But what about the man with the gun? (Interview David Graeber?)

Listened to your recent discussion on Hegel's dialectic of the master and the slave, and agreed with much of your analysis. That said, how come most of us would rather be the master in that situation? You touched on it: the master has the man with the gun (a policeman or soldier) on his side. So two points: (1) How, really, can one fight that (ultimate) thread? (2) What might David Graeber's (author of Debt: The First 5000 Years) thoughts be in context of your work? Actually, really only one point: why not discuss these issues with David? (Also see his other book: The Democracy Project.) Just a suggestion, of course.

Official response from Richard Wolff submitted

No problem about discussing issues with Graeber. Just a matter of organizing and scheduling.

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Robert Peters commented 2026-03-25 19:36:32 -0400
i’d love to see wolff and graeber talk, because graeber’s point about violence being the “last instance” behind debt fits your “man with the gun” question pretty directly. the harder issue is how the fear of that gun gets internalized so most people start preferring the master role even when it’s corrosive. also, can we please stop the casino spam that keeps popping up; i clicked https://funkytimelive.com/ once from a comment and it felt completely unrelated to this thread. then another reply pushed https://icefishing-game.com/ and it just derailed the discussion again. i even saw https://sweetbonanzalive.org/ in a similar context, and it makes serious topics feel like bait for bots.

But what about the man with the gun? (Interview David Graeber?)

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