[p2p-research] Beyond Julian Simon; a meta failure of free markets as labor value declines

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> 
>> Summary:
>>
>> What if Julian Simon's idea of the human imagination as the ultimate
>> resource gets applied directly to reducing the cost (and value) of most
>> human labor, instead of just to reducing the cost of goods? Like through
>> robotics and better design? And what if the human imagination gets applied
>> to reducing the cost (and value) of imagination itself through AI? What are
>> the consequences for an economy built around an ideology of scarcity, where
>> the only right to consume comes for the value of most people's labor?
>>
> It never ceases to amaze me how people can be thinking about the same
> things simultaneously but in completely different ways.  I am gearing up to
> start a blog on what I call the "New Workforce Development."  In that world,
> I view the dignity of individuals to be tied, in part, to their
> productivity, as I do my own.
> 
> I realize that is not a fundamental human view, but it's not uncommon
> amongst reasonable people in my world.  My life isn't my work, but my work
> is meaningful in part because I matter.  I think many people want to
> matter.  In fact, I'd argue that mattering is more important than money form
> most--given basic necessities being met.
> 
> The value of my labor is never external.  Never has been.  It has always
> been a combination of external and internal.  Quite honestly I have had
> ideas worth many millions of dollars--and they're not my best.  So how would
> I value my own imagination?  To me it is intrinsically related to
> mattering.  Without that, I am depressive and minimally productive.  When I
> can do something that has a positive impact on others, I am energized and
> focused.
> 
> There's something wrong with our views of labor.  It is far more complex
> than a simple transactional process of getting bread and computer chips.
> 
> Talking about my "surplus" makes me very low.  I don't have a "surplus."  I
> have talents and I use them.  Somehow we need to admit that not all horses
> pull the same plows and some horses glory in a plow and others in a race
> track.

Yes, we really need to rethink work. :-)

But there are lots of possibilities, especially transitioning from a society 
built around the Protestant work ethic for the masses.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

James P. Hogan had one approach in "Voyage from Yesteryear":
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
"Since the availability of power from fusion reactors and cheap automated 
labor has enabled them to develop a post-scarcity economy, they do not use 
money as a means of exchange, nor do they recognize material possessions as 
symbols of status. Instead, competence and talent are considered symbolic of 
one's social standing – resources that cannot be counterfeited or hoarded, 
and must be put to use if they are to be acknowledged. As a result, the 
competitive drive that fuels capitalist financial systems has filled the 
colony with the products of decades of incredible artistic and technical 
talent, and there are no widespread hierarchies. No one person or group of 
people can know everything, so no one person or group of people is expected 
to speak for all. They have no centralized authorities; some would say they 
have no government at all."

In that world, robots did most of the repetitive stuff, and could even help 
raise children, so there was not much unskilled stuff that really needed doing.

But, even aspects of rethinking work are glossed over in VFY, compared to 
rethinking much of it as play, like Bob Black talks:
   "The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black, 1985
   http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

He drew from the idea of Charles Fourier and others:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier
"""
Fourier was born in Besançon on April 7, 1772.  ... Walter Benjamin 
considered Fourier crucial enough to devote an entire "konvolut" of his 
massive, projected book on the Paris arcades, the Passagenwerk, to Fourier's 
thought and influence. He writes: "To have instituted play as the canon of a 
labor no longer rooted in exploitation is one of the great merits of 
Fourier," and notes that "Only in the summery middle of the nineteenth 
century, only under its sun, can one conceive of Fourier's fantasy 
materialized."
"""

The Skills of Xanadu from 1950 had a similar idea of work as play:
   http://p2pfoundation.net/Skills_of_Xanadu

Still, is raising children well "work"? Yet it is one of the most important 
things anyone can do.

Same for being a good friend or a good neighbor. Is it "work"?

What about comforting the dying? "Work"?

Or even being a good clown? :-)
   "Patch Adams on living a life of joy"
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=gNakIQLNuR4

Maybe a clown good at getting people to play outdoors?
   "Vitamin D may help with panic attacks"
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/panic-attacks-and-treatments-1321576.html

Or even a good cook: :-)
  "Vitamin B12 may help with preventing "paranoia (megaloblastic madness),
delirium, confusion".
   http://dr-lobisco.com/blog/?p=128

Maybe vitamin deficiency and humor deficiency and play deficiency helps 
explain part of current politics? :-)

Someone like Chris Mercogliano might agree?
  http://www.spinninglobe.net/introrestless.htm
  http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

So, yes, "There's something wrong with our views of labor." I agree. It's 
something worth exploring more.

Here is a job where one might do that?
   "Policy Analyst, Next Social Contract Initiative"
   http://www.newamerica.net/about/employment_opportunities/16293

There are other policy jobs there that people on this list may find of 
interest.

Plus maybe other sources of funding for such "play" about "work": :-)
   http://www.newamerica.net/about/funding

Chris Mercogliano in this book:
   "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness"
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Childhood-Protecting-Inner-Wildness/dp/0807032867
he cites Dutch author Johann Huizinga writing in 1938 who was concerned 
about the loss of play in Western Civilization and a relation between play 
and a free society. The Nazis killed him in the end, but his ideas "play" on.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Huizinga
"Alarmed by the rise of national-socialism in Germany, Huizinga wrote 
several works of cultural criticism. Many similarities can be noted between 
his analysis and that of contemporary critics such as Ortega y Gasset and 
Oswald Spengler. Huizinga argued that the spirit of technical and mechanical 
organisation had replaced spontaneous and organic order and cultural as well 
as political life."

To the extent I agree with US conservatives, the point they make of fascism 
or other domination from the left has some resonance with that history.

Of course, dominating hierarchies can come from all directions; again, it's 
an issue of a balance of meshworks and hierarchies and Manuel de Landa 
suggests.

But getting people to have a certain view of "work", especially through 
compulsory schooling, is a central part of our current societal dysfunction, 
as John Taylor Gatto explores in his writings.

We could look hard at how the Native Americans, how the Australian 
Aborigines, how the pre-Colonial Africans, and how many others pre-scarcity 
societies looked at life to see new ways forward towards a post-scarcity 
society. Daniel Quinn did that some in his book "Beyond Civilization".
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Quinn
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Civilization

Looking there now, I see Daniel Quinn also wrote this children's book:
   http://www.amazon.com/Work-Daniel-Quinn/dp/158642114X
"""
Work, Work, Work is the story of an industrious gopher whose lifework is to 
burrow from dawn to dusk under an enchanted land that he never sees. While 
he grumbles about his unceasing labors, the morning sky is spray-painted 
from a dirigible (and the sun gets a drop of blue in its eye), two UFOs from 
different planets meet for a strange exchange, an enormous octopus-like 
creature (who has just come from laying waste to Las Vegas) is subdued by a 
barrage of hats, hotdogs, and toasters, and, at the close of day, a window 
opens at the horizon so that a purple giant can hang the moon in the sky. 
Surfacing in the twilight, the gopher sighs, “Well, at least something 
happened. I ran into a rock!”
"""

Good luck with your blog if you start it. I started to lose interest in my 
new on "Beyond a Jobless Recovery" as soon as I started thinking about it as 
possibly paying work if I were to put advertising on it. :-) Which I haven't 
so far, but just the thought of maybe doing that was demotivating enough. :-)
   "Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator: Creativity and intrinsic 
interest diminish if task is done for gain"
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

But, sadly, I don't live in a world with a basic income yet, so something's 
got to give. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/