Reply #35: I still think you're wrong, but appreciate your considered reply [View All]

[anigbrowl]

I absolutely fail to see why paying someone else to pick berries and selling them is a bad thing. Maybe people have a mania for berries and it's so desperate they'll get money to do that rather than put their efforts where they'll get the most reward, but how is that the fault of the Berry farmers? You say they don't labor, even though they presumably put effort into training and managing the people they hire to pick the berries (maintaining a certain level of quality control etc.).

You also seem to assume that they choke supply for their own profit, without considering that doing so would reduce the amount of hired labor they employ and thus leave more available for the other economic activities. Strangely enough, this is exactly the sort of flawed argument made against sustainable farming or exploitation proposals - they're somehow going to damage the economy by artificially pushing up prices, despite the fact that limiting output for reasons of sustainability lowers costs elsewhere by reducing demand for labor.

The basic problem that I see is that you're viewing everything in zero-sum terms, and assuming that all 'good' trades reconcile out to zero; your whole model of successful trade and labor assumes an equilibrium that doesn't exist, and concludes that any kind of disequilibrium is therefore bad. Ultimately, what you're proposing a kind of economy called 'autarky'. And historical experience with autarky is that it sucks...hard.

I've also worked in the arts -- in fact I'm doing it currently and yes, I encounter that anti-artistic-labor attitude all the time. ("You're charging THAT MUCH for a rock you picked up off the ground?" No, you dumb shit, I'm charging THAT MUCH because I drove my car out to the middle of blue fucking nowhere to find that rock, then I brought it home and used MY saw and MY electricity and MY cutting oil to slice it and rough shape it, then I used MY grinder and MY tumbler and MY labor to cab and polish it, and then I used MY artistic imagination and MY skill and MY tools, and MY labor to wrap it sterling silver wire and paid a booth fee to set up at this frickin' "art show" to sell it to you, you cheap-ass son of a bitch.)

OK, fair enough. But would there be something wrong with employing 5 people to do the different parts of that if you hit on a particular for which people's demand far exceeded your ability to supply? I mean, I like some kind of things to be hand-made and unique. On the other hand, I am happy for some other things to be commoditized and uniform...for example, I don't especially want every plate in my cupboard to be unique. I am just fine with it if someone comes up with an attractive-looking plate and then churns them out in their thousands. For that matter, suppose one of the selling points of your hand-made jewelry is that it uses some kind of unusual rock. I don't feel you're under the slightest obligation to share the information of where to find it with anyone else, even though you derive a competitive advantage from its rarity.

You seem to be saying that as soon as anyone steps away from the hands-on production of something, an economic ill results. To me it's the leapfrogging and pursuit of competitive advantage that ultimately drives the innovation.