One of the Downsides of Our Contemporary Culture

This is a story from Stocktwits, a daily email newsletter that gives a recap of what's happening in the market, etc. In addition to summarizing the day's Wall Street activities, they pass along stories and do in-depth breakdowns of specific companies that seem to be flying to the moon or heading into the swamp.

At the end of each newsletter they have a "Bullets From The Day" section of one paragraph summaries of various events. Yesterday's Bullets were as follows:

 Hertz to buy up to 175,000 EVs from General Motors.

 Apple App Store announces international price hikes.

 Two veteran sports execs launch Velocity Capital Management.

 Judge denies bid to stop UnitedHealth’s acquisition plan.

And finally, this one, today's lead Bullet:

Cancer victims urge the court to end the J&J bankruptcy roadblock. People suing Johnson & Johnson over its talc products urged an appeals court on Monday to revive their claims, saying it should not be allowed to use a bankrupt subsidiary to block lawsuits alleging the products cause cancer. The company spun off its subsidiary in October, assigned its talc liabilities to it, and then placed it into bankruptcy. The commonly used restructuring strategy paused about 38,000 lawsuits J&J was facing and sent the victims into a state of perpetual litigation

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If the talc issue is legit, it's shameful that J&J can skirt responsibility like that. Then again, the tobacco industry hasn't been put out of business even though that link to cancer is self-evident. The government likes the tax revenue generated by tobacco addicts. 

And if the talc issue is not legit, it's sad the extremes to which companies must go to defend themselves from endless litigation about nearly everything.

I'm curious how much money is spent on attorneys that could have been spent on research and development to make companies stronger as they launch into the future. Then again, I can hear people saying that the money spent on lawyers would probably just end up in the pockets of CEOs and their ilk. 

I dunno. It seems like the whole country is wrapped up in legal red tape. Has it always been this way? 

Well, I know that Daniel Boone was frustrated with all the red tape people were tangled in right from the start of this nation. The Kentucky pioneer was a land surveyor. He helped settlers identify their lands and get title deeds. For reasons I am unsure of, many of these would get challenged and the people would lose their land. Over time, to make things right he gave away all the land he personally owned, disgusted with the lawyers and the legal system.

By 1800 the U.S. was only on its second presidency and Boone, 66 at the time, was so fed up he left the country he bailed. He went West across the Mississippi to land owned by France. At last, he could live free. 

Unfortunately, in 1803 Thomas Jefferson made a deal with France, which we know now as the Louisiana Purchase. It stretched from New Orleans to Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana, more than a half billion acres, all for the sum of $18 million. For us this is just a history datapoint, maybe the correct answer to a question on a quiz. But for Daniel Boone, and the sons who joined him in his exodus, this was a serious bummer. He was back in the "civilized" world, with all its legal entanglements.

The point is, we have way too much red tape, too many rules and regulations, hurdles to jump, walls to bust through. And it's stifling our economy.

Map Illustration Credit: William Morris, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Crowds On Demand: Believe Nothing You Hear, and Only One Half That You See

I heard a former newspaper editor say recently, "Believe nothing you hear, and only half that you see." It sounded like a line from a movie, but actually originated with Edgar Allen Poe.

This quote came to mind as I was reading a David Halberstam's The Fifties. I began reading this book because (a) Halberstam is a writer who is thorough in his research and effective in laying out his narrative, and (b) I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties and believed his book might give additional insights toward understanding myself and the context of my life. 

In Chapter 25 he writes about the factors that led the U.S. to manufacture a coup there and overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh, "the legally constituted but left-leaning prime minister of Iran" in order to install the Shah as head of Iran. The sentence that jumped off the page for me was this one:

"Roosevelt also brought with him $1 million, in Iranian currency, of which about $100,000 was subsequently used to rent a mob and pay off key people."

There were a couple reasons this stood out. First, it was the second time in the book something like this occurred. Second, because it still happens. And Americans think they are seeing protesters when in reality they are seeing shills, actors. How can we tell when what the cameras are showing us is real or staged? 

Chapter 25 is in the book because it details the beginning of America's interference in the politics of independent countries, a pattern that continues to this day. If we don't like a country's leader, we think we have the right to go in and take him out. We use PR to demonize them, actors to stage protests, and apply other kinds of pressure to drive people out of power who won't dance to the tune we play. It makes me want to cry for my country. 

In 2020 I wrote a blog post called The Art of Artifice: Capitalism and the Events Industry. In that article I share information about two companies that provide strategies, services and people to put on demonstrations. The one says they can create events anywhere in the world. Here's their promise:

With absolute discretion a top priority, our operatives create convincing scenes that become the building blocks of massive movements. When you need the appearance of outrage, we are able to deliver it at scale while keeping your reputation intact.

