tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post5970523764535403315..comments2024-02-18T18:59:06.164+00:00Comments on Econosophy and other musings: What Is Capitalism, Exactly?Tobyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-11524306888204081522011-11-10T19:18:33.089+00:002011-11-10T19:18:33.089+00:00Hi Karl, I finally got around to watching the talk...Hi Karl, I finally got around to watching the talk you linked to. Excellent stuff.<br /><br />As for your point about metaphor, I would expand on it by saying that money are markets suck at representing value. That is, it is not metaphor and symbol that are the problems (humans inescapably deal in both to generate meaning) but the depth and breadth of the metaphors we create and accept.Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-21954817163994157412011-10-30T23:58:41.230+00:002011-10-30T23:58:41.230+00:00Yeah, Peter Schiff is part of the status-quo goon ...Yeah, Peter Schiff is part of the status-quo goon squad. A much more enlightened talk was given by Arthur Brock of the Metacurrency Project. <br /><br />http://vimeo.com/31164740<br /><br />Debra, it seems to me that metaphor is a huge part of the problem. Money is a metaphor for wealth, and markets are a metaphor for the economy. We need more of the opposite - to get our information systems to accurately model reality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-44411170998865423742011-10-28T17:21:19.555+00:002011-10-28T17:21:19.555+00:00YAY, let's hear it for analogy.
Analogy is not...YAY, let's hear it for analogy.<br />Analogy is not.. IDENTICAL REPLICATION. There is room for a little uncertainty there.<br />And metaphor.<br />Metaphor is a good deal. We need more of it.<br />I think...Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-21346465607035053682011-10-28T15:53:34.995+00:002011-10-28T15:53:34.995+00:00Dualism. Mind and body, spirit and matter. We'...Dualism. Mind and body, spirit and matter. We've been caught in its trap since, like, forever. And the beautiful poetry you quote seems trapped in it too, though it precedes Descartes of course.<br /><br />I just watched Peter Shiff engaging in a 'diologue' with the folks down at #ows about capitalism. His zinger: "Capitalism isn't the problem, it's the solution!" And he 'debated' this will all and sundry, trotting out the tired old (though valid) private risk met with private reward or loss as Good, and government should keep its nose out. All well and good, but the Market/State dichotomy he invokes to build his case is an illusion. The man is so yesterday. Sadly he's not alone.<br /><br />So, for me, I don't care about the word capitalism. What I care about is understanding how things 'work,' even though that undertaking never ends, and for many reasons including 'change is the only constant.' Hell, I even agree with the core of what Shiff says, but disagree about the mechanism which might deliver it. He believes in The Market. I believe in Wisdom. And what my wisdom is telling me is that the current money system is utterly in the way of what humanity is slowly fumbling towards (what Eisenstein calls the "connected self"), and is forcing us to overconsume as if consumption of Bling and Glamour is what makes us 'happy.' (Whatever that is!)<br /><br />I think the reformation is a key turning point in this story, but our time was ripe at that point in history for that particular change of course, i.e., it emerged from the soil of that time, and that soil had been prepared by prior history. And so on. And we'd had greed and usury crushing economies prior to Luther and Calvin paving the way for conspicuous consumption.<br /><br />But it's all so wonderfully complex, and leads off in every direction. It's great we'll never get to the bottom of it. There is no bottom, nor is there a beginning. And that's hard for the human mind to deal with.<br /><br />You once asked me if I thought reality is digital or analog. I said digital/binary. I've changed my position on that. You are not bits. You are infinite. And so is everything else. All gloriously analog to boot. Enjoy it while it lasts!Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-57587810905990150662011-10-28T15:23:32.950+00:002011-10-28T15:23:32.950+00:00Last night, thinking about it, it came to me in a ...Last night, thinking about it, it came to me in a flash of light... what is capitalism ?<br />Capitalism is NOT the trading going on in my local farmer's market.<br />It is something else... capitalism is... THE IDOLATRY OF (abstract) MONEY. Pretty cool, huh ?<br />Somewhere way back there, when the Catholics and Protestants were haggling about interest, things went topsy turvy, and right along with the REFORM, we got a 180° reversal from William, who said, as I repeat from time to time "poor soul the center of my sinful earth, thrall to these rebel powers that thee array, why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, painting thy outward walls so costly gay, why SO LARGE COST, having so short a lease, dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend.... then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, and let that pine to aggravate thy store, buy terms divine in selling hours of dross, within be fed, without be rich no more..."