[p2p-research] Structural Unemployment... round #3527

[Ryan Lanham]

Totally agree P2P activism doesn't need to be based in any sort of belief in
imminent doom.  Far from it.

But P2P theory is informed by structural evolutions of society.  Looking out
20-50 years these are split typically between utopian and dystopian
visions.

Not many people who are serious about the future (I'm not sure if I'd put
Rifkin in that camp or not...he seems more a salesman than a futurist...sort
of like Faith Popcorn or Al Gore) see things contining as now.

Will 2030 be more or less different from 2010 than 1990?  If one goes back
to 1990, most of the major issues on the agenda today were not prominent
issues then.  If one buys into social acceleration, we begin to see 2050 as
very different from now compared to 1970.  I remember 1970 quite well...3
television channels, no computers, 35 cent gas, no knowledge of genetics,
robotics or nanotechnology to speak of...etc.  I also remember 1990
extremely well.  And I would say that now is incredibly different...though
significantly similar as well.

My guess is that 2030 will look quite different from 2010.  If repealing the
minimum wage is our big idea for response, I doubt we'll be up to the
challenge.

Many on this list will live to 2050...a very different world from now.
People are on this list I think because they care about what 2050 looks
like...and 2030.

On 12/10/09, Edward Miller <embraceunity at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marx actually would not buy into any of the End of Work arguments.
>
> Here is a pretty good refutation of Negri, Rifkin, and others from an
> anarchist and quasi-marxist perspective:
>
> http://multitudes.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=1927
>
> It is quite possible that Jeremy Rifkin doesn't believe in structural
> unemployment.... he just wants the capitalists to believe in it... as an
> alternative to needing to actually go through it.
>
> yet on the other hand it seems like maybe Alan Greenspan now believes in
> it.  I think there are a lot of feedback loops and such that make it hard to
> determine if it will happen or not, but to be honest, it doesn't matter that
> much. I don't think any P2P activism needs to be based on the belief in
> imminent doom.... from peak oil to structural unemployment. If it helps,
> then that's good I guess, but fear is a risky motivational technique. It
> tends to spin out of control.
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> These are Misian versus utilitarian arguments.  That sort of market
>> utilitarianism isn't going to get much of a response here.  People feel it
>> is simply silly to keep refuting these things...rather like continually
>> refuting global warming skeptics and evolution skeptics.
>>
>> The actual utilitarians would easily be with the P2P advocates I strongly
>> suspect...especially J.S. Mill.  The libertarians and Marxists who
>> bastardized Mill would be our enemies...always will be.  One side is blinded
>> by "markets" the other "equality."  Both are lies.
>>
>>
>


-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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