i can't speak for him but I know what I've always said about this issue: fuck you, pay me. (was originally the title of The Coup's last album. they changed it for some reason). not because i feel some sense of ownership, but because I see what is happening as way in which we are increasingly imprinting the idea that our labor, the work we do to create things for others, is so unimportant that we created world, not where our labor is cherished and honored, but where it is systematically denigrated.
It is similar to what really bothers me about Michael Moore (and lots of other people) saying that we could have "free" healthcare. Or "free" schooling. Or "free" college educations for all. O plz! In the countries that currently have what we call "free" healthcare, it is funded by the citizens of those countries. even if it is freakin funded by taxes on corporations or some shit, corporations pass the cost of that tax on to people who buy their products. thus, people are still freakin' "paying for it."
yes, yes... in the socialist future. sure. to each according to his need...
When I talk about 'circuitous' I'm talking about the fetishization of "free" such that people no longer understand how they pay for something - like health care in currently existing societies that have "free" health care. There's a story there, ripe for analysis, that a contemporary Marx could examine for the way this fetish is working to obscure the godamned social relations of production. The thing magically lands on the supermarket shelves, where you buy it. No idea or understanding of the social relationships that went on to create that product and get it on the shelves. People - the actual involvement of *people* inthe creation of those productions - is hidden from view. When it isn't even a commodity anymore - but really fucking is, just in a very circuitous way - the shit is still going on - the commodity fetishism, only now, really people and the labor they do to create things have totally evaporated from the picture.
and why it matters to me is because I happen to think, as a sociologist, that it is important what kind of norms and values are systematically shaped now -- because they will shape the way we think about what is possible later. it's inevitable. it has always worked that way. This is the same reason why I say it's important to keep on keep on with whatever social movement activities we do. Not because I think building a workers justice center or having a demo or whatever is going to fxi the problem, but because we are creating, in those world, alternative modes of being, alternative practices and thinking, alternative norms, mores, practices, beliefs that will help shape us into the people that will create a socialist future.
what e create with the "free" mentality is not, as far as I'm concerned, people who are capable of envisioning a socialist future. these are people who have no idea how something gets to their plate, their ears, their eyes, their minds, the fingers. and as such, they have no idea what is involved in actually creating the food, clothing, shelter, art, music, culture that is everyone's due - "to each according to his need..."
and if what we need in a socialist future are people who understand how important our labor is to the sustenance of ourselves and everyone else i the world, whether they are peole you know or don't know and will never know, a world now that encourages us to trash and devalue labor, that encourages us to think that people can simply create and give and give and give - some other group - and you, and your group, can take and take and take without ever thinking about how what you are taking and enjoying got there, without ever appreciating their labor... well, ain't no socialist society worthy of the name will ever come in world where labor is so godamned worthless.
for that very same reason, carrol incenses the hell out of me when he runs around telling me that people who work hard at work at, somehow, almost as bad as scabs. oh, how that makes me want to scream. people who work hard are never doign it because they are tools for the corporation, concerned about company profits. they are doing it because they care about the people they work with and they care about the people for whom they create things.
and we better goddamned cultivate *that* sensibility in this world now because it's not magically going to emerge in the socialist future. we create the practices of solidarity now that will sustain us through socialist revolution and reconstruction (? word choice?) in the fucking future. humans aren't magically born from the head of zeus after the revolution fully possessed of the talents and skills required to do the work of creating that future society. so, when people - like people who work hard at their jobs - are doing it as an act of solidarity - because I don't know anyone who works hard for any other reason -- are mocked and ridiculed as dupes of ideology, all you're doing is normalizing social practices and habits that systematically devalue solidarity - which we'll surely fucking need now and in the future.
somehow,that's all damn related. not that anyone made it this far!
At 04:26 PM 7/9/2010, Gar Lipow wrote:
> >
> > On Jul 8, 2010, at 11:21 PM, Julio Huato wrote:
> >
> >> Any (conventional) public-finance economist would say -- "Music,
> >> journalism, popular art, etc. are nonrivalrous and very expensive to
> >> exclude, hence they fit very closely the definition of 'public goods.'
> >> The market will fail in trying to provide them. They should be
> >> publicly provided."
> >
>
>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.
>
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