The Rich...

[Winchester]

We seem to be going in circles. Yes, you choose what you want to do with your time (I won't use the word "spend"). And industrial economy does reduce the time needed for certain tasks, but it creates new tasks that require even more time. Modern transportation increases speed and creates traffic. Man today doesn't have time to make his own clothes, he has to sit in traffic, spend 18 years in a classroom, and work himself dogged 40-60 hours a week to *maybe* have the privilege of living in his own house. Industrial economy creates new "opportunity costs." And getting back to the original point, the older "costs" were at least favorable to an independent existence. The new costs sacrifice humanity for efficiency. The modern "housewife" is an economized role...the housewife holds down the fort so the husband can spend his wonderful "opportunity cost" at the office. Pre-industrial society did not have less work to do at home, but it translated the work in social and cultural terms rather than understanding it in economic terms. The modern idea of "opportunity cost" is economic, based on the idea that time used not earning money, or preparing to earn money, in the economy is wasted time. Even the modern conception of a "resource" is a product of homo economicus. Industrial economy destroyed the commons and turned the common land into "resources" for economic opportunity.

So division of labor is actually bad?

[Era Might]

So division of labor is actually bad?

 

Not at all. Industrialization didn't create division of labor. Gender had always been a way to divide labor. But industrialization and capitalism created a society where people are dependent on products and services rather than personal and communal labor.

[4588686]

So division of labor is actually bad?

 

It is in the context of modern capitalism.  If you listen to the anarchists.  

[Winchester]

Not at all. Industrialization didn't create division of labor. Gender had always been a way to divide labor. But industrialization and capitalism created a society where people are dependent on products and services rather than personal and communal labor.

 

Labor produces the products. People have always depended on products--the cost used to be more dear, is all.

 

I didn't say industrialization invented division of labor.

[Era Might]

Labor produces the products. People have always depended on products--the cost used to be more dear, is all.

 

I didn't say industrialization invented division of labor.

 

A house should not have to be a product. Death should not have to be a product. Healing should not have to be a product. Learning should not have to be a product. Charity should not have to be a product.

 

The problem is not the existence of products, but that our entire lives are dependent on products and services. We're not talking about going to the local market and buying this or that fruit. We're talking about a society where a house is something you buy, not something you create (and that's only if you're lucky, the rest of people are "housed"). Even if I wanted to build my own house, I can't. Just to die you have to shell out thousands to the funeral home.

 

Food is another example. Of course, if I want, I can buy some patch of land and create food. But that doesn't change the fact that society is dominated by supermarkets, shopping malls, corporations, service professionals, medical professionals, educational professionals, political professionals, media professionals.

 

I am not against the ability to produce industrially. But as industrialization has been used, it has made us dependent, not independent. The point of technology should be to help us use our natural abilities even more, not replace them.

 

Of course, this is complicated by the fact that we have 6 billion people in the world now, a growth which is itself a consequence of industrialization and technology. Corporations have power and influence and an audience never dreamed of. If you think society is more independent because it can choose Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Sprite, I don't know what to say.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Era Might

[Winchester]

A house should not have to be a product. Death should not have to be a product. Healing should not have to be a product. Learning should not have to be a product. Charity should not have to be a product.

 

The problem is not the existence of products, but that our entire lives are dependent on products and services. We're not talking about going to the local market and buying this or that fruit. We're talking about a society where a house is something you buy, not something you create (and that's only if you're lucky, the rest of people are "housed"). Even if I wanted to build my own house, I can't. Just to die you have to shell out thousands to the funeral home.

 

Food is another example. Of course, if I want, I can buy some patch of land and create food. But that doesn't change the fact that society is dominated by supermarkets, shopping malls, corporations, service professionals, medical professionals, educational professionals, political professionals, media professionals.

 

I am not against the ability to produce industrially. But as industrialization has been used, it has made us dependent, not independent. The point of technology should be to help us use our natural abilities even more, not replace them.

 

Of course, this is complicated by the fact that we have 6 billion people in the world now, a growth which is itself a consequence of industrialization and technology. Corporations have power and influence and an audience never dreamed of. If you think society is more independent because it can choose Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Sprite, I don't know what to say.

I can't make you abandon your point of view.

 

Be the change you want to see in the world--Joe DiMaggio

 

 

I should point out that the thousands one spends for burial and all that are not a product of industrialization. That's law. You could build your own home. It would be crummy.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8oxC24QZc[/media]

Edited December 27, 2012 by Winchester

[4588686]

I should point out that the thousands one spends for burial and all that are not a product of industrialization. That's law. You could build your own home. It would be crummy.

 

You keep trying to decouple modern capitalism from the state. 

[Winchester]

You keep trying to decouple modern capitalism from the state. 

 

Not at all. Our "capitalism" is corporatism. The huge corporations rely on protection from the government to diminish competition.

 

And small businesses are certainly not immune to seeking the protection to be found in government.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Winchester

[Era Might]

That's law. You could build your own home. It would be crummy.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8oxC24QZc[/media]

 

Well of course it would be crummy, I don't live in a society where such things are normal (as they should be). When I visit Central America I am able to see what it's like in a society where independence is still a necessity for many things. People there still actually build their own houses. I would rather live in a hovel of my own making than in the projects. Life is also harder in Central America...industrialization could help make things easier, but it would be a shame if, as in America, it robs them of their day to day independence.

 

Cool song.

[4588686]

Not at all. Our "capitalism" is corporatism. The huge corporations rely on protection from the government to diminish competition.

 

And small businesses are certainly not immune to seeking the protection to be found in government.

 

I'm not asking this sarcastically, but do you view the rise of market economies with the modern state as coincidental?  

[Winchester]

I'm not asking this sarcastically, but do you view the rise of market economies with the modern state as coincidental?  

 

Of course not. It's the result of human action. But neither is a cause of the other, in my opinion. Certainly we cannot isolate those two things and make a simple cause/effect relationship.

Well of course it would be crummy, I don't live in a society where such things are normal (as they should be). When I visit Central America I am able to see what it's like in a society where independence is still a necessity for many things. People there still actually build their own houses. I would rather live in a hovel of my own making than in the projects. Life is also harder in Central America...industrialization could help make things easier, but it would be a shame if, as in America, it robs them of their day to day independence.

 

Cool song.

 

There you go, blaming society, again.

[Era Might]

Have any more tunes like that...

[Winchester]

Have any more tunes like that...

 

Youtube's full of 'em.

[add]

... are fattened cows.

 

There flatulence is the lead cause of global warming

[Nihil Obstat]

There flatulence is the lead cause of global warming

 

Here, there, who cares really?