Thanks. My point is, activists like Graeber are bound by philosophical systems they don't recognize, which have been in place for hundreds of years and which form the foundation of our entire modes of thought. He may dislike modern capitalism, but he probably accepts the core tenets of modernism which allow it, like the assumption that the good of man is to be achieved by man pursuing whatever his interests happen to be. He might be radical, but I'm guessing he's not a radical as to reject Hume. (the source for the aforementioned tenet).

Graeber probably spends more time analyzing the effects of various philosophical/political/economic systems on individual and social behavior than most people. I'm not familiar enough with the totality of his work to directly address what he does and does not accept about modernism, but from reading 'Debt', he rejects many of the core tenet of modern economics.

Another of his books is titled, 'Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams'. Its summary on Amazon begins: "This innovative book is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism."

So I rather doubt from the title and the summary that we'd discover that he blithely accepts the core tenets of modernism. It appears to me that he probably would reject quite a bit of the core tenets of modernism and those that he accepts he probably does so understanding their roots and implications. Again, I can't be sure b/c I haven't read it but the guy assumes an outsider, iconoclastic stance in almost everything I have read.

I'm just going to re-iterate the recommendation to read this book. Although it's periodically mentioned on HN, anyone who hasn't read it, you won't regret it. I would describe it as nothing less than the most eloquent and reasoned summary of the devastatingly unfortunate wholesale misapplication of human endeavor in modern times... bar none... which incidentally lies at close to the root of many of the world's problems. In short: we've been flying with blinkers: Graeber explains precisely how and why.