billbartlett at dodo.com.au wrote:
>
>
> As for innovation, this is almost the exclusive preserve of those who have a high degree of leisure and security. People who are forced to slave all day for their whole life don't have much energy, never mind the spare time, for innovation.
>
My focus at the present time is on quite other matters than that of market socialism -- but I think this principle of "incentives for innocation" is the weakest part of the argument for market socialism, that in fact it is rather an argument _against_ market socialism, or any other system with strong incentives to increase productivity or variety of products.
I am among those marxists who feel that _any_ conceivable conception of "human nature" will be either tautological (trivially so: humans by nature need to breathe) or incoherent. But if I were to speculate (foolishly by definition) on human nature, I would say that the strongest non-tautological element in this hypothesized "human nature" is that rapid change creates stress which fucks up the autoimmune systemn dramatically. The strongest abstract motive for socialist revolution is to eliminate such stress.
I do not oppose innovation (which goes back 50,000 years or so), nor do I oppose variety as such. I oppose the social chaos and individual stress generated when reality is projected into the future.
Carrol