Julien writes:
>One problem with your experiments is the way you're talking about "wages".
>When I was talking about wages going higher, I did not imagine more SUVs.
And what, pray tell, did you imagine ... ahhhhh never mind.
>What I was imagining was that work (or welfare but NOT revenues from
>capital) would be paid better per [snips - just to assemble your
>ideas]>This could very well mean less ...less traffic, less consumption of
> >time-sparing devices, etc.
What I was asking you to do was imagine the mechanism that would bring this
about and perhaps describe it in some way that would make it believable to
us tilting at the Crash windmill.
>Do you have an idea of the waste generated by the bosses and the rentiers?
>[snip] Do you have
>an idea of the waste generated by excessive advertising, packaging,
>etc.[snip] Do you have an idea of the waste
>generated by gross capital misallocations [snip] If anyone had figures, it
>would be nice to share it.
I will let this whole side of the argument rest upon Sam Pawlett's
just-posted excerpt of Richard Smith's. Some DO have ideas and figures,
Julien. ... or at least they are implied.
>You see, Tom, wages are not a function of the natural ressources
>consumed,as evidenced by internation comparaisons between living standards
>and
>ressource consumption. But they are not independent either, granted.
Well. You are halfway there, Julien. When you understand that wages ARE
natural resources consumed, you'll get it. (If you wish to quibble via some
Marxist theoretical definiton of wages, okay. I'll just have to throw
William Forster Lloyd, Bentham and Ricardo at you.)
>There>are many ways to reduce consumption of natural ressources without
>hurting
>living standards (depending on your value judgements determining your
>definition of living standards of course). I too think that the world
>population has
>to go down quickly and will go down anyway except that my outlook is not as
>catastrophic as yours.
Yes, indeed. I am VERY interested in hearing from you of A way to reduce
natural resource plundering, or from anyone a description of the mechanisms
(aside from the Crash) that a)eliminate "global capitalism" via a positive
way b)reduce consumption by 6 billion people without "hurting living
standards" AND c) avoid "world population has to go down quickly" without
aforementioned catastrophe.
>I'll add that in my mind the question was not wages now compared to wages
>in
>25 years but rather wages next year under capitalism as opposed to wages
>next year under an alternative. IMO, we'll be also do better without the
>current
>flavour of capitalism when the big crisis hits.
Again, I am very close to flinging such terms as "pie in the skies" "utopian
fantasy" and "worker's paradise" back onto the list unles SOMEone can
explain a)what "an alternative" will be - NEXT YEAR - to this capitalist
madness b) how "the current flavour of capitalism" is going to disappear
BEFORE "the big crisis hits".
IMHO the Crash will solve these problems in it's own very real and very
permanent ways and you are just avoiding recognition of that rapidly
approaching reality.
>Disclaimer: I have talked of wages as if they were the equivalent of
>purchasing
>power, which is of course not the case. Replace wages by purchasing power.
>I'm obviously also evading the problem of the compared values of different
>things but I think that it doesn't matter much at this level of generality
>as long as
>we all have sane ideas of value (unlinke: a car's value is a function of
>its
>weight).
Thank you for the disclaimer and I will grant you that point. What is
missing from the perception and -- dare I say it? -- from these Marxist
theoretical cloud castles is the realization that values are not sane in our
cultures, that all the economic systems currently under discussion drive
values farther from sanity, and that 6 billion consumers at ALL levels of
"wages" is a kind of madness that make the concepts of values as you wish to
describe them rather moot.
>Also, you seem to think that there exists some kind of united global
>market. I
>don't think this is true. There is world markets but most of what is
>consumed in
>today's world does not go through these markets. So I was not imagining
>"fractionalization", whatever that means.
I'll let this just pass. It would be fun to debate the non-existence of a
united global market and the impending disintegration of same. However it's
probably just as much fun to ask you to look at the manufacturing labels on
the products in your house and see how many bear the word "China" upon them.
<g> Now imagine them all saying "Switzerland" a year from now under an
alternative-to-global-capitalism. Just exactly what does that look like?
>What do you mean?
Sorry, it was a joke based upon my exuberant number of silly thought
experiments. Another language barrier/semantic overflow.
>Waiting for a "Conquest of Bread" for our times,
>Julien
Well, Julien, I hope your wait is short; but in my black heart of hearts I
think you will wait forever. Meanwhile, the citizens of Europe and North
America -- be they proletarian oppressed or bourgeois bosses -- go to bed
tonight each having consumed the bread of 13 AIDS orphans in sub-sahara
Africa. I eagerly await the plan -- and the mechanism -- that adjusts that
"wage" imbalance.
Anyone care to present a workable design? ... anyone?
Tom
"Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope!" -- a holographic projection of
Princess Leia
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