The Reversed Revolutions of David Graeber by Wayne Price

Review of David Graeber, Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and 
Imagination. (2011) ---- A review of David Graeber's book, Revolutions in Reverse. The 
author has some intelligent insights, such as the importance of recognizing where the 
justice movements have won victories. In other ways his thinking is sometimes muddled, as 
he tries to both reject the need for an insurrectionary revolution and, at the same time, 
to advocate it as part of his perspective of reversed revolutions. ---- The anarchist 
writer and anthropology professor, David Graeber, has written a number of thick volumes. 
This is a smaller work, a collection of essays written between 2004 and 2010. They have, 
Graeber assures us, a “unifying theme.” They focus on questions of strategy for the global 
justice movement, including “revolution”, what Graeber means by the term, and what he 
thinks about it. In my opinion, this book, like his other writings, combines intelligent 
insights with muddled thinking and a non-revolutionary perspective (see Price, 2007; 2012).

Graeber’s main concern is that movement activists seem to be discouraged by the failures 
and limitations of the various struggles against the states and the corporations. Graeber 
wants to tell them to look up, actually they have done pretty well, made significant 
gains, and may even be said to have “won” in some ways.

This is a very important point, to the extant that it is true. Popular struggles have not 
simply “lost,” but have had significant victories. Our rulers are aware of this and do 
their best to demoralize and discourage us. Instead radicals should be aware of the 
positive results of what has been gained, not in order to hold a premature victory 
celebration, but to maintain our spirits and hopes.

He gives the example of the anti-nuclear power movement of the late 70s, “map[ping] out 
its full range of goals:
Short-Term Goals: to block construction of the particular nuclear plants in question 
(Seabrook, Diablo Canyon—-);
Medium-Term Goals: to block construction of all new nuclear plants, delegitimize the very 
idea of nuclear power and begin moving towards conservation and green power….
Long-Term Goals: (at least for the more radical elements) smash the state and destroy 
capitalism.” (14)

Graeber concludes, “Short-term goals were almost never reached…the plants…all ultimately 
went on line….Long-term goals were also obviously not obtained. But…the medium-term goals 
were all reached almost immediately.” (14) Especially after the 1979 Three Mile Island 
nuclear meltdown, “it doomed the industry forever.” (14) No new US plants have been built 
for decades. This has been a real victory.

He makes a similar analysis for the global justice movement. While it may be in decline, 
this is only because it won great victories. “…We didn’t destroy capitalism, but we…did 
arguably deal it a larger blow in just two years than anyone since, say, the Russian 
Revolution.” (19) Exaggeration aside, what he claims is that the movement did blockade and 
shut down particular summit meetings, and did “destroy the ‘Washington Consensus’ around 
neoliberalism, block all new trade pacts, delegitimate and ultimately shut down 
institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank….” (24)

He makes similar claims for the Civil Rights/Black Liberation movement of the 50s and 60s, 
which did destroy legal racial segregation (Jim Crow) and won other benefits for 
African-Americans. He notes the feminist movement, which won legal abortion rights, 
anti-discrimination laws, and a social awareness of women’s equality.

Oddly enough, however, he downplays the movement against the war in Vietnam or any other 
antiwar struggle, saying, “ Organizations designed…to oppose wars will always tend to be 
more hierarchically organized….” (16) “…An antiwar movement…pretty much invariably is far 
less democratically organized.” (34) This contradicts the thousands of local antiwar 
groups formed in communities and on campuses during the 60s. They played a major role in 
the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam. Anarchists, libertarian socialists, and radical 
pacifists played a part in the creation of the “Vietnam Syndrome” (unwillingness of the US 
population to support another long war) which hobbled the US military for decades.

Victories, even if partial, have been won by popular struggles, with an important element 
being the anti-heirarchical, anarchist, semi-anarchist, and direct action wing of the 
movements. David Graeber is absolutely right to remind us of this, to tell us to learn the 
lessons of our successes as well as of our defeats, and to maintain hope in the 
possibilities of the future.

But what were the consequences of failing to achieve the “long-term goals [of] smash[ing] 
the state and destroy[ing] capitalism”? It meant that the capitalist class (the “1%”) kept 
their wealth, their capital, their factories and offices, their factory-farms, their real 
estate, their banks, their media and propaganda outlets, and so on. They kept their state 
with its bought politicians, bureaucrats, judges, police forces, jails, military forces, 
and spies. The corporate rich continue to exploit the working class and to pile debt onto 
everyone.

Among other things, this means that no victory can be final, so long as we remain under 
the system of capitalism, with its state and other forms of oppression. Whatever has been 
won, can be taken back, when political power swings back to the default position.

