8/12/2019 A review of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value by David Graeber

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A compelling work on the nature of value as creative potentialrealised through social action

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 rathermore staid and academic 'Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value'.

Graeber's preference is indicative of his hope for an audience beyondanthropologists. It's clearly written (for the most part), not over-long and balances expositions of theory with some personal insight. I'd say hesucceeded in making it accessible to the non-specialist. The book

proceeds by considering three common approaches to value and thenexamines how our experience of value is contextualised by scholars (witha focus on post-structuralist work). Then it gives exposition to Graeber'sunderstanding of value as action and gradually explores thisunderstanding by examining how value is experienced andconceptualised in different cultures. Finally he concludes with the ideathat value exists in the potential for creative action; 'the ultimate socialreality'. The social aspect is key because structures of relation with

others come to be internalized into the fabric of our being', and so thepotential 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 theMaori'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'sseminal discussion of the Ring of Gyges and the problems of visibility andinvisiblity as they relate to money and value among the Iroquios. You can

8/12/2019 A review of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value by David Graeber

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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 fromMauss and Hubert's 'Mana and Magic' quoted at the start of Graeber'sodyssey. Simply put, Our Own Dreams are our creative potential, andthe False Coin is our misattribution of the value of that creativepotential onto objects. A version, if you like, of fetishism. But a versionthat digs deeply into the ontology of value. Philosophical musing from anarmchair is all well and good, but what Graeber tries to do is combine

this ontology with real world observations from anthropology. He createsa compelling picture of the political, social and economic manifestationsof value across time and culture, even if sometimes the link between theethnography 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 theIroquoian 'Dream Economy' and the Maori's 'mana and tapu' fascinatingand thought-provoking. Towards the end, Graeber says that certainobjects 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 relationof value to action and pushed me more deeply into the work of philosopher Roy Bhaskar.

I thoroughly recommend it.