----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 3:05
PM
Subject: The Efficient Society (was The
Reinvention of Work)
Ray:
It is not either/or on markets but
whether markets can clean up their act around the lack of availability of
resources for each person's talents i.e. the reason for their fulfillment in
life, wether there can be equality or whether both inequality and
oppression are built into the motivation for the Bazaar mentality and without
which everyone in that mentality would stay home and play with their
children. The market is incredibly wasteful as well, which
surprises me everytime you defend it.
.
pg 148:
"The state of nature
[including humans] contains billions of prisoner's dilemmas. The market does
not make any of these go away. It simply creates a layer of incentives
that keep them under control. But beneath this layer, there is still a
simmering cauldron of anti-social behaviour just waiting for the opportunity
to break through."
This is in the context of respecting the property
rights of others, which, without rules, laws, governance,
dis-incentives...much theft and free-riding occurs. He next discusses trust as
far more efficient (ex. dealing with close family members in business as
opposed to toatal strangers. Also, sometimes permitting minor theft (pens,
paper clips, copy machine usage ...in offices) is more efficient than
attempting strict enforcement.
I agree with him
about the free riders but the thing that is supposed to deal with the
"cauldron of anti-social behaviour just waiting for
the opportunity to break through." is
CULTURE. Indians have had Europeans throw that at us for 500
years. I believe I have the right to mirror that back considering
the history. If you destroy your culture and your inner
incentives then you didn't do the educating that you were supposed to do with
your children. Instead we get such "ideals" as
"Creative Greed" and "ultimate selfishness" from the Objectivists and the
current barbarians. I call them disciples of a failed and terrible
2nd rate actress living in HOLLEEWOUD, CAL...... There was
another, a 2nd rate painter who used defending his attitudes as an
excuse for horror. You have to become
technologists of Culture and realize that all cultures are an important piece
of the puzzle. Aroogance is usurping the whole.
Jewish religion calls it Idolatry, I agree.
The market is incredibly wasteful as
well, which surprises me everytime you defend it.
Try to
envisage doing without it! It is necessary in complex
societies/economies.
My point exactly.
That is exactly what you should do. Envision doing without the
economic market models. Don't listen to their
propaganda. Look for examples in the past and around the world
that were different and successful. Today's Magnificent Duality
just makes us dumb. We should call it Government and Economics by
and for Dummies!
Artistry demands balance
and the exact marshalling of the forces involved in the art or it is bad
art.
Subjective evaluation, perhaps.
Fraid not. Only if you enter into the
Universe of the Artist and examine it closely for its integrity and
success do you have the right to judge it. A bridge is not a
highway even though cars use both. The rules are different
as are the purposes even though highways run across the bridge. If
you used the same rules for the Highway as for support of a bridge then it
would be stupid and wasteful. It is in knowing the inner systems
and their purposes that are the truths of Sonatas, Symphonies, Operas, TV
Dramas and Ballets. Then there is the issue of style and place
that also defines the inner workings of the universe of the work.
That is why we know the difference between French, German or Italian
Symphonies as well as International Architecture from the Prairie
School. So it is the way things fit within the rules of the
Universe chosen by the Artist that makes you understand balance, laws, and
success from failure. We often have contemporary Artists whose
chosen universes are not the same as the Critics who judge
them. In time, if the work has integrity it is the Critic
that takes the hit for not knowing better. Subjectivity is
"like" while knowing and obeying the rules of the chosen Universe is "serious
judgment."
But he agrees with both of us here using beauty/ugly of urban &
suburbab areas of US ( parts of Canada fit too) :
Pg. 141
" It
is hard to think of any great civilization in the history of the world that
has so systematically failed to invest its wealth in the creation of beauty.
This is not just an outsiders prejudice either. Americans complain about it
just as much....The explanation is simple. The material prosperity of
Americans is due to the relatively unrestricted operations of the marketb
economy...It can cost alot of money to make buildings beautiful. Once they
are built, their beauty can be enjoyed for free by anyone...Thus the
3enjoyment we get...is largely a positive externality. As we have seen, market
economies systematically underproduce goods with positive externalities.(free
to consumers, SK) And so beauty suffers."
No,
it is a nice theory but the truth is simpler and more
practical. Because advertising and its images are so complex
I will use architecture for the same principle. All taste and
culture is learned, even the bad. People do not desire
to be ugly, incompetent or banal. Everyone likes to think that
they are the hero or the best villain. What we have found is that
the inner integrity of the works of Artist Architects like Mies Van Der
Rohe was cheaper than the artiface of the
decorative Arts. The only problem was a lot of mediocre
art happened because the simplicity of Van Der Rohe, demands like Mozart's
Classicism, a superior imagination and caring upkeep 2.) the simple
structures didn't decay well. Artiface tends to cover the
results of pollution (see Wright or Sullivan) while Van Der Rohe's NYCity
buildings age very drably. A modern masterpiece was
destroyed the other day simply because its age was as ugly as an old actor
trying to wear clothes too small and parts too young.
Instead of renewing the architecture they gutted it, destroyed its
balance and turned it into an office building. It was a
hospital. Europe has a lot better record on things like
this. While in America both Wright and Sullivan's buildings
are gone. Even though they aged better, it was cheaper to build a
simple "van der Rohe" influenced structure than to keep up the better
looking building. The world becomes a huge movie set which
is changed. So what we get is banality and a population shaped by
banality. It IS cheaper but that is not the
point. Novelty is the point and we are addicted to the new and
novel as a fallacious belief in quality. We even hear
people on MSNBC and Fox News asking for the cost of saving people's
lives. They are people with no serious culture.
Barbarians in the old image of what the West used to claim for Indigenous
peoples. We never were like that but they are now, in
their decline.
We create and play within self-
created Universes, markets create little and muck around in this
one. The basic type of "needs" mentality that creates the
need for more children to protect your wife and old age is the root of much of
the over-population. That same "needs" aesthetic is what
drives the market, ALL markets that I know or have seen described on this and
other lists. So I think it is hollow at the core and until you
deal with that shibboleth it will go nowhere. What do you think?
You seem to want all or nothing. Unrealistic. It is the social
contracts restricting free markets which yield efficiency in combination in
his (& my) view.
Hardly. The point
is whether you think short or long. Short term solutions
are, like over pollution, ultimately suicidal. The issue is
simple. Does it create a superior human and are there
more than a few? If it doesn't create a superior human, it
is fraud and failure. If it only creates a few then it is a
society that practices human sacrifice to keep the system of the few
functioning. At least the Aztecs were honest about it
and they killed fewer people, killing one a day, than we do just to keep the
Highway God appeased. It is immoral to sacrifice
humans and it doesn't matter what you call it, if there is a mandatory
cost in human lives, then every life lost is a failure of that
system. Today we are talking about that same system causing
the death of the entire planet. Not so long ago we played chicken
with the Russians over who was right. That was as immoral as any
Despot in the History of the World. We still haven't met the
Karma on that one. But we will. The only answer, my dear
friend, is intelligence, education, advanced consciousness and the courage to
pay for the mistakes with dignity and wisdom.
Got to go,
REH
