Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
LQD What are they worth? | 28 comments (28 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 4)
And conversely, social status depends entirely on appropriating productivity.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 09:26:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
No, only on some scales.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 09:44:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
How often does the Econo quote care workers?

How many US Senators or UK MPs trained as nurses?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 12:34:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
Are you positing a unique status hierarchy in our societies?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:24:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
It's probably a cultural universal: your social status depends not on how much you can create, but how much you can destroy.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:31:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 0)
Are we talking about potlach now?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:33:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
Potlatch - "giving away" was, interestingly banned by both the Canadian and US governments, because the reciprocity and redistribution of wealth was thought more dangerous than cholera.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:40:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 2)
I'm referring to
The influx of manufactured trade goods such as blankets and sheet copper into the Pacific Northwest caused inflation in the potlatch in the late eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries. Some groups, such as the Kwakwaka'wakw, used the potlatch as an arena in which highly competitive contests of status took place. In some cases, goods were actually destroyed after being received, or instead of being given away.


En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:46:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 4)
An early example of Creative Destruction, I'm sure.

Hazy memories of Anthro 200 wandering through my mind informs me the increase in goods destruction was linked to the ability to destroy valuable goods without removing the necessary amount of high value goods from the society and to maintain the status hierarchy.  In other words, any society can only have X amount of high value goods; once X is passed high status individuals seek to reduce the circulating surplus back to X to keep their status.

 

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 05:58:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
No, although that is an interesting variation on theme.

I merely note that throughout human history, status and authority seem consistently to be accorded to those who excel at non-productive or even destructive activities. The exercise of violence is probably the oldest and most obvious example of this, but many more niches were created as societies became more complex.

Status and authority as a function of parasitism... how's that for a paradigm?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 02:47:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 6)
Nice economy you have there... it would be a shame if something were to happen to it...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:34:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
It's probably a cultural universal: your social status depends not on how much you can create, but how much you can destroy.

"He who can destroy something forever, controls it."

- Paul Muad'Dib Atreides

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 01:17:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
Thorsten Veblen did refer to the business importance of the ability to inflict damage. He characterized the ability of a business to restrict the output to maintain a price as "damage." Likewise, the ability to damage your competitor is crucial. Think Bill Gates.

The logic of industrial production is to maximize quantity. This is why industry is controlled by business, which specializes in strategic damage. Nitzan and Bichler provide an extensive discussion of damage, or "sabotage" as they call it, in Capital as Power pp227-236.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 11:48:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

LQD What are they worth? | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: