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

[Ryan Lanham]

I think there is a big need for a good lifelong learning blog.  That could
support advertising and be socially just.  I also think it could lead to a
number of constructive career opportunities.

Ryan

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Paul D. Fernhout <
pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:

> 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/
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>



-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20091028/a03c28cb/attachment.html>