[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Greetings, Horse. Always good to hear from you.

[Horse]
Incentive to produce comes in all shapes and forms. There are hundreds of
thousands of  people all over the globe producing a wide range of high quality
products for nothing, purely  because they enjoy doing so. Think 'Free and Open
Source Software'. If it wasn't for the efforts  of these folks we wouldn't be
talking today.

[Arlo]
That was exactly my point to Platt in that thread (using Pirsig's motivation to
produce as an example). Certainly, it is easy to show how ridiculous the
ideological "no profit no production" mantra is, but the trouble is (in my
opinion) this is exactly the cultural message that gets bombarded on people by
the media, consumerist factions and right-wing ideologues.

And it is exactly why, within mercantilian language, there is no way to be
critical of the "Wally Compensation Equilibrium Project". It is also why there
is no way to lament the loss of craftsmanship, without resorting to linguistic
inversions like making "craftsmanship" synonamous with "excellence in creating
wealth".

At its core, craftsmanship is about a value that transcends "profit". It begins
with "identity", and moves into artistry and freedom of movement between labor
and object.

At any rate, yes, many individuals do produce with little to no thought being
given to profit. I just wonder why such motivation is not just downplayed, but
outright denied on a cultural scale? The OSS movement is a great example of
something working that the profit-vocalists said never will. Maybe the tides
are changing. Maybe more people are realizing that profit is not the Greatest
of All motivators. Maybe more people are starting to realize that without
profit there would indeed be a lot of produciton. But to say so outright, is to
be branded a heratic in this climate.

Arlo



> 
> Food for thought - not thought for food!
> 
> Horse
> 
> 
> 
> On 15 Jan 2006 at 11:16, Arlo J. Bensinger wrote:
> 
> > [Arlo]
> > In Platt's most recent post he says, "Without profits there's little
incentive
> > to produce." While "little" certainly does not mean "nothing other than", if
> > you re-read the thread where Platt and I discussed this, you'll see he is
quite
> > adamant about "profit" being the only real motivator. But why bother? Being
a
> > contrarian to any real dialogue is much easier than actually trying to
> > formulate coherent thoughts. Lila 2, Smokestack 0.
> 
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