[Krimel] In our society ALL Value gets reduced to money [Andrew] That is a good observation. Money facilitates "liquidity" and liquidity could be considered a synonym for "dynamic". Good or bad?
[Krimel] Money is dynamic because it is a generalized conditioned reinforcer. In and of itself it has no Value. It becomes Valuable because we can use it to acquire other things that are primary reinforcers: food, shelter, sex drugs and rock and roll. They say money can't buy everything but I figure that what you can buy, you can often rent. It is a bit like what Pirsig says about carbon atoms. Since money can be associated with all sorts of Valuable experiences the Value of those experiences rubs off on money. Like carbon, money is promiscuous. [Arlo] I've asked a similar question before. If the market is the best system for moving goods and services, does the mean that everything should be seen as a market commodity? [Andrew] The premise seems to be that "moving goods and services" ( globalism ) is the only possible reality. I hope not. [Krimel] The power of money is the power of illusion. We all agree that paper stands for wealth and so it does. It becomes "the bottom line". The role of government is to use this power to stimulate activity in some areas of culture and discourage activity in others. Simple examples would be to discourage alcohol and cigarette consumption with heavy taxation and encourage education with generous scholarships. During the first oil crisis, Carter implemented a series of tax credits to encourage fuel conservation and a series of penalties on car companies to discourage high mileage vehicles. These steps were actually working until more simple minds politicians took office. [Arlo] Not to entwine threads, but one of the more insidious uses of language manipulation has been to recast human beings as "resources". Indeed, the very term "human resources" is appalling (to me). [Andrew] I agree. From the globalist perspective, human beings are about as significant as soybeans or timber. [Krimel] I am not sure who "globalists" are supposed to be but certainly the United Nation has sought from its inception to extend basic human rights to all of the people of Planet Earth. From a purely economic perspective perhaps humans are mere commodities but I don't think having a global perspective means anything of the sort. As for Arlo's point, far be it from me to defend the cretins in HR but "human resources" is an upgrade from the previous Theory X style of management. In the early days at Ford if a worker stepped off the assembly line to take a dump, a manager was likely to come in and check to make sure he produced something to flush. The father of time motions studies Fredrick Taylor, who had a profound influence on Ford and the other captains of industry, used to say things like: "Hardly a competent workman can be found who does not devote a considerably amount of time to studying just how slowly he can work and convince his employer that he is going at a good price." "I can say, without the slightest hesitation that the science of handling pig-iron is so great that the man who is ... physically able to handle pig-iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig-iron." So yeah, human "resources" is more Newspeak but it could be and has been worse... Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
