From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2003 - 14:02:25 MDT
A reply to dissenters. I didn't want this to turn into a rant, but if
you want proof, you want proof...
1) Dehede011@aol.com: I know that corporate consolidation of economic
power is OLD NEWS. I said so. I just presented the evidence in case
you weren't aware. Sorry if it was too obvious, but you asked for
proof. Those are the facts underlying the policy. If you're looking
for "policy proof" that follows here:
2) As for whether I've "proven" anything I've claimed, my claim is the
combination of the weak moral claim:
a) You shouldn't buy products from people who are killing or enslaving
people.
To which I take it there is no dissent.
(And the strong economic claim:)
b) Disclaiming of economic ties is bullshit - if you own a company
who's doing dirty business, then YOU are doing dirty business. Even if
this support is "leveraged and hedged" against an index fund like the
S&P 500 - your minimal ownership is still benefiting from the
oppression of others. Supporting companies that do dirty-business is
just dirty-business - funding them is participating.
Which is perhaps only slightly contentious - at least I haven't heard
it denied. I've heard the position defended (elsewhere) that the
ability to corporately disclaim responsibility from investments is what
led to the ascendency of the Western World. On this point, it's not
clear that this is a good thing AND it's not clear what would have
happened had we insisted on personal responsibility from the outset.
Don't like it?
"When he said, repent, I wonder what he meant" - Leonard Cohen.
(And the even stronger disenfranchisement claim:)
c) If there are no corporations NOT found in the nexus of
killer-corporations (eg, companies owned by companies that profit from
human slavery and killlings then our moral responsibilities (under (c)
above) become somewhat abated and redirected under the general rule
Ought Implies Can.
( (cf. Columbia Water/Bechtel/PepsiCo, etc....
http://www.trilliuminvest.com/pages/news/
news_detail.asp?ArticleID=250&status=CurrentIssue ) or Nike, etc.))
d) Ought implies can.
Which simply means that you can only be required to do a thing if you
can actually do it. I take it this is uncontentious as well. Maybe a
Kantian might deny it - perhaps you can be required to do things that
are impossible for you. I don't know how that can be defended
COMPLETELY though.
e) Which leads to the more generalized moral requirement that we
CHANGE the economic system that supports consolidation of power under
wicked people or more stringently enforce laws that prevent the
wickedness both here and abroad. This because we Americans CAN (eg. we
vote, we can speak freely, we can run for office, participate in the
political process, etc.) If we couldn't we would probably be in the
position of pre-revolutionary France and our moral responsibility would
be revolution. But it's not, so no point in talking that way YET.
(Here's where I get a little Libertarian on y'all:)
f) But the enforcement of existing laws (and the improvement of them)
tends simply to protect the economic power of the "long money".
The empirical proof of this is simply to point out that Barclays is
still on top along with those banks that the Bank of England and
Barclays saw fit to give hand-outs too in the 1800's. If law
enforcement and government could solve this problem, THEY WOULD HAVE.
If anyone wants to have a drawn-out discussion about how
early-investment tends to play out in the medium-run (eg. 200-500
years), we can do that.
The a priori proof would be that the "long-money" is able to manipulate
short-term goals of individuals to it's best interests by simple
behavioristic motivation - carrot, stick, fear, greed,
enforcement->behavior.
(And the nasty conclusion:)
g) We must change the economic system that supports consolidation of
power under wicked people. This is our first civic responsibility (as
opposed say to the moral responsibilities we have to our families).
While we might take "mini-steps" to only buy gas from minor companies,
not to drive to work, to live like neo-Primitivists, this will only
tend to increase the power of the "long-money" in the long run unless
you can convert a significant (eg. more than a billion) number of
people to this way of thinking. (Perhaps this is what China OUGHT TO
DO, but I don't know.) BECAUSE technology will defeat primitivism,
it's inevitable (witness who enslaved who from 1700-1800).
Followed by the policy proposal:
h) We need to enforce free-marketeer values FROM THE TOP DOWN and
BOTTOM UP.
(I know, sounds vague and slogan-y. Here's the what I mean:)
TOP DOWN - This means NOT starting free-marketing from the perspective
of widgets and labor-hours and the companies that do that business, but
from the point of view of Laws, Governments, Jurisdictions and
Currencies. Otherwise we end up with heavily protected "castles" of
capital able to protect themselves by force and technology against an
unwilling and rather upset mass of people. (We'll assume that this is
a BAD thing for the moment, pace the villianization of poverty by
Rafal. In any case, MOST people in that case would have a lower
standard of living and would likely be upset enough to do something
about it - "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.")