For example, considering the fight against nuclear power, President Obama has spoken of 
the virtues of starting new plants, and leading environmentalists have argued that at 
least nuclear power does not create greenhouse gases! Capitalist society did not “begin 
moving towards conservation and green power” but towards fracking and deep sea drilling 
for oil. Graeber writes that he had worked with the libertarian Marxists of the Midnight 
Notes collective. Together they developed a prediction that the world capitalist class 
would “declare [a] global ecological crisis, followed by a green capitalist strategy 
designed to divert resources….” (3) This failed prediction shows a limited understanding 
of capitalism’s deep drive to accumulate value even at the expense of nature. (See Price 2010)

Of the other causes Graeber refers to, women’s rights are still under attack, especially 
reproductive rights, which have been drastically whittled away. African-Americans, are 
still at the bottom of the economy and society. Even their right to vote has been once 
again assailed, and their lives are still in danger from the police.

After exploring the victories over international capitalism, even Graeber reminds us, “All 
this does not mean that all the monsters have been slain….China and India are carrying out 
devastating ‘reforms’ within their own countries, European social protections are under 
attack, and most of Africa…is still locked in debt….The US…is frantically trying to 
redouble its grip over Mexico and Central America.” (23) He only comments, “The question 
is why we never noticed the victories we did win.” (23) Fair enough, provided that we do 
not forget that without achieving the “long-term goals” of defeating capitalism and the 
state, no victory can be said to be really, finally, won.

Consider the consciousness of the liberals and social democrats in the German Weimar 
Republic after World War I. They must have said to themselves, “See, it doesn’t matter 
that workers influenced by Rosa Luxemburg did not succeed in making a socialist 
revolution; we got rid of the monarchy and now live in a lively democratic republic! ” Or 
so they may have thought up until the Nazis took over.

In its decay, capitalism does not merely threaten to take back the benefits it granted 
(under popular pressure). It threatens to go beyond what the planet’s biosphere can 
maintain. Through climate change or other forms of global ecological catastrophe the 
capitalist states threaten all civilization, human life, and all planetary life. “…In a 
generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist; for the simple reason that (…) it’s 
impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet.” (30) To 
which he adds, “There is also always a small risk that some miscalculation will 
accidentally trigger a nuclear Armageddon and destroy the planet.” (16) (Considering that 
capitalism and its states need war, I think that over time this is more than a “small 
risk.”) The question then is what will replace capitalism: a new, stateless and classless, 
society, or mass destruction. The capitalist class’ blindness “might well mean not just 
the death of capitalism, but of almost everything else.” (10)

Graeber’s Concept of Revolution

How then shall we get from the short-term and medium-term goals, to the final goals of 
getting rid of the state and capitalism and all forms of oppression—and replacing them 
with “a world worth living in” (7)?

Historically, anarchists and other socialists have raised two possible basic strategies. 
One is to propose a series of step-by-step changes, gradual and mostly peaceful reforms, 
until a new social system exists. This approach has been called “reformism.” It is not to 
be confused with its cousin “liberalism,” the desire to make improvements in the existing 
society, without fundamental changes. Reformist anarchists generally advocate building up 
alternate institutions, economic and otherwise, to gradually replace existing 
institutions. (As if it were possible to create enough cooperatives to replace the steel 
industry, automobile producers, multinational corporations, and giant banks—without the 
state interfering!) Some declare that this is a “new” anarchism, but in fact it goes back 
to the strategy of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first person to identify himself as an 
anarchist.

The other viewpoint has been called “revolutionary.” This is not just because it desires a 
transformed society nor because it opposes reforms (which it generally does not). But it 
believes that at some point in the process of transformation, some sort of social upheaval 
will be necessary, to confront the established powers, to overturn the state and the 
ruling class. It requires mass struggle by the self-organized workers and their allies 
among all the oppressed. It reflects the belief that the capitalist ruling class is very 
unlikely to give up its power, wealth, and prestige merely because the big majority of the 
population has decided it wants a new system, cooperative and radically democratic. This 
does not necessarily mean much violence—that depends on the extent of the capitalists’ 
resistance. This viewpoint has been “the broad anarchist tradition” (Schmidt & van der 
Walt 2009). That is how I understand the historical distinction between reformism and 
revolution, made by both anarchists and Marxists. (As will become clear, Graeber does not 
accept this interpretation.)

Where does Graeber stand? He is no liberal: he wants a transformed society without 
capitalism or the state or other oppressions.
However, his exposition is muddled. He frequently uses the term “revolutionary” positively 
while rejecting the very idea of revolution.

