v1.0 15sep2001: First version
By Matt Webb, with comments, hopefully.
I've been thinking for a while that there's something wrong with the "system", or at least that there are so many disparate groups objecting to it that there might be some kind of common belief that such-and-such is wrong, even though on the face of it there is no commonality beyond that of collection action. There's a chance that we're at the beginning of a new type of political thought, that looks reactionist currently, but that will coalesce and evolve a consistant and coherant philosophy/manifesto in the next decade or so, when the current threads are evaluated and discussed. It's just a matter of figuring out to articulate and share all these ideas. (Or to put it another way, to shrink the ideas until they squeeze under the complexity exchange limit.) I'm by no means saying I agree wholesale with sentiments of anti-globalisation - I might or might not do, that's not the point - I'm saying that with so many people saying similar things, (a) what right has the system to ignore that?, and (b) what are the common strands?
What I'm looking for, I think, is a way of expressing these objections, true or otherwise, in language/terminology that makes sense to those of us at the heart of the [global; capitalist; "Western"] system.
As a place to begin, prices came to mind. Well, actually, it didn't happen like that. I was trying to write an Upsideclown piece, and as an exercise to keep writing and thinking while I couldn't think of anything else, I forced myself to write down ten things that are wrong with prices. And then that seemed to be a good place to begin, given my previous thoughts about trying to articulate the common strands of anti-[insert_cause_here].
What follows is an email to some friends containing my original thoughts and some followups. It's rough work - there's been no revision - and not everything has been thought through. I also don't know much about economics, the markets, or so on and so forth. With that in mind: Comments please.
From: matt@ Date: Fri Sep 14, 2001 04:14:33 Europe/London To: james@ Cc: andrew@ Subject: prices what i wrote: ===== How can prices possibly be correct. A list of ten things that are wrong with prices: 1 - there is never a discrete item to be bought or sold. A good is sold in context, the action of the transaction means something itself. It starts a relationship, or it may end one. It's part of a story. (What's it like?) So how can two transactions ever result in the same monetary exchange, even with the same item being swapped. 2 - it causes there to be an incentive to keep goods scarce 3 - two people never put the same worth on something, so how can they swap at a single price? 4 - things that can't be bought and sold get stolen or commoditised 5 - clever people have a disproportionate advantage 6 - money should exist in context. when you purchase you pay the money and you pay the profit you could have made buying something else. if you're rich, you can easily busy something else, so the cost for you is smaller 7 - money is only ever exchanged by two people, but really it's a story, it has flow, and momentum. the true value of it is carried like silt 8 - if price is a good measure of value, then why can't we use it to value people, or actions, or feelings? 9 - the ability to purchase money is something purchasable in itself 10 - a person can sell that which is not theirs, like a business ===== i think it boils down to a number of smaller things: - there shouldn't be 1 price for both sides of the exchange - there shouldn't be the same offered prices for all potential exchanges - the very existence of price changes the perceived value of goods depending on whether they can be commoditised or not - for rich people price is less because opportunity cost is lower and these are all low level things -- the high level effects are built out of these. while i find it difficult to articulate my objections to the guy in my village buying up shop freeholds for large amounts of cash and then leasing them back to the (very pleased and now comfortably off) former-owners [because on the face of it it all seems like a good thing], i can start saying these smaller objections, all of which i think i can back up in some way. gradually gradually. this is a start i think. -matt