[MD] Pirsig the Prophet

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt to Marsha]
I disagree. In a free market a dishonest entrenpreneur won't last long.

[Arlo]
This myth has been brought up many times. Indeed, it was the driving 
question our now-lost friends attempted to pose before being hammered 
off the list with talk-radio drivel. To wit, Stella had written, "So, 
to start at the beginning; the free market as defined by Adam Smith 
in 1776, was a place where all individuals had access. All 
individuals were living in the small town where the market was, or in 
the close vicinity. The central idea being that everybody had access 
to information about the retailers, their goods and their moral 
behaviour. As a buyer, I could make an informed decision."

To risk simplification, when the "market" was a nearly-total local 
community force, individuals were immediately able to decide not to 
"buy bread for Paul because he is dishonest". Paul's consumers were 
his neighbors, and the "invisible hand" was able to better ensure 
honesty in the market. As markets went global, and the flood of 
information to our brains exponentially increased, fewer and fewer 
people had access to the information allowing them to make informed 
decisions. Sure, there was (is) some information that finds its way 
through various outlets to our doors, but in almost all cases the 
impetus is on the individual to research and learn about the 
product-company he is buying from. Perhaps that's the way it should 
be. But sadly, we just don't care. Witness Platt's self-admission 
that he could care not one whit about the labor practices, employment 
practices or anything else about the products he buys so long as they 
are "cheap" and "work". "Paul" can now be dishonest and sell to a 
global market that not only doesn't know, but doesn't care.

But his "bread" still needs to be of high quality, right? People 
wouldn't buy it if it wasn't "good"? Sadly, the facts don't jive with 
this myth either, as Pirsig had the foresight to see back in ZMM. Are 
we fed "quality" by the "vendors of style"? The overwhelming evidence 
says "yes". Years and years and years of marketing and advertising 
research, journals and publications reveal time and time again that 
people are simply more concerned with "style" and social image than 
with quality-of-product. This is simply indisputable, even if it is a 
sad commentary on modern life. Here at PSU, each year thousands of 
students and millions of dollars go to discover strategies for making 
people "want" a product, of masking "quality" with a veneer of 
"style". From this week's TIME Magazine, a short article called "Why 
We Buy the Products We Buy" 
(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653659,00.html)

"Enter the world of marketing. The power of name recognition helps 
explain the multibillion-dollar business of plastering brand names on 
everything from ballpoint pens to NASCAR racers as well as the 
thriving cottage industry of reviving brands that have fallen out of 
mainstream use, like Ovaltine chocolate malt and Westinghouse 
televisions. "We tend to believe, If I've heard of [a product] 
before, it's probably because it's popular, and popular things are 
good," says Dan Goldstein, an assistant professor of marketing at 
London Business School."

[Platt]
Nothing compared to what governments have done to damage people.

[Arlo]
Governments have also given millions stable, conducive, productive 
and Quality social patterns in which they thrive. This ad nauseum 
rehash of Raygun's "government is the problem" is, well, nauseating. 
 From ensuring a common currency, to protecting our banks, to 
providing roads, waterways, pubic lands, libraries, police, fire, EMT 
and other social services, to protecting our borders (supposedly) and 
giving us a court to bring grievances from local to federal concerns, 
I'd say government is hardly a "problem".

But that's another issue. At point here is the idea that "government 
got in and messed up a great free market". Government, if you read 
any history, did not just "decide" to interfere with the "glorious 
free market" of the late 1890s. Labor laws, regulations, workplace 
safety, minimum wage, fair termination, environmental restrictions 
were all mandates _of the people_. It was grass roots, local Joes and 
Janes that demanded these things because they saw firsthand the 
tyranny of a wholly unregulated market. In books from Dickens to 
Sinclair, people witnessed the horrendous, dehumanizing reality of 
the "market", and they acted. Some, like Platt, struggle to make it 
seem that "here was this great market, you see, and everyone was 
happy, and then 'guvment' had to go and ruin it for everyone". The 
reality is to the contrary.

[Marsha]
Free markets are like unicorns, they don't exist.

[Arlo]
Well said. To bring Stella's point back, "The definitions of a free 
market in many books today (there isn't one Definition, but it 
differs slightly from author to author) still has the   same base as 
Smith's free market, but when scrutinizing the definition,  it's 
interesting to see on how many points the "market" today veers off 
from the definition and how the lack of closeness in business 
relationships makes it very hard to maintain the "well informed-ness" 
and "accessibility" to the market. We have 1) definitions of a free market,
then we have 2) the live thing we call the free market, and then 3) 
there are several economic theories and practices, one of which is 
called Capitalism."

[Marsha]
Might self-esteem and self-respect come knowing you have value?  Or 
from knowing you are a part of a world that has value?

[Arlo]
Again, well said. This takes me back to the "Arete-inspired 
Individual" I mentioned to counter the constant drumbeat of 
"returning to Victorian values".

[Platt]
I prefer consumerism as a force rather than government as a force. Don't you?

[Arlo]
This is just another ridiculous dichotomy. The reality, to use 
Marsha's paint brush buying which "proves your point", is that Marsha 
is likely happy both that she has her paintbrushes, and that they 
were produced by fair labor practices (as opposed to say, sweatshops) 
and by companies compliant with socially-mandated environmental and 
labor -related practices.

As always, rather than relying on inane, pragamatically-useless 
dichotomies, the reality is in the workable balance inbetween.