<br />And all of a sudden, it was COOL to be rich, and accumulating was OK, authorized by the (especially Protestant) churches. (The Bible has lots of nasty things to say about worshipping money and material wealth, by the way.)<br />The old cosmogony was oriented around Mother earth, and had matriarchal origins. Perhaps it was only a question of time before the Judeo-christian, monotheistic LOGOS dethroned a matriarchal cosmogony, based on MOTHER earth being the center of the universe, to stick a PATRIARCHAL LOGOS GOD in place, at first, and then gradually, that logos went its own inevitable ABSTRACT way, anyway.<br />I don't consider the heliocentric cosmogony to be "the truth". It is only "the truth" from within a certain POINT OF VIEW.<br />And that point of view definitely has its blind spots...<br />The Copernican/Galilean revolution destroys, NOT THE CHURCH, but the old, Ancien Regime telluric cosmogony. And it opens up the possibility for getting rid of God in a big way, ultimately substituting abstract forces (Descartes) for a personal relationship with transcendance, AND a feeling of connection to nature... HERSELF.... (Here, I fear that we can thank Spinoza, who I have NOT read, for paving the way to secularizing Judaism, divorcing the RELIGIOUS BELIEF from the ideology that founds our modernity, to a very great extent.)<br />In a cosmogony like that, we will become bits and pieces of energy.<br />Personally, I HATE THE IDEA OF BEING BITS AND PIECES OF ENERGY.<br />I recuse it. <br />It takes all kinds to make a world, right ?Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-75120109271582009712011-10-28T05:09:06.344+00:002011-10-28T05:09:06.344+00:00Exactly. It's not accumulation that's the ...Exactly. It's not accumulation that's the problem, it's our attitude to what's accumulated generating too much unnecessary suffering and destruction. Money's too sticky. To repeat a theme richly implicit in your latest comments here, we're too fearful, and not faithful enough.<br /><br />Oh yeah, and being systemically addicted to growth is a Bad Idea.<br /><br />Good comment Stephen, thank you for it.Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-33955531174159452962011-10-27T23:27:32.921+00:002011-10-27T23:27:32.921+00:00Capitalism is the word we now use to describe the ...Capitalism is the word we now use to describe the process of accumulation of wealth in a central storehouse. It is a process that is the direct result of the invention of the granary. From this, all the modern evils of the world proceed.<br /><br />All biological systems attempt to move toward and maximize their efficient use of their energy source, in our case, money. Fish do it, sunflowers do it, capitalists do it, and I do it.<br /><br />I suggest that there is little hope in defying this process through some hope in a more 'morally conscious' approach. <br /><br />What we need to do, like every other organism, is try to maximize the efficiency of the energy transfer, eliminating as much as possible the 'storage and transaction fees' that fund the legacy banking system. To do this I would recommend an electronic transfer system that dealt in pure energy units, like the watt, while at the same time encouraging a method of local exchange not dependent on the electronic infrastructure. I find nothing objectionable about the idea of trading chickens for dental work. I am also an early adopter of Bitcoins. This in no way attempts to rectify the disparities that must occur naturally, but it minimizes the artificial penalties against the poor. (John Cage said "What we need to do is to make the world safe for poverty.")<br /><br />Technology: we are in no way distinct from our technology any more than we are distinct from the rest of our environment. In fact, there seems to be a rather natural symbiosis occurring. (See Gideon's "Mechanization Takes Command".) The idea that technology is 'steered' by anyone is simply not historically accurate. (We can say that NASA or the Military ~whoever that is~ develops specific tools for specific tasks and is a 'driver' of technological production, but it is in no way capable of 'steering' the longer term course of events) It's development is as natural and 'organic' as any other development influenced by biological beings. The fundamental characteristic of biological life is that it 'moves from the formed to the forming' (Kitaro). Inorganic material manipulated into 'technological' systems by biological beings, be they humans or monkeys or hummingbirds or ants will develop according to this fundamental evolutionary process, not 'steered' by anyone.<br /><br />I say, again, that the future of humanity and much of the rest of biological life on this Earth is <em>indeterminate</em>, in the Cageian sense. It is out of our control, as it has always been. Remember when human beings thought that the Earth was the center of the universe and that all revolved around us? It doesn't, and of course it never has.<br /><br />"Atlas knows nothing of the fat man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man.)"Malagodihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265971350173178845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-16130652726783400372011-10-27T13:55:51.687+00:002011-10-27T13:55:51.687+00:00I say... "Hail, blue tits". ;-)I say... "Hail, blue tits". ;-)Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-88851245938828710182011-10-27T12:26:15.069+00:002011-10-27T12:26:15.069+00:00The Way is Hard.
