this is a MUST READ book by the anthropologist who coined the term 'We are the 99%"