Antonius Stone
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Messages
- 545
a lot of the ideas they're pushing seems totally backwards, and I was REALLY put off by it at first, but after thinking on it some more, i realized some of the logic behind their arguments.
Everything they talk about in the last part about the "cure" to our problems revolves around Post-Scarcity (or abundance). Simply put, anything that occurs in abundance cannot be allocated by any kind of market because its basically free--sort of like breathable air is now. The free-market is absolutely the best way to allocate scarce resources. Given the current state of our technology now, I believe it is the most efficient economic system to use.
However, what if you live in a society where most all material goods are abundant and post-scarce? What if we had the technology to make everything Abundant? That's what this film posits, and if you look at it from that perspective, then a lot of what they argue for does make sense, because a market economy cannot allocate an abundant resource.
However, their criticism of the Profit Motive is fallacious because they don't properly understand what profit is. The profit motive will always exist in some form or another because profit is any gain that you get from making an investment. Nowadays, the most scarce (and therefore, most coveted) resources are material goods--cash, cars, gold, oil, etc. That's why our profits are measured in terms of these material goods.
However, in an economy where all of the aforementioned material stuff is abundant, then the material goods will cease to be profit. But profit will still exist, it will just evolve into some other medium.
Think about the Federation in Star Trek, which is basically a post-scarce society. They have replicators to make all the food, anti-matter power reactors and space ships that go at warp ten. They don't really have a monetary system, at least not from what I've seen. And if they do, its unlikely they use it for buying and selling trivial goods and services like food or transport. But even without money or a "market economy", the profit motive still exists--if it didn't then Starfleet wouldn't be traveling at warp 10 in all directions trying to explore the universe.
That's what I got out of Addendum. Not that the profit motive is bad, just in order for us to have a post-scarce society, then it would have to evolve. In a post-scarce society, I couldn't imagine material things as being the incentive that fuels the profit motive. I would imagine knowledge or some other intangible as the incentive that drives it.
The problem with their argument and their whole utopia scenario is that it hinges on the idea that we have the technology to make Energy post-scarce, something that sounds extremely farfetched to me. The whole talk of a 4,000mph Mag Lev and 6,000 Zeta Joules of power from geothermal...yeah right, i'm a bit skeptical. But if that is really possible, then I think a post-scarce society like that could potentially work.
Everything they talk about in the last part about the "cure" to our problems revolves around Post-Scarcity (or abundance). Simply put, anything that occurs in abundance cannot be allocated by any kind of market because its basically free--sort of like breathable air is now. The free-market is absolutely the best way to allocate scarce resources. Given the current state of our technology now, I believe it is the most efficient economic system to use.
However, what if you live in a society where most all material goods are abundant and post-scarce? What if we had the technology to make everything Abundant? That's what this film posits, and if you look at it from that perspective, then a lot of what they argue for does make sense, because a market economy cannot allocate an abundant resource.
However, their criticism of the Profit Motive is fallacious because they don't properly understand what profit is. The profit motive will always exist in some form or another because profit is any gain that you get from making an investment. Nowadays, the most scarce (and therefore, most coveted) resources are material goods--cash, cars, gold, oil, etc. That's why our profits are measured in terms of these material goods.
However, in an economy where all of the aforementioned material stuff is abundant, then the material goods will cease to be profit. But profit will still exist, it will just evolve into some other medium.
Think about the Federation in Star Trek, which is basically a post-scarce society. They have replicators to make all the food, anti-matter power reactors and space ships that go at warp ten. They don't really have a monetary system, at least not from what I've seen. And if they do, its unlikely they use it for buying and selling trivial goods and services like food or transport. But even without money or a "market economy", the profit motive still exists--if it didn't then Starfleet wouldn't be traveling at warp 10 in all directions trying to explore the universe.
That's what I got out of Addendum. Not that the profit motive is bad, just in order for us to have a post-scarce society, then it would have to evolve. In a post-scarce society, I couldn't imagine material things as being the incentive that fuels the profit motive. I would imagine knowledge or some other intangible as the incentive that drives it.
The problem with their argument and their whole utopia scenario is that it hinges on the idea that we have the technology to make Energy post-scarce, something that sounds extremely farfetched to me. The whole talk of a 4,000mph Mag Lev and 6,000 Zeta Joules of power from geothermal...yeah right, i'm a bit skeptical. But if that is really possible, then I think a post-scarce society like that could potentially work.
(unknowingly... 
) Anarcho-Commune (ism) we've been down this path.. 
