Dear Michael: First an apology, I belatedly noticed that this e-mail was directed to me and not the whole FW list and so I read it and thought about it as a public message. It was only after I had wrote my comments that I realized FW was not in the address. I defend my action on making it public because I liked it, and thought the ideas you brought forth are valuable to us all. If I have erred, I will send you one of my typing fingers in atonement. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: March 7, 1998 1:50 PM Subject: Re: Lying >> Does there get to be a point where the advertising becomes so >> significant a cost that the product is secondary. Maybe we are >> already there... > >Well...I think so. Used to be a craftsman acquired the skills to make >somthing or perform a service. It took a long time. "Life so short; >The craft so long to learn." Advertising essentially announced the >presence of a skilled craftsman who was mostly too busy exercising >those skills to think about peripheran things like business management >or advertising. Then factories did the same and some of the learning >was offloadd onto machines which, in a sense, had knowlege designed >in. Thomas: As I read this paragragph, the thought occured that you had chosen the wrong word, instead of "announced", my instincts said that it should be "renounced". What advertising did to the craftsman's image was to remake it into an icon through which they could sell products while those who employed them were busily eliminating the "craftsman", both in image and reality. Again, this could be referred back to my original posting in which I made the distinction between a market that needs goods and is satisfying demand to a market that probably doesn't need a particular good, but which through advertising a demand can be created. Craftsmen were problem solvers. In my Ottawa Citizen this morning there is a charming story of a railroad worker in the 30's who was away from his family all week but on the weekends came home to the family farm and there worked with his hands in his "little welding shop down by the gate." It came to pass that a rain barrel leaked and he took it apart and realized that the "oak staves" could be re-used to make a "hammock". He cleverly fashioned a hammock out of these recycled tools and the author tells how this hammock provided the bed for many a childhood sleep out and lazy day in the sun. There is a pencil drawing of the hammock as the author remembers it. This is the way a craftsman works, searching for use of materials for the solving of problems. Now, a businessman would look at this line sketch, price out materials, explore manufacturing tools, do a cost analysis, hire some people, advertise the product using an antecdotal story and make a buck for himself. > >Now, so far as I can see, the ideal is to eliminate (or "externalize"), >insofar as possible, any tangible stuff or manhour-consuming >service. The goal is to have revenue that can be turned up or down >(but typically up) by turning a knob or with a few keystrokes. If I >can plug in a computer and, for every message that comes in over the >net, I electronically collect a buck in return for which my computer >automatically fires off a a few bytes, then all I have to do is >advertise. All I have to do is persuade, compel or trick people to >send in the messages. Eventually I may have to buy some more computers >or phone lines but you get the idea. I think that's the ideal toward >which the financial and technology folks and many of the >industrial/commercial folks strive. You are right from my perspective. Work and money have lost their traditional relationship to each other - now it is just money and the work is considered something that is relegated to a "worker" who is expected to do what he is told. If the worker can be eliminated, then the businessman considers himself even more clever, if he can buy it from a China slave factory, no problem, he is doing the important stuff, arranging venture capital, devising advertising, finding marketing avenues, developing creative book keeping schemes, fighting for market share, etc. All the economic garbage they teach in Economics 101 (which I have never taken either - thank god - it must be major brainwashing). > >I think that's why the financial establishment tail is wagging the >political economy dog. Programmed trading is about as close as you can >come to that ideal. Who needs *stuff* if I can make millions by moving >numbers and bytes around, mostly automagically? > >In a chain like Wal-mart it's likely that not a single person in the >entire establishment knows *anything* about *any* of the >products. People somewhere -- asia usually -- did have to make those >products and ship them so Wal-mart hasn't been able to completely >disengage from stuff. But the entire operation can almost be carried >out as a pure abstraction, with ordering, supplier negotiation, >inventory management and so on being conducted entirely by various >electronic exchanges. Thus the quantity and quality of supply can be >turned up and down with a mouse and, ideally, demand can be treated >the same way by turning an abstraction called "advertising" up or >down. The manufacture, movement and delivery of "product" is a >diseconomy to be externalised as much as possible. So we sell off the >stores, contract out the manufacturing and shipping, staff with agency >contract workies and our business consists of moving bits or paper in >such a way that the revenue goes up. Then it doesn't matter what >"advertising" consists of. It's just a knob or row of switches or >options menu that can be adjusted so that revenue is optimised. > >> ...so how are the so called efficiencies of the market defended in >> such a ludicrous situation? > >I can toss the jargon of medicine or computers around, fairly >confident that I'm saying somthing precise. But I never took Econ 101 >and I find the jargon of economics baffling and incline to thinking >that much of it conceals a host of ideological assumptions, taken as >axiomatic and thus not subject to verification. So I try not to make >public remarks in econ-jargon. But so far as I can see, the elementary >notions of "markets" and "market efficiency" have about as much to do >with the way business and financial strategy works today as grade 9 >billiad-ball newtonian physics has to do with how the tunnelling >scanning electron microscope works: So inadequate as principles >explaining or describing how things work today that at best it's >religious dogma or at worst meretricious propaganda. Well, Michael for a guy who never took Economics you do pretty good, but you must lose your "common sense" if you really want to get in the game. > >BTW, the annoying formatting and duplications seem to have vanished >from your mosts. As to my blankety blank computer, I was finally forced to reach out for help in the marketplace and I found a moonlight "hacker" of the old BBS school. First, we eliminated the "virus" possibility - no viruses thank god. Then we reload Windows, my machine took off like a young girl at a Spice Concert. I was in heaven. Back to Microsoft Office to finish an essay on Basic Income and the crashes started again. The guess is now the Office is corrupt and is infecting Windows, so today is reinstall on both programs. The formatting problems, I think solved themselves when I found out my newly downloaded Explorer 4 had HTLM checkmarked and I turned it off. (By the way, in the spirit of your message, help came from a "craftsman" rather from all those professional sales aids like manuals and hotlines or technical assistance plans. First, you can't get through on the voice mail phone lines, then you have to prove everything from your citizenship to the number of times you use the washroom. Give me an old fashioned human every time. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde > >- Mike >