Let's stop being so gullible and exercise a little discernment. Check out The Art of Artifice: Capitalism and the Events Industry.   Related: He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Dysfunctional Institutions Hinder Wealth Creation

Insights from Niall Ferguson's The Great Degeneration which I started writing about yesterday.

"A Postmodern Man"

Understanding (past) Western success helps us understand more urgent questions about the recent past, the present and potential futures. 

Nogales, bisected by U.S-Mexican border, is an example of how differing economic and government institutions produce different outcomes for the masses. The difference in living standards for the two halves of the city is shocking. 

Similarly, Germany and Korea have been object lessons in the disparity of outcomes that occur based on the institutions that rule them. South Korea and West Germany had Capitalist institutions. North Korea and East Germany had Communist ones. The divergence in outcomes "within a few decades was enormous." When the walls came down in Germany, many Western observers were eager to see how far behind East Germany was from it West German counterpart. The consensus expectation was that GDP in East Germany would be about 70-75% of West. The pundits were shocked to find East German GDP to be 35% of the Germans who experienced freedom and Capitalism.

Botswana in Africa illustrates how wealth and growth can take place when its people are not plagued by corruption or civil war, like what has been occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The difference in wealth between the two Sub-Saharan nations was directly related to the institutions that ran them.

Ferguson cites The Mystery of Capital by Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto, who analyzed the barriers to wealth that bad institutions erect. 

In Lima, Peru, we see a diabolical dilemma that occurs in many places around the world. The problem is that though the poor living in shanty towns have a lot of property, it is not legally recognized as theirs by the governing officials. Getting legal title to a house or workshop is near impossible. To get a permit for a garment workshop on the outskirts of Lima took 289 days. To get the legal documents to build a house took six years and 11 months, during which time they were forced to deal with 52 different government offices. 

In short, dysfunctional institutions force the poor to live outside the law. The amount of real estate owned but not legally held by the poor of developing countries is more than 9 trillion dollars. This is pretty much dead money because if they owned their properties they could borrow against it and leverage it to generate more wealth.

DeSoto's research in cities around the world demonstrates that wealth creation has less to do with cultural differences than with the establishment of good legal structures and property rights. As one reviewer notes, "This book clearly states the importance of legal property ownership and the value of using the equity of owned real state to have access to capital." Or as Ferguson puts it, "Only in a working system of property rights can a house become collateral and its value be properly established by the market."

* * * 

Later in the book Ferguson details how institutions have slowly become barriers to economic development in this country. He cites the example of a lemonade stand in New York City that took six months to get permits and approvals from the innumerable city gatekeepers. 

Here in Duluth we have a similar bundle of barriers. One contractor whom I spoke with recently said, "I'm so frustrated with the city that I won't do business here any more. 99% of the problems come from City Hall." He told me it took three months to acquire a permit to raise a (garage) foundation two feet. "In Hermantown (an adjacent city just over the hill) it would take one day."

This is an issue I will be zeroing in on in more detail sometime in the near future.

 

Links

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

 

Why Civilizations Fail: Niall Ferguson Sounds A Wake-Up Call

I just finished reading, for the second time, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, by Niall Ferguson. Ferguson, who hails from Scotland, is one of the world's foremost historians. He's a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, and a faculty fellow at Harvard. 

The titles aren't what make his writing interesting. Rather, it is the clarity of thought and the scope of his ideas. To best understand what is happening in the world today, historians help bring perspective that most everyone has lost sight of because they are so focused on being "up to the minute," making sure we're in the loop with the latest statements or faux pas of the politicians we love or hate. 

One of the matters that this book addresses has to do with Western Civilization. Since there have been all kinds of civilizations over the ages, why do some rise up above the rest at various times? And how did Western Europe grow in strength and influence so that it came to dominate the world? 

There has been a lot of well-deserved criticism of the evils committed by the nations of Western Europe, not the least of which was the slave trade and exploitation of others' natural resources. Ferguson's book provides insights on how Western Civilization achieved the power that it did, and why this occurred in Europe and not elsewhere. 

Explaining the Great Divergence

People suggest a variety of explanations for the divergence in outcomes in quality of life for various people groups. For Ferguson, "Institutions, more than geography, natural resources, climate or even the incidence of disease, have a greater impact on societal outcomes."

Why did Western Civilization fair so much better than other civilizations? Ferguson writes that from the 1500s to the late 1970's there was an astonishing diverging in global living standards.

"As of 300 years ago the average Asian achieved the same as the average Westerner. As of 1978, the average American was 22 times richer. Why?"

Not only in wealth but also in health did we see this. In 1960, life expectancy in China was in the late 40s, whereas in the U.S. it had reached 70.

"A minority of mankind had both a material and political dominance over the rest. Why?" 

It had nothing to do with racial superiority, he notes. Nor did it have to do with natural resources, geography, climate or topography.  In other words, there were no outward signs to indicate Europe would outshine the great Oriental empires. 