At the moment I'm abuzz bec...The Way is Hard. <br /><br />At the moment I'm abuzz because, as of Tuesday I'm no longer an employee. The fizzing of my emotions, their spilling out of my fingers here, from my mouth at home, puts me in a very different 'space' to the one you appear to be occupying right now. But that's cool.<br /><br />What's weird (in a redundant way) is how these head-buttings we engage in are, in some manner, narcissistic, immature. (Interesting that you bring up your Daddy as I tread on the emotional pedal.) But we're just hammering things out, like millions of others. We're not Gods whose every pronouncement creates a Universe of horror or beauty. Just humans chewing the cud. And that's cool.<br /><br />Images can inspire, so can the written word, so can anything (a blue tit landing on my windowsill at work yesterday changed my mood for the better). I heard this morning of the young, demobbed soldier hit in the head by a police projectile, lying in a coma in hospital somewhere in the US, and wept. That's very human of me. I was inspired by an online film (Zeitgeist Addendum) to learn, write, discuss, and change The System. And here we are, you and I (and others), chewing the cud. All sorts of things made our meeting possible, and the Internet is obviously one of them. It is an extremely important human creation, and inspires me to no foreseeable end (so far).<br /><br />I don't know what's going to happen, I only know I want to contribute, be involved, be useful. And that's very human of me.Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-55625759791914876012011-10-27T08:35:39.001+00:002011-10-27T08:35:39.001+00:00Sorry, Toby.
Although I LOVE reading you when you ...Sorry, Toby.<br />Although I LOVE reading you when you express yourself in your poetry, you know.<br />If you notice, I NEVER CRITICIZE your poetry...<br />On charismatic leaders... yesterday I spent all afternoon pasting photos into my children's "books", the almanachs that I am making for them, with a smattering of family history, tied into the big picture, HISTORY IN CAPITAL LETTERS...lol.<br />And I came across a picture of my Daddy, in rousing action, among a crowd of 10 year olds, at the junior high/high school I attended. He must have been around 47 at the time, a scant ten years before he disappeared, after burning himself out, like a meteor, at 57. (It takes all kinds to make a DIVERSE world, and not an anthill...)<br />His... PASSION was palpable. His enthusiasm.<br />If ever anybody was charismatic, my Daddy certainly was. He inspired... GENERATIONS of young men (and a few women, although he was less comfortable with that) to be leaders, to be curious, etc.<br />Did he MANIPULATE them ? All education involves taking people WHERE YOU WANT THEM TO GO. But there are important differences. You can take them where you want them to go, while listening to them, and respecting them, and also learning from them, AND MAKING THE TRIP WITH THEM, or you can condescend to them, with the idea that you are not taking them to the point where they will ULTIMATELY REPLACE YOU, when you bow out of the scene. Which YOU/WE WILL. ALL OF US. Those are big differences in attitude.<br />I see this playing out in my theater class. My theater teacher wants to be the King. Forever. (Hell, Toby, under the Ancien Regime, EVEN THE KING was supposed to know that he wouldn't be the King forever... you know, like "THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING" ??) She wants to be THE ONE WHO KNOWS, while her students are THE ONES WHO DO NOT KNOW. (And lots of women want to be kings these days..) France is a country which maintains the monarchical foundation while paying obsequious lip service to the Republic. It gets... VERY IRRITATING. <br />Maybe when you SPEAK, Toby, you can get people excited ? (I can...)<br />Only speech, in the flesh and blood, can REALLY INSPIRE us. Like, I seem to remember that the word "inspire" has something to do with breathing. NOT WITH... typing on the world wide web, or even watching videos on it. <br />You are right. I am a rather Voltarian person at this time. I can not get excited about ideas any more. So I am not a good person to listen to you get excited about your ideas.<br />Sorry.Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-12315263583367989592011-10-26T11:26:13.355+00:002011-10-26T11:26:13.355+00:00The hive mind. No, I'm not for that. Not for t...The hive mind. No, I'm not for that. Not for the undifferentiated blob or automaton. <br /><br />When I say "leaderless", I mean The Charismatic Leader the Rest follow, sheep-like and manipulatable. Yes, there have to be leaders, just as there has to be hierarchy, as I've stated in previous posts and comments. Hence "humble arrogance" and other such expressions escaping my typing of late. Hence my saying the hierarchy/anarchy dichotomy is false, misleading. <br /><br />Ah me, with you as my ongoing thought-editor, my almost obsessive tendency to qualify everything I say is going to get out of hand. You're already camped in my head, like an occupying teacher correcting, critiquing, qualifying. Maybe go a little gentle on me from here on in, please? I'm very much with you on most of what you say, but can't squeeze absolutely everything there is into every article I write, with every conceivable qualification diluting any expression that might possibly be interpreted as totalitarian. You make a man want to stop expressing himself.Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-3516067706801672342011-10-26T11:13:51.147+00:002011-10-26T11:13:51.147+00:00Last night I read an extremely depressing article ...Last night I read an extremely depressing article about where worldwide surveillance is taking us.<br />It is slowly but surely taking us towards... the anthill.<br />I don't want to WORK AT THE ANTHILL, Toby.<br />Transparence is a temptress.<br />Check out the Thomas Merton quote at Pax Lupo, at the end that has been put up.<br />No leaders means.. THE ANTHILL, Toby.<br />Leaders may have risks, but NO LEADERS has even more risks.<br />Once again, it's the ONE SIZE FITS ALL mentality that dominates us. <br />We need... SOME LEADERS.<br />The alternative scares the shit out me.<br />I can already hear its sirens wailing in the tonality of your last words (and mine ??)<br />But Thomas Merton ?<br />When we can express ourselves like Thomas Merton, there will be hope again.<br />Until then.. the logos continues its relentless drive towards making us language.. machines, slaving away at the anthill. <br />In my opinion.<br />That is why the glorification of work is another one of those sirens. Perhaps more so than the glorification of money ? I don't know..<br />Those INDIFFERENTIATED ants are not slaving away for money, but they are still slaving away, in my book.<br />Slaving away at the anthill is a SOCIAList society.<br />That is why I am much less social, these days..<br />Back to my piano now.Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-41346779109622113782011-10-26T05:09:11.392+00:002011-10-26T05:09:11.392+00:00I link to Hedges' article, which you can read ...I link to Hedges' article, which you can read in full if you'd like. My interpretation is that he's talking about staying true to the means rather than some rigid ends, that the means are rooted in an ethical revolution that puts human and environmental concern first, is leaderless (i.e. with no Napoleons), and that caving to state-like pragmatism destroys the chance of accomplishing any change.<br /><br />I disagree with you about the Internet, but only if what #ows is a vessel for stays vital and gains cohesive momentum. The key is transparent sharing of all public information. Otherwise all technology is steered by the centralising dynamic of the state, as you point out, though it has been so for far longer than since the Industrial Revolution. I'd say since the birth of the state form. Unless we transcend its rapacious dynamic I believe we'll wipe ourselves out.<br /><br />Why is that sad? Because I like human beings, just as I like all beings. I know there are those who don't, but there's nothing I can do about that. <br /><br />Otherwise you seem to be echoing the sentiment of my article, not disagreeing with it, so I'm a little confused by the sighs.Tobyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16258136994278139356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378568575885387942.post-62758186386762986852011-10-25T20:54:39.224+00:002011-10-25T20:54:39.224+00:00Sigh.
I don't really understand the Chris Hedg...Sigh.<br />I don't really understand the Chris Hedges quote. What is he talking about ??<br />My dividing lines are different...<br />I have said here and elsewhere, "please forgive me if I allow my abstract ideas to take precedence over your flesh and blood body, your smiling, or not smiling face".<br />The rabbis said that you could tell it was day when you could recognize your neighbor's face...<br />It is hard to recognize your neighbor's flesh and blood face over the Internet. Impossible, I would say. Your neighbor is pretty much an abstraction over the Internet, although not totally. (Admittedly, I enjoy talking with my daughter over Skype, although I also write letters to her.)<br />On Sunday, I listened to my husband calmly espouse the idea that we needed global governance to go beyond our current mess.<br />I say.. OVER MY DEAD BODY.<br />It gets frustrating telling people that global governance IS THE PROBLEM. That we have been slowly moving towards global governance BECAUSE OF TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY since the beginning of the industrial revolution ??<br />I do NOT believe that we are going to significantly change human nature at the pace at which our technology is "progressing"... That means that the only way to "limiter les dégats", as we say, to limit the breakage, is to scale down from globalization in its current form. And that means... the Internet too. <br />Does this sound disheartening ?<br />Only to those who remain firmly convinced that humanity must be saved, and THAT ideology traverses our civilization, in religious and secular forms.<br />WHY ARE WE LOST ??<br />Idolatry of money is our number one problem, re capitalism, which is another name for it : constantly harping on money as the measure of ALL THINGS... (money or.. THE LACK OF IT...)<br />At the market today, I watched business as usual : money changing hands, but smiles, DEBT FORGIVING (a few pennies on each side, for example), conversations, "thank yous".<br />Business the way is has been done for centuries now, and will continue to be done, probably.<br />Why get ourselves all worked up with the news, Toby ??<br />Our lives are small.<br />Why want to make EVENTS out of them ??<br />We can't all be Napoleons. Dixit a Leo. <br />Masses of crusader Napoleons make me very afraid.<br />Our civilization is addicted to its crusades, I fear...<br />Sigh. Once more with feeling.Debrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01510189619803992336noreply@blogger.com