“…Many ‘60s radicals…felt that all this was inevitably leading up to a great 
insurrectionary moment—‘the’ revolution, properly speaking….There can be no such 
fundamental, one-time break….What seems strikingly naive is the old assumption that a 
single uprising or successful civil war could…neutralize the entire apparatus of 
structural violence….” (57-58) “…There are no clean breaks in history…the one moment when 
the state falls and capitalism is defeated.” (29) “None of us have much faith remaining in 
‘the’ revolution in the old 19th or 20th century sense of the term” (27) “…The old 
apocalyptic version of revolution—the victorious battles in the streets, the spontaneous 
outpouring of popular festivity, the creation of new democratic institutions, the ultimate 
reinvention of life itself—never quite seemed to work itself out, and there is no 
particular reason to imagine it ever could have.” (6)

Why does Graeber reject the concept of an “insurrectionary moment—‘the’ revolution…a 
single uprising or civil war”? At no time does he address the main argument for the need 
for a revolution—namely, that the ruling class will not permit its wealth and power to be 
taken away without using its state forces to fight the people. The people must defend 
themselves, that is, make a revolution. (By the way, neither Graeber nor I am discussing 
those current theories which have been labeled “insurrectionary anarchism.”)

One argument he raises is that the idea of revolution is tied to the aim of creating a 
revolutionary state, as proposed by the Leninists. “…The total view of revolution, that 
there will be a single mass insurrection or general strike and then all walls will come 
tumbling down, is entirely premised on the old fantasy of capturing the state. That’s the 
only way victory could possibly be that absolute and complete….” (27)

But for revolutionary anarchists the issue is not “capturing the state” nor building a new 
state, but getting rid of the state. The state of the capitalists stands as a roadblock in 
the way of building a new society. It cannot be ignored. It must be removed if social 
evolution is to continue (not a “total, absolute and complete” victory, but the 
continuation of social evolution). In the place of the state, anarchists (from Bakunin on) 
have advocated building federations and networks of workplace councils, neighborhood 
assemblies, and popular militias (an armed people). This would not be a state—that is, it 
would not be a bureaucratic-military socially-alienated machine to rule over the working 
people. It would be the self-organization of the working people and all the (formerly) 
oppressed.

Another argument Graeber makes is that the transformation of society from statist 
capitalism to a stateless, classless, non-oppressive society is a long drawn-own process. 
This is true enough. But a lengthy process may include sudden upheavals, insurrections, 
and rebellions, as a necessary part of the overall process. Graeber is really thrashing a 
straw man here. All theorists of revolutionary anarchism or socialism have known that 
apparent calm and stability will be followed by periods of rebelliousness among the 
people, before bursting out into the actual “insurrection or civil war”—and that the 
post-insurrectionary period would take a great deal of time for working out the actual 
functioning of the new society.

Peter Kropotkin (who certainly did not share what Graeber calls “the old fantasy of 
capturing the state”) explained, “…The anarchists recognize that…slow evolution in society 
is followed from time to time by periods of accelerated evolution which are called 
revolutions; and they think the era of revolutions is not yet closed. Periods of rapid 
changes will follow the periods of slow evolution, and these periods must be taken 
advantage of….” (1975; 110)

Another argument Graeber seems to raise is “the anarchist insistence that we can no longer 
imagine revolution solely within the framework of the nation-state….” (6) Whatever this 
means, the original anarchists and Marxists advocated international revolution—beginning 
wherever it may and spreading to all lands. Those who declared “Workers of the world 
unite!” did not “imagine revolution solely within the framework of the nation-state.” (If 
anything, the early anarchists and Marxists overlooked just how strong a hold nationalism 
had on the working class.)
Graeber’s Strategy: Revolutions in Reverse

Since Graeber rejects “a great insurrectionary moment—‘the’ revolution, properly 
speaking,” then what (if anything) does he mean when he writes about “revolution” ? 
Essentially he means the long, drawn-out, historical process, during which there are 
movements and struggles, the building of alternate institutions, a few, limited, 
insurrections, and the winning of limited victories, mostly through peaceful means. 
Whether this will get anywhere, he does not know, but he regards the process of struggling 
collectively, democratically, and locally as good in itself.

“Any effective road to revolution will involve endless moments of co-optation, endless 
victorious campaigns, endless little insurrectionary moments and moments of flight and 
covert autonomy. I hesitate to speculate what it might really be like. ” (30) “…Dramatic 
confrontation[s] with armed representatives of the state…serve more as…momentary 
advertisements…for a much slower, painstaking struggle of creating alternate 
institutions….Action is seen as genuinely revolutionary when the process of production of 
situations is experienced as just as liberating as the situations themselves. It is an 
experiment…in the realignment of imagination….” (64) If any sense can be made of this 
mish-mash, it is that Graeber is not using “revolution” to mean, well, revolution, an 
“insurrectionary moment—‘the’ revolution, properly speaking.” As he admits.

