The theory of exodus proposes that the most effective way of opposing capitalism and the liberal state is not through direct confrontation but by means of what Paolo Virno has called engaged withdrawal,mass defection by those wishing to create new forms of community. One need only glance at the historical record to confirm that most successful forms of popular resistance have taken precisely this form. They have not involved challenging power head on (this usually leads to being slaughtered, or if not, turning into someoften even ugliervariant of thevery thing one first challenged) but from one or another strategy of slipping away from its grasp, from flight, desertion, the founding of new communities.
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About David Graeber
David Graeber was a 20th-century American anthropologist and activist. David Rolfe Graeber was an American anthropologist and anarchist social and political activist. His influential work in social and economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), The Utopia of Rules (2015), Bullshit Jobs (2018), and The Dawn of Everything (2021), and his leading role in the Occupy movement earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time. Read more on Wikipedia →