I should have known someone, very likely Henry would already be onto the thing that I've been obsessing on in the last few weelks. A funny thing happened to Capitalism on the way to cyberspace, eh Henry. I havn't quite followed the thread to your conclusion, but I have been amused at the direction of change. For years I've found clothes that make you a walking billboard annoying, and the people who embrace that fashion, dupes. Could the worm be turning? With the Internet, eye-balls R Us. What is that going to mean? Content will be king? Will writers and other amusing people get better job opportunities? Instead of someone paying $50 bucks to advertise for a company, maybe the company will pay them to wear the clothes. But then, where will profit come from. Are we Ad=World bound? The consumer as King? When will we start hearing jokes about the consumer, the shareholder and the laborer. Things are getting pretty mixed up and if I had an analytical mind I'd be trying to seee the connection between these developments and classical economic stuff.
I keep wondering if this road is leading to Utopia, ie, people get material support based on nothing more than their existence.
Question on a less amusing subject. Since WW II, has any other country ever bombed the capital city of another? I can't think of any. And noow we've done it three times. Who will rise to stifle this rabid cur of a country?
Miss you guys. Still jammin' with Edgar.
smooches paula
At 10:44 AM 4/2/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Indusrtial trends show hardare cost for PC/internet access will move
>toward zero with purchase of access contracts. The day is fast
>approaching that incentive cash will be paid to customers up front at
>contract signing. Finally PCs are going the way of telephones and cell
>phones. Soon auto manufacturers will hook up with oil companies for
>free new cars every two years connected to life time name brand gasoline
>purchase contracts of about $300 per month.
>Vertical integration is moving from the production side to the sales
>side, putting the final nails in the coffin for "free markets and
>competition" in the classical sense. Soon financial institutions will
>provide you with all your consumer needs plus a guaranteed job to
>support the monthly payments.
>Is this market socialism through the IT backdoor of capitalism?
>Who will join the revolution if all consumption is "free" simply by
>signing one's life to the system at age 18. Exploitation becomes
>totally subliminal and systemic.
>Have Marxist economists notice this brave new trend?
>
>Henry C.K. Liu
>
>
>