Instead, Graeber raises a perspective he calls “revolutions in reverse.” As he sees it, 
previous revolutions began with insurrections and were followed by the people organizing 
themselves into autonomous councils, factory committees, cooperatives, soviets, and so on. 
But now, he advocates that people first organize autonomous councils, workplace 
committees, and other associations, and only then, if necessary, go on to have their 
“little insurrectionary moments.” (30)

“In practice, mass actions reverse the ordinary insurrectionary sequence. Rather than a 
dramatic confrontation with state power, leading…to an outpouring of popular festivity 
[and] the creation of new democratic institutions,…in organizing mass mobilizations, 
activists…create new, directly democratic institutions to organize ‘festivals of 
resistance’ that ultimately lead to confrontations with the state….” (42—43) This would 
lead to a string of “insurrectionary moments on an ongoing basis.” (43)

Only, Graeber’s model of classical revolutions, of “the ordinary insurrectionary 
sequence,” is all muddled. There is no such rigid sequence, if we go through the history 
of revolutions. For example, the 1917 Russian Revolution was preceded by years of 
organizing done by the minority of revolutionary socialists, including building labor 
unions and cooperatives. The revolution as such began with workers, soldiers, and peasants 
organizing committees (soviets) which led to an insurrection overthrowing the Czarist 
semi-feudal state (the “February revolution”). This created a “dual power,” the official 
(bourgeois) Provisional government versus the continually expanding immediately-elected 
soviets (rooted in committees in factories, barracks, and villages). At a certain point, 
the Bolsheviks (in alliance with the anarchists and others) used their support in the 
soviets to overthrow the Provisional government—a second insurrection (the “October 
revolution”). This created what was supposed to be the rule of the soviets. It was 
followed by several years of civil war (the results of which are another story).

The 1936 Spanish revolution/civil war was preceded by years of anarchist organizing of 
grassroots community groups as well as radical, extremely democratic, unions (Schmidt & 
van der Walt 2009). When the fascist army rebelled, the workers and peasants made an 
insurrection, took over the factories and farms, created a militia, and coordinated their 
activities. Several years of civil war followed. Unfortunately there never was a second 
insurrection to overthrow the state of the bourgeois Loyalist Republic.

And the sequences are all different, if we look at the earlier bourgeois-democratic 
revolutions (the English, the US, the French, the Latin American, Haitian, etc.) or the 
more recent Stalinist and nationalist revolutions (China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Algeria, 
India, Ghana, etc.) Of course, while much can be learned from studying these revolutions, 
none of them was an anarchist revolution, so there are limits to how they apply to today.

So far as I can see, the point of Graeber’s “revolutions in reverse” is to justify a focus 
on current organizing while downplaying, if not ignoring, the need for an eventual 
insurrectionary revolution. I do not criticize his emphasis on current organizing—Graeber 
is known as an activist and participant in struggles, as well as a theorist. But I 
completely disagree with his rejection of an eventual insurrectionary-revolutionary goal.

Graeber is entirely correct in viewing the revolution as a lengthy process. But compare 
his views with the Italian anarchist, Errico Malatesta (late 19th to early 20th century). 
As a revolutionary, he rejected reformism (or “gradualism”). While he supported all 
struggles for limited reforms, he insisted that anarchists maintain the goal of 
revolution. However, “after the revolution—that is after the fall of those in power and 
the final triumph of the forces of insurrection? This is where gradualism become 
particularly relevant.” (2014; 472) When the obstacles of the state and capitalists are 
removed, then the people can make changes in a gradual, experimental, and pluralistic 
fashion, as they work out the best ways to organize a new society.
Who Will Make the Revolution?

Some anarchists react strongly against what they think is Marx’s overemphasis on the the 
working class, his “privileging” the workers. They deny any role at all for the workers, 
regarding them as the one part of the population which will definitely not rebel against 
capitalism (turning Marx on his head).

This is not Graeber’s approach. He appears to regard workers as at least one possible part 
of a potentially revolutionary people. He was especially impressed by “a surprising 
convergence and recognition of a common cause between the climate protestors and petroleum 
workers, during the French strike wave of October 2010.” (9) From what he saw, he 
concluded that “many of the greatest cleavages we imagine to exist within the movements 
ranged against capitalism at the moment—the one between the ecological, direct action 
movement, and trade unionists…might not be nearly such a cleavage as we imagine.” (9—10) 
That is, in potential, under the right circumstances and with the right political approach 
by radicals.

