From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 18:00:49 MST
Alexander writes
> First of all, the argument has been made that Bill Gates is corrupt and that
> his products aren't very good, but that they were sold on uninformed
> customers by a very good marketing team....
> This is an example, though, of the essential corrupt nature of
> capitalism--if your goal is to bring resources under your personal
> control in any way you can, then of course you don't care about your
> customers, and you'll take advantage of them in any way you think you
> can get away with.
Historically, we tend to find that the only *long-term* care people
have for others is when it is in their self-interest (excluding the
ties in families or very small communities).
> Of course, the argument is made that someone will be forced to care
> about their customers because otherwise they won't be able to entice
> them into putting resources under their control--
Thanks for recapitulating the arguments thus far (which I haven't followed)
> but why not just have a system where the people who produce something
> care about producing it because they think producing it is important?
You are, now, talking about what other human beings care about,
and it's not at all easy to arrange for what other human beings
care about---I have immense trouble with just what I care about.
> Instead of having a system which is essentially a war of all against
> all, why not have one where people cooperate voluntarily for purposes
> they see as important?
Skinner had something like this going in "Walden II", except that
each person's contribution was rewarded strictly in accordance
with that person's output.
> Is nothing meaningful to anyone except a threat? Are people
> really that stupid, and the masters really that intelligent?
> And how is this a humanistic system?
I don't know of any "humanistic" systems (in your terms) that have
withstood the test of time. Countless communes were tried in the
U.S., in both this century and last century. Obviously they were
not attractive enough to have grown enough to be noticeable, nor
have they in any way displaced traditional systems. Yes, *these*
days this could indeed be attributed to the use of force by
governments to repress them, but the U.S. was a much freer place
in many ways in the 1800's, and still the communes failed. Do you
know why?
I'm sure that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people
feel the way you do. What if the U.S. government gave permission
for you to all live together in some nice national forest where
you could all cooperate voluntarily for the purposes that you see
as important? What do you think would happen?
Lee
P.S. Who wrote "Tension, Apprehension, and Dissention have Begun;
Tension, Apprehension, and Dissention have Begun; Tension, Apprehension,
and Dissention have Begun; Tension, Apprehension, and Dissention have
Begun. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Tenser said the Tensor."
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