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> that we can grow our own food, make and trade and share everything we need Grow our own food? I don't want to be a farmer. It's hard. Division of labor is aw

> that we can grow our own food, make and trade and share everything we need Grow our own food? I don't want to be a farmer. It's hard. Division of labor is awesome. As for sharing, how do you rationally decide who to give something to? The idea of "whoever needs X should have it" sounds nice, but the tricky part is figuring out who needs X. Prices have information about that, and we need information to make a rational decision. Also prices have information about when you shouldn't use X (because it's too hard to make) and should substitute Y instead. And as for trade, it's basically the same thing as buying except if you take away money you have to find someone who wants your stuff, and has stuff you want, instead of only one or the other, so it's harder to trade.

geuis 16y ago
You miss the point. I am a person, then a customer if I buy from you, a client if subscribe to your service. This is not an argument about economics, but instead the framing of who we are in the economic system.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  How is this not an argument about economics? The author makes specific arguments for growing one's own food, and returning to a barter economy. He makes a slight jab at the notion of not merely being consumers, but also creators, but it seems like the crux of his argument is that we should be disconnecting ourselves from corporations in their current form. Note: I think this idea overall is pretty dumb. A rejection of corporations in favor of cottage industries and barter economies? I'm pretty sure there is free love and tie-dye shirts in his future.
  - DannoHung 16y ago
    Personally, I'd settle for a rejection of the notion of "wealth" as the key indicator of success to something like, "long term sustained production capacity", where production capacity includes knowledge production and long term is on the scale of multiple human lifetimes.
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      Long term sustained production capacity and knowledge are types of wealth. How could they not be? They are valuable. In the long run, they are the most valuable types of wealth. If you think people are too short sighted, you may be right, but that isn't a fault of wealth itself. Actually, increased knowledge reduces shortsightedness. And BTW so does increased material wealth: people take a more long term view when they aren't starving.
    - billswift 16y ago
      George Gilder wrote some weird stuff later, but his "Wealth and Poverty" presented some really good ideas. One of the best was his distinction between "wealth" and "riches". "Riches" are resources used for pleasure and consumption; "wealth" is anything used to increase or improve future production. As he pointed out many things can be either depending on how it is used, but the distinction is very useful when thinking about the future and how to use your current resources.
  - geuis 16y ago
    You really need to re-read the story. Its only towards the bottom, in a couple of sentences, where the author even talks about how people got by for tens of thousands of years without "buying" things in the modern sense. Its even stated very plainly that the author does not promote a return to tribalism. This is very simply about changing the terminology we to describe our relationship as people to corporations. 100 years ago, "consumption" was the name for tuberculosis. As a person, I find being defined as a "consumer" offensive. It brings to mind images of sickness and pigs gorging from slop troughs. That imagery, when applied to the couple billion people that make today's industrial society, is meant to demean.
    - theorique 16y ago
      Exactly! Here's another nice indictment of the term "consumer" as it is applied to humans / citizens / creative people. So the customers who once looked you in the eye while hefting your wares in the market were transformed into consumers. In the words of industry analyst Jerry Michalski, a consumer was no more than "a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash." Power swung so decisively to the supply side that "market" became a verb: something you do to customers. http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - euroclydon 16y ago
    I think the main thesis is that we are being conditioned to consume, and if we happen to produce anything, it's supposed to be as an employee for a big corporation. Clearly the HN audience is not his audience b/c most people here are definitely producers. The problem is that, as a consumer, and only a highly specialized producer who is dependent on so many up-stream and down-stream players, you lose a lot of freedom, and you risk becoming a pawn for the people who... control the means of production. Aw crap! We've gotten all Marx now, but Marx wasn't the one who ground up and discarded so much Russian humanity, that was Lenin and Stalin. Marx might have made some good points. I think the whole proposition requires a delicate balance b/w taking advantage of the division of labor, but not letting it take advantage of you, or if you have a bleeding heart, trying to not let it take advantage of others too. A good start is to just be handy around the home: Know how to cook, repair your car, do plumbing.

geuis 16y ago

You miss the point. I am a person, then a customer if I buy from you, a client if subscribe to your service. This is not an argument about economics, but instead the framing of who we are in the economic system.

potatolicious 16y ago
How is this not an argument about economics? The author makes specific arguments for growing one's own food, and returning to a barter economy. He makes a slight jab at the notion of not merely being consumers, but also creators, but it seems like the crux of his argument is that we should be disconnecting ourselves from corporations in their current form. Note: I think this idea overall is pretty dumb. A rejection of corporations in favor of cottage industries and barter economies? I'm pretty sure there is free love and tie-dye shirts in his future.
- DannoHung 16y ago
  Personally, I'd settle for a rejection of the notion of "wealth" as the key indicator of success to something like, "long term sustained production capacity", where production capacity includes knowledge production and long term is on the scale of multiple human lifetimes.
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    Long term sustained production capacity and knowledge are types of wealth. How could they not be? They are valuable. In the long run, they are the most valuable types of wealth. If you think people are too short sighted, you may be right, but that isn't a fault of wealth itself. Actually, increased knowledge reduces shortsightedness. And BTW so does increased material wealth: people take a more long term view when they aren't starving.
  - billswift 16y ago
    George Gilder wrote some weird stuff later, but his "Wealth and Poverty" presented some really good ideas. One of the best was his distinction between "wealth" and "riches". "Riches" are resources used for pleasure and consumption; "wealth" is anything used to increase or improve future production. As he pointed out many things can be either depending on how it is used, but the distinction is very useful when thinking about the future and how to use your current resources.
- geuis 16y ago
  You really need to re-read the story. Its only towards the bottom, in a couple of sentences, where the author even talks about how people got by for tens of thousands of years without "buying" things in the modern sense. Its even stated very plainly that the author does not promote a return to tribalism. This is very simply about changing the terminology we to describe our relationship as people to corporations. 100 years ago, "consumption" was the name for tuberculosis. As a person, I find being defined as a "consumer" offensive. It brings to mind images of sickness and pigs gorging from slop troughs. That imagery, when applied to the couple billion people that make today's industrial society, is meant to demean.
  - theorique 16y ago
    Exactly! Here's another nice indictment of the term "consumer" as it is applied to humans / citizens / creative people. So the customers who once looked you in the eye while hefting your wares in the market were transformed into consumers. In the words of industry analyst Jerry Michalski, a consumer was no more than "a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash." Power swung so decisively to the supply side that "market" became a verb: something you do to customers. http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- euroclydon 16y ago
  I think the main thesis is that we are being conditioned to consume, and if we happen to produce anything, it's supposed to be as an employee for a big corporation. Clearly the HN audience is not his audience b/c most people here are definitely producers. The problem is that, as a consumer, and only a highly specialized producer who is dependent on so many up-stream and down-stream players, you lose a lot of freedom, and you risk becoming a pawn for the people who... control the means of production. Aw crap! We've gotten all Marx now, but Marx wasn't the one who ground up and discarded so much Russian humanity, that was Lenin and Stalin. Marx might have made some good points. I think the whole proposition requires a delicate balance b/w taking advantage of the division of labor, but not letting it take advantage of you, or if you have a bleeding heart, trying to not let it take advantage of others too. A good start is to just be handy around the home: Know how to cook, repair your car, do plumbing.