BOTTOM UP - It also means not starting free-marketing from the
perspective of Corporations, but rather from the point of view of
Individuals. Individuals are the primary bearers of rights (perhaps
pace Extropian dogma, I don't know. But I know it can be defended
either positively or negatively, that is if rights are defined
positively or negatively). And their freedom of movement, association,
speech, etc. are to be released PRIOR to any release of Corporate
Restrictions.
I believe the combination of these two "rights-movements" would
significantly improve our chances for creating survivability as well as
significantly put a stop to major human rights violations worldwide.
g) This means starting competing government services - competing
currencies, competing social services, etc. This can be done in a
variety of ways. I would recommend starting with Health services and
exchange services to enable exchange of resources for the immediate
improvement of the longevity issue. I understand Bill Gates has a good
idea in putting his money into infant mortality. Bully for him.
(An aside - Bill Gates is a major blemish in the record for the
Long-Money managers. We can regard the Internet Boom as the deliberate
effort on the part of the Long-Money to prevent the creation of further
multi-billionaires. I expect you all probably know this, maybe I'm
wrong?)
h) This also means changing the laws so that they don't vigorously
defend the rights of corporations against individuals and competition.
In particular, freedom of exchange AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS would be a
good start - the elimination of the national banking system and those
systems which are dependent upon it. This would have to start with
political action. In this regard, the Libertarian party is the best
current venue INASMUCH as it is not being co-opted by the likes of Karl
Rove and Rafal.
3) Rafal's question is a valid one, "Should he be prevented from
making an arbitrary exchange with consenting persons?" The answer is
yes - if you are exchanging human lives (perhaps any of the value which
results from human lives), you should be prevented from making
ARBITRARY exchanges of that kind. You should be prevented by those
morally responsible for that person's being - themselves, their friends
and family, etc. In any case, it should be the other way around - the
political forces which exist to enable you to make such exchanges
should be removed. In today's world this means removing border and
economic restrictions on individuals and political organizations FIRST
while enforcing those rules on corporations.
4) Dialectical Ad Hominem for Rafal: On Nike's slavery commitments,
20 seconds on google will get you all the information you need. You've
been informed, the responsibility is now yours. (first reference:
http://www.geocities.com/cslnews/ ). It did, after all, make it to the
supreme court. WHY do you think that major US corporations ship their
labor oversees if not to take advantage of cheaper labor? Do you think
that labor doesn't become inhumanely cheap so as to be morally
equivalent with slavery? Really? Do you think that Government
Protectionism for "long-money" corporate wealth isn't at the root of
this problem? I'm just trying to determine if you simply don't KNOW
that it's going on or if you are trying to redefine words so that it
doesn't sound so bad.
5) A grammatical reply for Rafal:
Slavery is vague word like other words "fraud" or "peace" or "bald",
etc. The point is simply to recognize the underlying phenomena to
which it refers (people who work for less than $.01/day and can't go
work someplace better or who are psychologically and/or politically
dominated by their workplace so significantly that they can't leave.)
You can call THAT phenomena BAD or GOOD, that is our choice. You
appear to be calling it GOOD. I call it BAD. As for word choice,
"Slavery" is the closest single-word that I could think of that
simultaneously described the situation (lack of financial freedom
coupled with political/psychological domination transcending
generations), if you have a better word, I'm happy to use YOUR WORD for
THAT.
BUT if you think that obfuscating this issue into an issue about the
meaning of words is going to CONVINCE THIS AUDIENCE, I sincerely hope
you're fooling yourself.
6) Bringing this back to Extropian(ism) - Extropians have a choice -
Extropianism can be a form of elitism where the wealthy, powerful and
extremely clever are brought into the new world of long-term-life OR it
can be a form of liberation where the resources of all people can be
used to benefit ALL people. One might say that Pragmatism demands the
former. I say that Pragmatism demands the latter for two reasons, on
policy and one pragmatic:
a) The goal of creating a mechanism capable of supporting Longevity
(if not immortality) FOR ME or US requires both the technology and
political climate to let it survive. This means both gathering
resources (an economic issue) and support (a political issue) for the
effort LONG TERM. Since concentration of power naturally leads to
dissent, and dissent to war, a better tactic will be to create a stable
political and economic environment in which everyone could (and would
have a reasonable expectation TO) participate in extropianism.
b) The world created in which only people who were able to utilize
the resources of other people for their own advancement and their
detriment would be a massively competitive world (much like our own) -
with long-term high-tech competition comes extreme risk. Risk is BAD
if you're trying to build a long-term survival machine. Increasing
risk by fostering conflict is stupid. Oppressing a group of people
fosters conflict - even if they are the (seemingly) weak and poor.
7) Not that it's any of my business (being a newbie to the
"extropians" list) but I will miss: Dehede011@aol.com if he leaves
because of someone else's leaving.
Best Wishes,
Robbie Lindauer
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