I have been reading Annie Leonard's book of this title and I have also seen the Youtube films that pick holes in the film of the same name. Some of the points the critics make are completely valid, but compared to the welter of information in the book, they are not (IMHO) terribly significant. Anyway, the critic resorts to the puerile technique of labelling the film./book 'communist' - expressed by playing the Soviet National Anthem over footage / stills from the film, thereby undermining his own cedibility.
There is much striking material in the book, but one particular piece has stood out for me. This is the approach of over using fire-retardant to support the industry that makes it, rather than because it's necessary to retard fire. This would be simply wasteful if the chemical was otherwise harmless, but it is in fact pathogenic.
In a monetary system it is necessary to set up opposition between jobs (ie access to the necessities of life) and sustainability, because sustainability costs money that cannot be spent twice. This is why the RBE makes so much sense. Step outside the mad monetary system, and examine how silly it is to use people to make and flog excess fire-retardant just so they can live ("earn a living"). Lunacy.I'd personally be very happy to pay people not to produce excessive pathogens (or any pathogens if possible), but the monetary system says I'm wrong.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Another way of putting it
We definitely live within the limits of the earth's resources. That's a fact and not up for debate. I would suggest that it's not controversial to suggest that we should not squander those resources, but conserve them, even if not for altruistic reasons. If The Earth is analogous to a space ship or submarine, with a finite water / air supply, then contaminating or wasting those resources is bad for each individual.
What's debatable is whether we attempt to share the planet's resources to the general benefit, or whether we continue to fight over them as if they were scarce - paradoxically making them scarcer as we do it, to make them have a price [that increases].
I would suggest that the basic goals of humanity should be that each person on the planet has adequate nutrition and shelter and means to maintain his/her health. That's not intended to be comprehensive, but it gives an idea. There are things we might want to achieve beyond these basics, but the principle holds.
To achieve what we want for humanity as a whole, it follows that there is work to do and it seems only fair that each person does their fair share of it. This is not all that easy as people have different abilities individually and over time. No work should be done by anyone or anything unless it furthers humanity's goal of being a successful species in the long term.
If we agree that we should share the work out fairly (even if it's not clear what 'fairly' entails), it makes perfect sense for us to automate / eradicate as much work as possible. Why do it if it's not helping us achieve our goals? Why have futile, or worse, destructive jobs just to get money? Why do the work ourselves if machines can do it quicker, more accurately, and without the need for rest and recreation? Why don't we just do the work that machines can't do.
There's a great deal of intellect being deployed in playing what are really games with money, albeit in increasingly abstract forms. "Options" to buy shares at a certain price at certain time are just one example of an abstraction from money, which is an abstraction in itself in that its only actual use is to procure resources. Those intellects need to be deployed directly towards the survival and true prosperity of our species. The games they play are not frivolous as - say - computer games could be seen to be, because money is viewed as a resource in itself, even though it is actually a proxy, or an attempt at a proxy, for all other resources. If those resourced aren't scarce, money doesn't fit in, so the monetary system seeks to make them scarce to fit its world view.
What's debatable is whether we attempt to share the planet's resources to the general benefit, or whether we continue to fight over them as if they were scarce - paradoxically making them scarcer as we do it, to make them have a price [that increases].
I would suggest that the basic goals of humanity should be that each person on the planet has adequate nutrition and shelter and means to maintain his/her health. That's not intended to be comprehensive, but it gives an idea. There are things we might want to achieve beyond these basics, but the principle holds.
To achieve what we want for humanity as a whole, it follows that there is work to do and it seems only fair that each person does their fair share of it. This is not all that easy as people have different abilities individually and over time. No work should be done by anyone or anything unless it furthers humanity's goal of being a successful species in the long term.
