Also, suddenly in money terms we can all become more "wealthy." Say the government decided to privatize all national parks. Ownership shares were sent to all Canadians. Suddenly a public good becomes commoditized as a private good and people are and feel more wealthy. By defining something differently it is montetized and goes into GDP as wealth.
So instead of Parks Canada running the parks, it can be run by Parks Inc. Admission fees are doubled, concessions granted, well you get the idea. Sort of a wilderness Disneyland. arthur cordell -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 8:37 AM To: Michael Gurstein; Keith Hudson Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Reality of money (was RE: Computers: our downfall (wasRe: Privatizing the Public: Whose agenda? At What Cost?) What seems to be at issue here is the human inclination to search for, and set, standards. We've done it with distance, weight, size, temperature and various other things. If something weighs ten kilos, it weighs ten kilos, whether its and ostrich, a motorcycle or a huge bag of wind. We've done the same thing in the case of exchange value or valuing wealth (or poverty) or making international comparisons. We've applied a common standard which permit things to be valued so that exchanges can be made, wealth can be measured or taxed, and comparisons among living standards can be made. Money, while an abstraction, is so important to all of our affairs (just as length or weight is) that it has taken on a reality of its own. What is unique about money as a standard, however, is that it does not, and cannot, remain fixed in value. Or, perhaps to turn things around, the things that it measures do not remain fixed for long. Perhaps this is because money is a strictly human standard. It does not exist in nature like, for example, temperature does. Ed Weick > At 08:18 21/04/02 -0400, you wrote: > >Hmmm.... > > > >Rocks are "real", we can stub our toes on them; coins are "real", we can > >choke on them, or throw them at dogs urinating on our lawns (forgive me > >Bishop Berkeley). "Money", like other forms of totem worship is a social > >convention. > > > >MG > > Please yourself, then. But you're on a slippery slope if you can claim the > privilege of denoting anything or everything as real or unreal as you wish. > > Money has been real for at least 5,000 years, and very probably longer, > ever since man traded beyond the confines of his local community. Except > for natural disasters like droughts or famines, different forms of money > have held their value for very long periods of time (except when government > intervenes). If, as it now turns out, you want to reinterpret all known > history and all known cultures as having been prey to a social convention > and not an economic necessity, then so be it. > > KH > > > > > __________________________________________________________ > "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in > order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow > _________________________________________________ > Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________ >
