From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 14:42:55 MDT
Date sent: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 13:55:39 -0600
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: virus: Re:Jobs and Human History
From: "athe nonrex" <athenonrex@godisdead.com>
Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
>
> [joe dees 6]
> Communism is the system where talent and time-costly learned skills
> were decoupled from compensation, and as such, it furnishes a
> historical object lesson of my point. Not providing fair compensation
> for labor in a field destroys the incentive to enter it. This could
> also happen in the music industry, if artists are not fairly
> compensated for their creativity because their creations are taken
> without compensation (it's called stealing). Communism, it has been
> said, is the perfect system for perfect people; however, since people
> in the real world are not perfect (if by perfect one means absolutely
> altruistic rather than wanting to be fairly paid for their labor), it
> was destined to fail - and so it did.
>
> [athenonrex 7]
> no money, no incentive? umm....what i'm proposing (and what the book
> is proposing) is that money would not exist...without monetary means,
> there is no economy. the people (as you put it) in "industries" that
> are there for the money, in which there would be no other insentive
> (let's say, in the music industry), are what we commonly call "hacks"
> i believe. ie, a musician that writes music solely for the money it
> could produce for him is a musical hack. (s)he is not a musician.
> commonly these are pop musicians, but sometimes these are soundtrack
> composers, and even other mainstream types of music..l
>
The most artistic rock legends are, or were, multimillionaires (the Beatles, Led Zeppelin,
Pink Floyd, the Doors, etc., etc.). I shudder to think of the music we would not have had
if it had not been profitable enough for them to pursue their avocations to allow them to
obtaine the best instruments, technicians and recording equipment with which to craft
their masterpieces, or even to feel it paid them to record same.
The global, moneyless, pure barter economy is a naive pipe dream which will never
exist. Money serves as a marker for time spent on labor, and the time spent on the
education necessary to learn the skills required to preform certain labors. This function
is indispensible for fair compensation and trade among people who have no need of a
candidate customer's particular skills, or cannot readily access them due to
geographical separation in a global economy, yet have a product or service he needs,
and any substitute record keeping that would serve the same function would itself
become known as money, because that is what it would be.
>
> [joe dees 6]
> There are indeed people such as this, but they are not in the
> majority, much less the totality, as such a system would require.
> Under communism, or any system where people are not fairly compensated
> for their labor, people would only indulge in such professions as
> hobbies, not employment, and if they cost a lot of time and/or money
> to indulge it, only the otherwise idle rich (a theoretically
> nonexistent class in a communist system) would possess the wherewithal
> to so self-indulge.
>
> [athenonrex 7]
> implying that most people are hacks at heart? interesting standpoint.
> you miss the point though, once again. there would be no money to
> compensate them, because there would be no incentive for money in the
> first place. there would be no cost to engague in these activities.
> and with no real jobs to speak of, people would have an aweful lot of
> time to work with their "hobbies" as you put it.
>
(listening to the sounds of John Lennon's IMAGINE wafting on the wistful breeze): Most
people in the real world, rather than some hypothetical and imaginary heaven-on-earth
utopic construction, not only have to be self-supporting, but want to be, with the fruits of
their own labors, as a matter of personal dignity (which is why more than half of lottery
winners continue to work). If you wish to characterize all non-parasites as 'hacks', it
says much more about you than it does about them.
>
> [joe dees 6]
> Only because of an excess of shortsighted greed motivating the voters.
> This is why I support a balanced budget amentment to the US
> constitution; a constitutional (as opposed to an absolute) democracy
> can indeed forbid destructive yet popular (for bigots) behaviors, such
> as racial, age, gender and sexual orientation discrimination, and
> destructive yet lucrative (for greedheads) behaviors, such as
> pollution or the uncompensated appropriation of the fruits of others'
> creativity, by virtue of the judiciary declaring any laws passed to
> permit them to be unconstitutional. Of course, this is all still a
> work in process, as the US is an evolutionary, rather than
> revolutionary, system; when conditions progress so that new rights,
> responsibilities and obligations are necessary (such as intellectual
> property rights and informational privacy rights), there is a
> mechanism called the legislature that can augment the system to
> address them by passing appropriate laws.
>
> [athenonrex 7]
> taken directly from left field...firstly, your arguement doesn't hold
> much water, especially as of late. "intellectual property" and the
> such, as far as that goes, is more of an issue for "the law..." thread
> that it's relatively popular right now...but if i must....the US legal
> system as a whole is very poor grounds for example, as it is often
> subject to lobbyists, flat out bribes and other such means of coersion
> for a person or group to get it's way regardless of what the "ethical"
> thing to do would be. evolutionary my arse. "devolutionary' at most,
> stationary at best.
>
Merely stating that an argument cannot hold water is quite different from pointing at the
holes, which you have not done. "Boo" and "Hooray" may feel emotionally satisfying,
but contribute nothing whatsoever to logical discussions.
And you do not think the money motive which you claim motivates politicians motivates
most of the rest of humanity as well? Methinks you have poisoned your own well with
this blatant contradiction, although I myself think that the adrenaline rush of power and
popularity plays an equal, if not greater role in their motivations, and believe that there
is also genuine altruism and a sincere desire to serve their fellow human beings alive in
the hearts of some of them, some of the time . Also, racial, gender and gender
orientation minorities as well as those formerly shat upon by unrestrained corporate
polluters would not consider the US to have devolved since before Brown vs. the Board
of Education, the Civil Rights Acts, the Equal Access Laws, Roe vs. Wade, the recent
Supreme Court decision legitimizing the right to sexual privacy, the creation of the EPA,
and on and on and on...
>
> [athenonrex 7]
> the legislature (congress and senate) has "evolved" (as you put it)
> into a privatized checking system instead of the checks and balances
> system it's supposed to be.
>
The three branches do indeed act to restrain each others' most egregious excesses; the
congress passes laws to restrain the chief executive, the chief executive issues
executive orders to restrain some congressional policies, and both of them are
restrained by the constitutional judgments of the courts, which themselves are formed
form justices proposed by the executive and vetter by the legislative. Is it perfect, or
even in principle perfectible? No. Is it better than any other form of government that
has yet been tried? History, and the evolution of governmental forms, would seem to be
making that judgment.
>
> [athe nonrex 5]
> > joe, no matter what i post...regardless of subject matter, content,
> > manner of presentation, manner of perspective, or how calm or
> > vehement i am about the said subject matter, you seem to post
> > opposite of me and/or my view/comments/ideas/etc...
> >
> > just curious, are you "contra pro contra?" [contrary for the sake of
> > being contrary?]
> >
>
> [joe dees 6]
> No, I am disagreeing for the sake of being correct (besides which, I
> must note, my original post was not in response to yours; rather it
> seems that you have contrarily responded to me). It is not my fault
> that you so often adopt flawed positions on issues.
>
> [athenonrex 7]
> quite a strong assertation. (that's 'assertion', grammar nazi!) yet what is being expressed here is
> opinions of a projected potential future, if certain trends are
> granted...but you seem to have ignored all of that....your original
> post was indeed contrary to mine, as me and hermit were elaborating
> different aspects of this "projected potential future" and you started
> making assertations (and again...)....that therefore pertains to me.
>
>From what I read, it began as a bald assertion that music downloads of all songs should
be freely available to all and sundry, on (some sort of) principle...and I guess this (sort
of) principle would apply to movies, books (and other texts), and computer programs, as
well...now, in my opinion, if ANYTHING could cause a subsequent cultural DEvolution,
that would be it...
> ----
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