If we agree that we should share the work out fairly (even if it's not clear what 'fairly' entails), it makes perfect sense for us to automate / eradicate as much work as possible. Why do it if it's not helping us achieve our goals? Why have futile, or worse, destructive jobs just to get money? Why do the work ourselves if machines can do it quicker, more accurately, and without the need for rest and recreation? Why don't we just do the work that machines can't do.
There's a great deal of intellect being deployed in playing what are really games with money, albeit in increasingly abstract forms. "Options" to buy shares at a certain price at certain time are just one example of an abstraction from money, which is an abstraction in itself in that its only actual use is to procure resources. Those intellects need to be deployed directly towards the survival and true prosperity of our species. The games they play are not frivolous as - say - computer games could be seen to be, because money is viewed as a resource in itself, even though it is actually a proxy, or an attempt at a proxy, for all other resources. If those resourced aren't scarce, money doesn't fit in, so the monetary system seeks to make them scarce to fit its world view.
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Anarchy, Marxism, RBE
http://erispandora.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/marxism-2-0-the-dangers-of-the-venus-project/
I've been debating with an anarchist blogger who says that TVP/RBE is Marxism - you can see the exchange through the above link.
I'm only interested in whether the aims of TVP/RBE are desirable and achievable. Labels don't really help. The writer has a tendency to claim that the RBE has certain attributes that s/he finds undesirable, and claims that proponents of RBE actually welcome those attributes. The other possibilities are that our system does not have those attributes, or that it does but we don't find them desirable (in which case we would seek to remove them). And of course there could be a straightforward disagreement over the desirability of the attribute.
I've been debating with an anarchist blogger who says that TVP/RBE is Marxism - you can see the exchange through the above link.
I'm only interested in whether the aims of TVP/RBE are desirable and achievable. Labels don't really help. The writer has a tendency to claim that the RBE has certain attributes that s/he finds undesirable, and claims that proponents of RBE actually welcome those attributes. The other possibilities are that our system does not have those attributes, or that it does but we don't find them desirable (in which case we would seek to remove them). And of course there could be a straightforward disagreement over the desirability of the attribute.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Motivation in an RBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
Daniel Pink talks about motivation in this 18 video given in Oxford (England). He shows from scientific research that motivation comes from Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose - being able to work under your own authority, building your expertise and working for something bigger than yourself. It is well worth watching. He cites global concerns like Wikipedia and Google in his presentation.
Daniel Pink talks about motivation in this 18 video given in Oxford (England). He shows from scientific research that motivation comes from Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose - being able to work under your own authority, building your expertise and working for something bigger than yourself. It is well worth watching. He cites global concerns like Wikipedia and Google in his presentation.
Smoking is good for you
Smoking is good for you. It creates jobs on tobacco farms, in cigarette factories, and in advertising and retail. The illnesses it causes need treating in hospitals and this creates work for doctors and nurses, ancillary staff in the hospital, and the people who design and build hospitals. It makes work for the people who make anti-cancer treatments. It even makes work for road sweepers and others dealing with smoking litter, and of course the people who work in industries that make lighters, matches, ash trays etc. Paradoxically, it also benefits the people who work in the 'stop smoking' industry: Those who give advice and hypnosis counselling, those involved in the manufacture of nicotine patches and gum, and those pretend cigarettes that help you give up the real thing. it's all economic growth.
The government, realising the cost to businesses of progressively banning cigarettes, has postponed the enactment of the Tobacco Act passed by the outgoing Labour Government which would see further restriction. (This is not a party political statement - the same paradoxes apply in a monetary economy whoever runs it).
Lunacy. In a sane world, if people really wanted to smoke, provided they knew the risks, no-one would absolutely want to stop them, but if people didn't have to have jobs to get money to access the essentials of life, who would work in an industry that both wants you to smoke and wants you to stop smoking. In a sane world, where only work that has a social return is done, there would be less work to do, and less stress - and less smoking to palliate the stress. (Whilst tobacco can hardly be seen as one of life's essentials, and thus the nutrients to grow it would be prioritised to food, there would be no moral reason for preventing its use.)
