by
Jaron Lanier
37
The Ad Hoc Construction of Mass Dignity
1
terms
4
notes
38
Marx wanted something that most people, including me, don't want: a committee to make sure everyone gets what's best for them. Let's reject the Marxist ideal and instead consider the question of whether markets can be counted on to create middle classes as a matter of course.
if by committee he means central state that's accountable to the demos, then why not???? how is this worse than having what you get in life determined mostly by your conditions of birth????
and this neoliberal focus on middle classes is driving me mad. you can probably sense my exasperation by how much less effort i'm putting into these comments over the course of the book
Marx wanted something that most people, including me, don't want: a committee to make sure everyone gets what's best for them. Let's reject the Marxist ideal and instead consider the question of whether markets can be counted on to create middle classes as a matter of course.
if by committee he means central state that's accountable to the demos, then why not???? how is this worse than having what you get in life determined mostly by your conditions of birth????
and this neoliberal focus on middle classes is driving me mad. you can probably sense my exasperation by how much less effort i'm putting into these comments over the course of the book
43
The prominence of middle classes in the last century actually made the rich richer than would have a quest to concentrate wealth absolutely. Broad economic expansion is more lucrative than the winner taking all. Some of the very rich occasionally express doubts, but even from the most elite perspective, widespread affluence is best nurtured, rather than sapped into oblivion. Henry Ford, for instance, made a point of pricing his earliest mass-produced cars so that his own factory workers could afford to buy them. It is that balance that creates economic growth, and thus opportunity for more wealth.
Even the ultrarich are best served by a bell curve distribution of wealth in a society with a healthy middle class.
this passage is basically a plea to rich people to convince them that middle classes are good for them. this is such an obvious economic fact that it's hilarious he even has to include it at all (not a joke at his expense; he is absolutely right to include this, because a lot of fiscal conservatives don't seem to realise it)
it's just funny for someone like me to read this, because my immediate conclusion is not "ah yes, cool, let's keep the middle class then" but rather "abolish classes"
The prominence of middle classes in the last century actually made the rich richer than would have a quest to concentrate wealth absolutely. Broad economic expansion is more lucrative than the winner taking all. Some of the very rich occasionally express doubts, but even from the most elite perspective, widespread affluence is best nurtured, rather than sapped into oblivion. Henry Ford, for instance, made a point of pricing his earliest mass-produced cars so that his own factory workers could afford to buy them. It is that balance that creates economic growth, and thus opportunity for more wealth.
Even the ultrarich are best served by a bell curve distribution of wealth in a society with a healthy middle class.
this passage is basically a plea to rich people to convince them that middle classes are good for them. this is such an obvious economic fact that it's hilarious he even has to include it at all (not a joke at his expense; he is absolutely right to include this, because a lot of fiscal conservatives don't seem to realise it)
it's just funny for someone like me to read this, because my immediate conclusion is not "ah yes, cool, let's keep the middle class then" but rather "abolish classes"
45
Markets are an information technology. A technology is useless if it can't be tweaked. If market technology can't be fully automatic and needs some "buttons", then there's no use in trying to pretend otherwise. You don't stay attached to poorly performing quests for perfection. You fix bugs.
And there are bugs! We just went through taxpayer-funded bailouts of networked finance in much of the world, and no amount of austerity seems enough to fully pay for that. So the technology needs to be tweaked. Wanting to tweak a technology shows a commitment to it, not a rejection of it.
So, let us continue with the project at hand, which is to see if network technology can make capitalism better instead of worse. Please don't pretend there's some "pure" form of capitalism we should be faithful to. There isnt.
at least he does accept that markets need regulation and that austerity is bad, props for that
Markets are an information technology. A technology is useless if it can't be tweaked. If market technology can't be fully automatic and needs some "buttons", then there's no use in trying to pretend otherwise. You don't stay attached to poorly performing quests for perfection. You fix bugs.
And there are bugs! We just went through taxpayer-funded bailouts of networked finance in much of the world, and no amount of austerity seems enough to fully pay for that. So the technology needs to be tweaked. Wanting to tweak a technology shows a commitment to it, not a rejection of it.
So, let us continue with the project at hand, which is to see if network technology can make capitalism better instead of worse. Please don't pretend there's some "pure" form of capitalism we should be faithful to. There isnt.
at least he does accept that markets need regulation and that austerity is bad, props for that
plutocracy
(en)
(noun) government by the wealthy / (noun) a controlling class of the wealthy
48
Without our system of levees, rising like a glimmering bell-curved mountain of rice paddies, capitalism would probably have decayed into Marx's "attractor nightmare" in which markets decay into plutocracy.
at least he does accept the existence of levees
notable
7 years, 2 months ago
Without our system of levees, rising like a glimmering bell-curved mountain of rice paddies, capitalism would probably have decayed into Marx's "attractor nightmare" in which markets decay into plutocracy.
at least he does accept the existence of levees
notable
7 years, 2 months ago
51
Copying a musician's music ruins economic dignity. It doesn't necessarily deny the musician any form of income, but it does mean that the musician is restricted to a real-time economic life. That means one gets paid to perform, perhaps, but not paid for music one has recorded in the past. It is one thing to sing for your supper occasionally, but to have to do so for every meal forces you into a peasant's dilemma.
how can you see a phrase like "economic dignity" and not roll your eyes? what does it even mean? what does its usage say about capitalism realism and the extent to which this author has bought into it?
the main problem here is that he foresees musicians not getting paid (enough) for their music in the future, but is apparently incapable of imagining a world where you don't need to "get paid" in order to survive ... his projections for tech are spot-on, but his projections for the political sphere are extremely reactionary and naive
Copying a musician's music ruins economic dignity. It doesn't necessarily deny the musician any form of income, but it does mean that the musician is restricted to a real-time economic life. That means one gets paid to perform, perhaps, but not paid for music one has recorded in the past. It is one thing to sing for your supper occasionally, but to have to do so for every meal forces you into a peasant's dilemma.
how can you see a phrase like "economic dignity" and not roll your eyes? what does it even mean? what does its usage say about capitalism realism and the extent to which this author has bought into it?
the main problem here is that he foresees musicians not getting paid (enough) for their music in the future, but is apparently incapable of imagining a world where you don't need to "get paid" in order to survive ... his projections for tech are spot-on, but his projections for the political sphere are extremely reactionary and naive