tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post6631037997608435627..comments2024-03-22T10:49:51.766-05:00Comments on Horizons: A choice between human dignity and profitNancy LeTourneauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-48787599642738219212012-07-03T19:53:29.860-05:002012-07-03T19:53:29.860-05:00but we all know that the trouble for us socialists...<i>but we all know that the trouble for us socialists comes when we get to a concrete discussion of what we're for--what we want a future to look like. This is because it's harder to discuss what is not than what is.</i><br /><br />That pretty much nails it. <br /><br />It reminds me that one time I heard a speaker say that the mark of a true leader is to be able to "see what isn't there."Nancy LeTourneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-11995372389667964202012-07-03T10:35:31.888-05:002012-07-03T10:35:31.888-05:00There is a fundamental difference between republic...There is a fundamental difference between republicans and Democrats. Republicans put money first. Democrats put people first.Jerry Critterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870618647449723147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-58258633059502435452012-07-03T10:35:25.514-05:002012-07-03T10:35:25.514-05:00There is a fundamental difference between republic...There is a fundamental difference between republicans and Democrats. Republicans put money first. Democrats put people first.Jerry Critterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870618647449723147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-44708437595424668032012-07-03T10:24:10.970-05:002012-07-03T10:24:10.970-05:00I like the Wire, too, and actually am in the middl...I like the Wire, too, and actually am in the middle of the third season, watching it for the second time. Bubbles is my favorite character, followed by Lester, who is the person I would want to be if I could be any television character, and not just because he ends up with Shardene.<br /><br />I participated in a Marx reading group a few years ago with a great bunch of people, and a recurring theme in our discussion was that of time. Discussing capitalism, it's easy to say what you're against, but we all know that the trouble for us socialists comes when we get to a concrete discussion of what we're for--what we want a future to look like. This is because it's harder to discuss what is not than what is.<br /><br />Anyway, the fact that mechanization reduces the amount of time it takes to produce X means that either people as a whole work less time or we just produce more stuff. The latter is capitalism. Produce more, consume more. Italo Calvino put it well in his <a href="http://astro.temple.edu/~sdrury/iteramedia2004/calvino.htm" rel="nofollow">description of Leonia</a> in Invisible Cities:<br /><br />"The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, extend over a wider perimeter. Besides, the more Leonia's talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains.<br /><br /> This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them; the scales of its past are soldered into a cuirass that cannot be removed. As the city is renewed each day, it preserves all of itself in its only definitive form: yesterday's sweepings piled up on the sweepings of the day before yesterday and of all its days and years and decades"<br /><br />The other option is the former. We can create institutions that facilitate people working less. In capitalism, we have surplus people, whom Marx famously labelled "the reserve army of the unemployed." We could very well create institutions that facilitate the distribution of surplus time.<br /><br />Practically: we know that in France there was legislated a shorter work week. This kind of thing is a start. The shorter work week did not stimulate the growth of profit. It was, however, a success.Billhttp://freeandeasywandering.com/noreply@blogger.com