Re: [ox-en] Breaking what you're tying to get
- From: Neil Macneale IV <mac4-oekonux theory.org>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 10:00:55 -0800
Hi all-
New to the list, as many of you are:) Comments below...
On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 09:44:17AM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Stefan Merten wrote:
Second, even if we could completely automate every layer of food
production (and every other industry and commodity) it still
wouldn't work because of this sort of scenario: I want my kids to go
to a good school, so I check out all the local freely offered
schooling (because I live in the GPL Society, all the schooling is
provided by people who want to do that sort of thing as a
self-unfolding project that makes them feel good, and they get to do
this because they don't need anything at all) and I decide that
nobody around me can provide what I think is a brilliant education.
So, I go out and find a teacher who's REALLY REALLY good... the
thing is, this teacher also has 6000 other parents clamoring for her
time, so she gets to choose who she picks. The only way I can have a
better chance is if I can offer some incentive to the teacher; I
have to figure out how I can give her something she WANTS (she's
already got everything she needs).
The one interested in good schooling of his/r kids, however, would
have a chance to get what s/he wants, if s/he's able to provide more
self-unfolding to the teacher than in other cases. But how this higher
self-unfolding is accomplished deeply depends on the process - here:
schooling - they're trying to pursue together. Instead of simply
asking for his/er price, they have to communicate about what they want
to do together and how it is done. For instance if the parents
promises to provide additional support to their child this could be
interesting for the teacher because her/is teaching will be more
fruitful. So there is at least a tendency, that they have to care
about the use value of their activity instead of the exchange value.
Given the hypothetical situation where all basic goods and services are
automated, then what would the need be to hire a teacher? I am not
claiming that teaching is a service, I am saying that parents would
actually have time to be parents and teach their kids something. If
someone is really interested in their child having a good education,
they should stop looking to others to do it. In addition to parents, the
community at large would have the ability to nurture children since none
of them would have to work either. This is all hypothetical, though. I
do not believe that life will ever be automated.
A somewhat less hypothetical situation is trying to slow the world down
a bit. If we were not so driven by profit margins and more driven by
appriciation of life, then we would not be working so much. I am
convinced that the world would be better off if we all worked 20 hours a
week. We used to require many more hours of work per pseron in order to
meet basic needs. Now we work less, and we have a whole bunch of
useless things.
With that free time, some will just goof off and live life as we know it
today. Others though, have a chance to volunteer for some effort which
they did not have time for. In the end the world would be a better
place.
Neil
--
That's real angora.
Would you all... like some more-a?
-- Frank Zappa