One of the most cogent examples I can make about this old
argument that Thomas is addressing is in the life of both Veblin and
Descartes. In the book the "Worldly Philosophers" Veblin
is described as "loafing" in the first part of his life since all he did was
read and think. He was slovenly, lived in a mess and
was unkempt. Descartes had to be in the army and risk
being killed in order to eat and travel. Having been in the
Army I too did some of my most productive thinking in a life and death situation
where I had a guaranteed income with little required other than physical
servitude. They did not inhibit my mind and I found many ways
to study and stimulate my growth during those six years.
Somehow the risk also has an element of stimulation to thought as
well. The simple culture was on one level
invigorating. Sort of as Math is to language. Descartes
was happy with math even though he disliked the Jesuits who taught it to
him.
If you look for descriptions of these writers on the
internet, much is made of their thought but very little is said about the
context that the thought sprang from. In Veblin it was loafing and if
mentioned at all the only thing said about Descartes is that he "served" in the
Bavarian Army. "Serving" was quite different at the time from today
and the people who were "hired" in European armies were not generally the
wealthy or philosophers unless of course they were officers which Descartes was
not. Descartes is listed in some places as an "unpaid volunteer"
which I guess meant that he got room, board and clothing and could travel
around.
Of course if both had been involved in "working" we
probably wouldn't have had anything like what they ultimately
did. Synergy is an interesting word. It is said to mean
that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Synergy is what is lacking in today's economics' theories. No matter
to whom or where you look you never find enough to equal the great
accomplishments of the human spirit as manifested in some of the most terrible
societies of the past. Whether you call it evolutionary biology or
monetarist economics nothing equals those great leaps forward that seem to come
in spite of the theories of the day. We call it individualism but
individualism ends at creative greed and psychopathology when we take that road
and it is littered with colossal failures and inhumanity.
So was Veblin and Descartes engaged in
leisure? To call them "lazy" as Heilbroner calls Veblin seems
strange to say the least. Or was their work which has stimulated so much
thought and ultimately jobs really "work" after all? What is the
difference between Veblin and many of the creative people I know and the
people defined as "hoarders" by the latest therapy cult and the parents whose
house was so messy that their kid committed suicide or so the courts decided the
other day and sentenced the parents?
Frankly I find the composer turned businessman and
millionaire Charles Ives more believable. He claimed that his
money only freed him to truly create since having to work for money
in his music enslaved his mind and stopped him from truly
considering the great artistic questions that he ultimately
answered. So he advocated earning your money at innocuous things
like the insurance where he invented modern insurance practices still used
today. Of course the work load eventually broke him down and he
stopped composing half way through his life after a "heart attack" more likely a
psychological break from so little sleep. Today we feed on his
artistic corpse and tout him has a "great American" who vindicates the
"individualist" mode even though it broke his health and made him nuts and angry
to his death. Another similar thinker was Frank Lloyd Wright
although he did get paid for his houses. Unlike the upright Ives, FL
Wright was a coyote trickster whose greatest work was is in houses where he
was able to trick ignorant wealthy folks into accepting things in their homes
that they would have never accepted at work. When he did get a large
building commissioned and it was far ahead of its time, it was usually destroyed
before time caught up with his ideas since business is by its nature banal.
Or is the issue that, like the "hunter/gatherer" name,
what we have here is a colossal breakdown in scientific observation and
theorizing that is just one more version of bourgeois bureaucratic thinking that
demands "scale" thinking in every form of our lives whether we want it or
not? Name it and act on it, even if it makes no
sense and is inaccurate. Sort of like,
well ........mathematics.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Lunde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW Basic Income
sites
>
> Well, I think you are wrong. The concept is Canadian -mostly in the idea of
> Universality. We don't prevent the healthy from having Medicare, for we
> accept that ill health may come at any time to anyone. So too, poverty.
> What Basic Income is attempting to do, is to put a floor on poverty. That
> floor would prevent a thousand ills. Homelessness, inadequate diet, lack of
> work schemes, an assured base income could be used if you wanted to go back
> to school, build a house or write a poem, etc.
>
> It would also release a tremendous amount of creativity, life skills and
> energy that is now tied up in trying to keep your head above water. The
> poor are not dumb or stupid but they are time and opportunity stressed to
> the nth degree. A basic income should be a human right, for it is at the
> base of the right to survive which should be every humans right. It also
> would give dignity and self respect to everyone for acknowledging their
> right to existence as a participant on the planet earth.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Thomas Lunde
>
> ----------
> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christoph Reuss)
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW Basic Income sites
> >Date: Mon, Dec 8, 2003, 2:46 PM
> >
>
> > Sally Lerner wrote:
> >> The (humble but striving) site for the Canadian BI group:
> >> http://www.basicincomecanada.org
> > ...
> >> I'm convinced that this will eventually happen, by whatever name and
> >> in whatever manner.
> >> Why? Check out the Basic Income/Canada site.
> >
> > It's a pity that this site only has a section "Arguments for a BI" (not
> > really answering the "Why?", btw) but not also a section that deals with
> > arguments _against_ a (general) BI. Unable to deal with them, perhaps?
> > Smacks of theology, anyway.
> >
> > This site actually advocates a general BI "paid to each man, woman and
> > child ... not conditional on other income or lack of it". The waste of
> > funds couldn't be clearer -- why pay something to those who don't need
> > it at all, billionaires included ? Since money doesn't fall from the
> > sky (or do you want to turn on the printing press?), the BI given to the
> > affluent would lack those in need. Wouldn't it be smarter (and more just)
> > to only pay BI to those who really need it, and reduce the number of those
> > who do as much as possible? Also consider that it is the working class
> > who will foot the bill. Considering this, 'arguments' like "[a GBI]
> > makes work worthwhile" / "lays the basis for hard work and enterprise"
> > give an Orwellian touch to that website indeed...
> >
> > Instead of penalizing productivity ("income tax would be paid from the first
> > pound"), other things would be so much more worth penalizing by taxation --
> > e.g. inheritance, speculation, pollution and smoking/junkfood.
> >
> > It seems to me that GBI is a band-aid attempt to perpetuate (or worsen)
> > an unsustainable system of consumerism and injustice/inequality.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword
> > "igve".
> >
> >
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