Dr. Graeber was both a scholar of anarchism — technically, a society without a form of government — and an advocate of it in the public sphere. He was jailed during anti-globalization protests and once was struck by a plastic bullet fired by police during a demonstration in Quebec City. He kept the projectile in his pocket.

He believed that the U.S. economic system relies heavily on keeping people indebted and that debt has a harmful effect on everything from homeownership and farming to insurance and education. In modern society, Dr. Graeber said, debt becomes a “contract that is ultimately enforceable through the threat of force.”

He called debt “an assault on the very idea of community, and an assault on the commitments that we make to each other through the medium of government.” He pointed out that in some societies — and even in the Lord’s Prayer — the forgiveness of debt is considered a social and moral virtue.

The same year he published his book on debt, Dr. Graeber became a major voice in the emerging Occupy Wall Street movement, which began as grass-roots opposition to income inequality and corporate power. The movement, with squatters taking over parks and other public spaces, spread from New York to other cities around the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/david-graeber-scholar-anarchist-and-intellectual-leader-of-occupy-wall-street-dies-at-59/2020/09/05/df66b16e-eeb9-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html