[MD] Metaphysical issues: DQ

[Platt Holden]

{Andre}
> To suggest that the "free" market is free because it allows for DQ is to
> insult DQ.The market is not doing this.
> The buying and selling of goods is a static pattern and the relations
> between these is fed not by some concern for quality but by "What is the
> maximum I can get out of this?"
> And I would suggest it isn't particularly interested in following it
> either...only occassionally.
> The result of a DQ "event" results in the emerging of a static pattern
> that
> was not there before.
> Since when has the free market created something entirely new??? and
> BETTER?
> Since the start of this century you can count them on the fingers of
> both
> hands.
> The "dynamic "part of the free market is the ever renewable apple which
> the
> worm eats.It is capable of responding to small quality events. It is
> "dynamic" because it has a mechanism built in that allows it to feed on
> itself. The workings of the free market are a continuous repitition of
> itself with only slight variations.
> My clothes wear out and I need new ones, many items in this market have
> a
> built-in expiry date: milk:2 days, my fridge:10 years, my house (if I
> had
> one) 50 years (In Holland this is an officially agreed upon
> "expectation').
> What I am saying is that it is dynamic in the sense that it is capable
> of constantly reinvigorating itself doing the same thing over and over
> again.
> 
> And it has back-up through the advertising industry spending 1000
> million
> dollars annually world wide (I read this somewhere...it is probably much
> more. Again: in Holland it spends about EUR400 million annually!!! ) to
> promoting itself and convincing people to buy things they don't really
> need.
> It is not selling products so much as symbols. The function of something
> is
> the last thing one promotes. It promotes the idea of celebrity status.
> "When
> you buy this, wear that, live in this, drive that, eat this, subscribe
> to
> that, etc etc you belong to trallalalala".
> 
> Sure it is dynamic but I am not convinced it has much Quality.
> 
> Am I out of line here?

You are only out of line if you want to impose your idea of quality 
merchandise on others at the point of a gun, i.e., by government edict.
And if you don't like a house that is expected to last only 50 years, build 
a better one. 

Platt