In a world without money people wouldn't have to be bonded in slavery paying back loan with interest. No-one would need to sell anything, including tobacco, and therefore no-one would need to push anything through advertising. The only 'advertising' would simply give information about the product/service.
The government, realising the cost to businesses of progressively banning cigarettes, has postponed the enactment of the Tobacco Act passed by the outgoing Labour Government which would see further restriction. (This is not a party political statement - the same paradoxes apply in a monetary economy whoever runs it).
Lunacy. In a sane world, if people really wanted to smoke, provided they knew the risks, no-one would absolutely want to stop them, but if people didn't have to have jobs to get money to access the essentials of life, who would work in an industry that both wants you to smoke and wants you to stop smoking. In a sane world, where only work that has a social return is done, there would be less work to do, and less stress - and less smoking to palliate the stress. (Whilst tobacco can hardly be seen as one of life's essentials, and thus the nutrients to grow it would be prioritised to food, there would be no moral reason for preventing its use.)
In a world without money people wouldn't have to be bonded in slavery paying back loan with interest. No-one would need to sell anything, including tobacco, and therefore no-one would need to push anything through advertising. The only 'advertising' would simply give information about the product/service.
Turkeys voting for Christmas
Andrew Gilligan, writing in The Sunday Telegraph, opined that Civil Servants ("Sir Humphreys") will not co-operate with moves to make the Civil Service more efficient by sacking civil servants. This is so obvious it hardly needs saying, but of course journalists get paid for writing so they write.
Peter Joseph says in 'The Zeitgeist Addendum' (possibly quoting someone else) "Human employment is in direct competition with technical development". May be technical development isn't quite the issue here, but why would Civil Servants or anyone else deprive themselves of a living by cutting out their own jobs in the name of efficiency? We need to decide what things need doing for our race/planet to thrive, and set about getting them done in the most efficient way possible - ie with the least human effort, which means machines and automation. Being deliberately inefficient so as to create work so that people can get money and thereby food is plainly diametrically opposed to being more efficient. We don't need Mr Gilligan to tell us this, but he has to eat too.
Peter Joseph says in 'The Zeitgeist Addendum' (possibly quoting someone else) "Human employment is in direct competition with technical development". May be technical development isn't quite the issue here, but why would Civil Servants or anyone else deprive themselves of a living by cutting out their own jobs in the name of efficiency? We need to decide what things need doing for our race/planet to thrive, and set about getting them done in the most efficient way possible - ie with the least human effort, which means machines and automation. Being deliberately inefficient so as to create work so that people can get money and thereby food is plainly diametrically opposed to being more efficient. We don't need Mr Gilligan to tell us this, but he has to eat too.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Even the crash makes work - pointless work - for people to do
Prof Niall Ferguson's TV programme, The Ascent of Money is being shown again on TV at the moment. In the first episode, he shows how the poor people of Memphis are loaned money to buy a car, but they can't afford to pay back the loan so the loan is 'restructured' and the car repossessed and put back on sale possibly in the same dealership that sold it to the first hapless customer.
The people restructuring their loans go to see lawyers, who are in effect paid to change a subprime loan that should never have been made by the bankers, into a loan that has some prospect of being paid back. There's also work for auction houses selling the same cars over and over again as they cycle round from individual to bank to auctioneer, to car dealer, to individual ...
Nothing productive, nothing worthwhile, all just games with money, moving cars around physically, nd admin as the 'title' to the car changes hands.
The people restructuring their loans go to see lawyers, who are in effect paid to change a subprime loan that should never have been made by the bankers, into a loan that has some prospect of being paid back. There's also work for auction houses selling the same cars over and over again as they cycle round from individual to bank to auctioneer, to car dealer, to individual ...
Nothing productive, nothing worthwhile, all just games with money, moving cars around physically, nd admin as the 'title' to the car changes hands.
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