Doug Henwood replied
> Right. And any ideas that might be applicable to the USA we live in?
T
he old limited monopoly was not very successful long before the
electronic dollars. In real dollars compensation for writing books,
music and art was going down long before the internet came along. You
might want to do a graph of increased copyright rigor compared to
compensation per word (in real dollars) for free lance writers, and
authors of books So, to make sure we are on the same page, can we
agree that encouragement by the wicked wicked internet to download
stuff for free is not at the top of the list of problems of
intellectual labor in a capitalist society? And that arresting 17-year
olds for downloading music, and establishing a regime where accused
downloaders are guilty until proven innocent is not something people
want a better rather than worse world should be encouraging? I don't
for a minute think you want either of those things, but it is worth
remembering that this is basically what Prince's rant supports
(whether it is what he wants or not). In short, to the extent that
Prince is not just whining about the tens of millions he already has
not not being enough, his rant is mostly scapegoating. He may have a
point, but not much of a point.
As to public solutions not being practical in the U.S. we live in. You know there a hell of lot of problems to which public solutions are the only solutions. I don't know if the problem of getting more compensation of intellectual workers is one of them. But if you reject public solutions maybe you are just saying the space for paid intellectual work that produces something outside of corporate control is going to get smaller, and the capitalist control over intellectual labor is going to continue to tighten. Which does not really seem unlikely. This may just be another area where we are screwed and will continue to be screwed for some time to come.
Ultimately I think socialism which I don't think we are going to get in my lifetime, may be the only type of society that can solve a lot of the major problems the world faces today. Within capitalism, an approach that is focused on public solutions, more democracy, more power for the working class is the only approach that can significantly mitigate a lot of problem. In the absence of either socialism or social democracy, the localists really have a point. Not that their solutions are not deeply flawed, but even if localist solutions accomplish only modest nibbling at the edges, that modest nibbling at the edges is preferable to the nothing that is better solutions that can't (at the moment) be implemented because we don't have to power to either overthrow capitalism or even win significant consessions.
So at the moment I suppose the solution in today's US is various types of voluntary organizations that raise money to compensate intellecual work, and perhaps some local arts and writing co-ops. These won't start raising the level of compensation for intellectual labor any more than community gardens solve the problem of lack of healthy and affordable food for people. But community gardens in certain models really do get fresh food and vegatables to a few people who not have access to them otherwise. Maybe some of the alternative models out there can do the same for intellectual workers who want to come up with stuff more creative or more critical than fits into the standard corporate model. Like community gardens, anything along those lines won't solve the fundamental problem, won't even do much for the majority of people affected. But just as community gardens help improve nutrition for a few hungry people, maybe some sort of alternative model can provide income for a few currently uncompensated intellectual works. I guarantee that more rigorous copyright enforcement won't make your life better, and will in truth make it worse. So if you just dismiss public options, then it is time to face that we are screwed and think about minor mitigation that nibbles around the edges. Cause there is nothing except public options that can tackle any of the major issues today on the same scale as the problems. Or maybe, we need to find a way to support public options for problems where that is the solution. Maybe giving up on that is conceding a little too much intellectual and propaganda territory to the bad guys.