Note I am borrowing from a real life example Graeber borrowed from
one of the anarchist societies he lived in while anthropologising.
So my theorising might clash with Graeber's ghost, and the
currently living innately anarchistic but I came up with this
example I thought demonstrated real life night sorcery:
Imagine three people in a fairly homogeneous anarchic village.
Person B is one of many similar fisherpeople, and person C is one
of many similar fish-smokers. Person A does some equations, and
concludes that if instead of the relatively unstructured way the
fishers are bringing in their catches, and fish-smokers are
getting, smoking, and disseminating smoked fish, if B and C form a
committed team of fisher and fish-smoker, they will begin operating
more efficiently than the rest of the village. This daily positive
flux of value relative to the other villagers is split evenly
between persons A, B, and C.
What I have found by talking to people is that it's pretty
intuitive person A can be seen as being doing something morally
wrong in this scenario, even though person A is the iconic
capitalist hero character. Person A has had an idea to restructure
the village from being flat, to funneling value
1) Person A's proportional value relative to the village is
increasing passively
2) Persons B and C are accruing proportional value from the village
through efficient labor
My understanding of a villager having delved too deeply into the
power of Night Sorcery by destroying other villagers' lives and
cannibalising them is prototypically person A.
In contrast, persons B and C without a person A could cooperate and
this culling of advantage is also night witchcraft, but not an
insane indulgence: Perhaps they could also marry, in which case
deeper coordination is implied.