Graeber expresses an appreciation of the working class. “…Working class people and 
sensibilities [are] the source of almost everything of redeeming value in modern life—from 
shish kebob to rock’n’roll to public libraries….” (111) “…We are all workers insofar as we 
are creative, and resist work, and also refuse to play the role of the administrators—that 
is, those who try to reduce every aspect of life to calculable value.” (114)

However, he misses the full potential of the working class. For one thing, “we are all 
workers” in that most adults work for a wage or salary and are non-supervisory employees 
(as blue-collar or white-collar workers). And non-waged people usually depend on the 
income from paid workers (such as full-time women homemakers, most children and students) 
or are retirees or unemployed workers—which is to say they are all part of the “working 
class” as a class. This covers most of the population and overlaps with every other sector 
of oppressed people (People of Color, immigrants, women, GLBT people, Deaf people, etc.) 
So, against the power of the capitalists and their state, the working class has its own 
power of numbers and the potential of integrating distinct oppressions.

Further, against the rulers’ power, the workers have their hands on the means of 
production, transportation, communication, and services. Workers can shut down society if 
they chose—and start it up again in a different way.

In passing, Graeber mentions the problem of having “an anticapitalist revolution without 
gun battles in the streets…since…if we come up against the US army, we will lose.” (26) 
But the working class, besides having numbers and a potential industrial power, also can 
appeal to the ranks of the military, who are generally the daughters and sons of the 
working class. (In almost every successful revolution, a significant part of the military 
was either neutralized or went over to the people’s side.)

Graeber does not quite get the importance of the working class—as the working class (which 
is not to deny the importance of all other issues and oppressions that the people face). 
Thinking about the need for an immediate strategy for struggle, he suggests focusing “on 
struggles over debt….Debt has shown itself to be the point of greatest weakness of the 
system….” (38) Debt is an important issue which does affect most people. But it is a 
mistake, I think, to bypass a focus on issues which relate directly to work, including 
issues of pay, working conditions, and time off. Since the capitalists are the enemy, then 
there is no one with as much reason to fight them as their workers—those whose labor 
supports the capitalists and the whole system. Neither store keepers, police, independent 
professionals, nor college presidents have as much of a direct interest in opposing the 
capitalists and their managing agents.
Conclusion

Graeber’s book combines intelligent insights with muddled thinking. He makes an important 
point about the victories which have been won, particularly by the direct action, 
anarchist, wing of the justice movements. It is important to remember these victories, 
whatever their limitations, in order to maintain hope and to prepare for the future. 
(Among other intelligent aspects of his book are brief but good discussions of the 
concepts of “immaterial labor” and “the biopolitical” as “transparently absurd” and 
“extremely dubious.”) (87 & 92)

On the other hand, his discussions of “revolution” and “insurrection” are quite muddled. 
He appears to reject them in favor of a gradualist, lengthy, drawn-out, process (which I 
can only regard as reformist). But he seems to insist on using “revolutionary” and even 
“insurrection” as part of his non-revolutionary perspective of “revolutions in reverse.” 
He wants to reject his revolutionary cake but to eat it anyway. Of course, what matters is 
not the terms he uses but the conceptions behind them. Graeber realizes that the planet is 
in a bad way and needs a drastic change, but his program is gradualist and unclear. He 
never criticizes the main argument for a revolution—that the rulers will not give up their 
power and wealth without a fight—but raises all sorts of other, lesser, objections. To 
some extent he appreciates the potential of the working class, but he still underestimates 
its possibilities. This is an interesting book but a murky one.


References

Graeber, David (2011). Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and 
Imagination. London/NY: Minor Compositions/Automedia.

Kropotkin, Peter (1975). The Essential Kropotkin (ed. E. Capouya & K. Tompkins). NY: 
Liveright.

Malatesta, Errico (2014). The Method of Freedom; An Errico Malatesta Reader (ed. D. 
Turcato). Oakland CA: AK Press.

Price, Wayne (2007). Fragments of a Reformist Anarchism: A Review of David Graeber (2004), 
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Anarkismo. 
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/4979?search_text=Wayne+Price

Price, Wayne (2010). The Ecological Crisis is an Economic Crisis; the Economic Crisis is 
an Ecological Crisis. Anarkismo.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/17024

Price, Wayne (2012). Review of Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. Anarkismo. 
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/23603?search_text=David+Graeber

Schmidt, Michael, & van der Walt, Lucien (2009). Black Flame; The Revolutionary Class 
Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. Vol. 1. Oakland CA: AK Press.

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/28134