Nor can the achievements of Western Europe be explained in terms of imperialism. Other empires did plenty of that as well. 

In point of fact, from 500 to 1500, which we now refer to as the Dark Ages, there was really nothing to suggest that this corner of the world would break out and expand its rule over a majority of the known world.

Ferguson believes that the reason for disparity in the great divergence between the Western end of Eurasia and the Eastern end has to do with the institutions that developed.

England was the first nation to embrace pluralistic rather than extracted political institutions. Spain was not and as a result, the political systems exported to the New World (North and South America) produced different outcomes. Protestantism was also a part of this influence.

Institutions are what matter. 

Here are a few points he makes early in the book:

--Dysfunctional institutions are what force the poor to live outside the law.

--The "rule of law" has no analogue in the non-human world.

--Good institutions are hard to achieve. Bad institutions are easy to get stuck in.

And then there's the big question that seems to be the overarching theme of this book: WHY DO INSTITUTIONS FAIL? 

* * * 

Niall Ferguson concluded that the rise of the West was due to four things, which he calls the Four Black Boxes. The bulk of this book is comprised of a deep dive into the meaning of these four elements.

1. Democracy -- the consent of the governed.

2. Capitalism -- and the vibrant society healthy markets produce.

3. Rule of law -- secure property rights, fairness and (in theory) equality.

4. Civil society -- how we treat one another.

The book was published ten years ago, and much of what we're seeing today is the crumbling of our culture. A very real degeneration is occurring right before our eyes. For the past half century we have been in decline and the evidence is all around us. 

Here are four areas where we have been failing.

--Failure to enforce property rights.

--Failure to uphold the rule of law

--Failure to understand economics, and defend the wealth creation capabilities of Capitalism.

--Failure to support the foundations of civil society.

As time permits I hope to share a more details regarding the Four Black Boxes of Civilization and why we need to wake up. To defend what really matters we need to understand what's really happening.   

* * * 

Related Link
Decline of the West: Historian Niall Ferguson Sounds Wake Up Call

The Art of Artifice: Capitalism and the Events Industry

My first trip to Las Vegas was in 1991. I'd gone to attend a trade show on trade shows at Bally's Convention Center. It was highly informative. For two days my boss and I attended workshops and walked the show floor, absorbing everything we could learn. 

One thing we observed was there seemed to be three pricing tiers in the booth business, just like McDonald's, except that instead of 1, 2 and 5 dollar prices, these structures we priced 5, 50 and 200.... thousands. If you had the money, there was no limit to how much you could spend once you had consultants and architects paid off.

In a similar vein, there was a wide variety of talent you could purchase for you show booth. There are national organizations with models who you can hire for the duration of your show.  Kelly Girls is one such organization, but an internet search will unearth others. There are also magicians you can hire to draw crowds. Who doesn't enjoy a good magic show? This is where the "almost famous" end up, I suspect. 

There are also look-a-likes of famous people whom you can rent to work your booth. A smiling Michael J. Fox stepped over and shook my hand. A veritable twin. Same mannerisms, too. Ever wonder what actors' doubles do when the actor is not working? Yep. You can probably rent him to attract people to your booth. And for a price, you can even have the real person, if you have the bucks.

All these memories came to mind when I saw an email this week about a company called Crowds On Demand. Having been an extra in a Hollywood film, I'm aware that when movies need lots of people for crowd scenes they have systems in place to recruit them. Were you aware that there are systems in place for manufacturing crowds in real life? 

Here's their sales pitch:

"Are you looking to create a buzz anywhere in the United States? At Crowds on Demand, we provide our clients with protests, rallies, flash-mobs, paparazzi events and other inventive PR stunts. These services are available across the country in every major U.S city, every major U.S metro area and even most smaller cities as well. We provide everything including the people, the materials and even the ideas. You can come to us with a specific plan of action and we can make it happen. OR, you can approach us with a general idea and we can help you plan the strategy then execute it."
https://crowdsondemand.com/

Next I learned about another group called Demand Protest. Here's info gleaned from their site.

We are strategists mobilizing millennials across the globe with seeded audiences and desirable messages. With absolute discretion a top priority, our operatives create convincing scenes that become the building blocks of massive movements. When you need the appearance of outrage, we are able to deliver it at scale while keeping your reputation intact.

Demonstrations

We develop, recruit, manage, and execute on your high-level objectives. Our trained operatives can lead entire crowds or simply steer events in your favor.

Movements

We have the proven expertise required to expertly shape political, corporate, or public health perceptions.

Intelligence

Our operatives can embrace and steer existing organizations, providing you valuable insights about those involved and their future actions.

Training

Our strategists can train your organization in our methods of creating effective demonstrations and design the situations that will deliver your goals.

Website: www.demandprotest.com

https://www.demandprotest.com/?fbclid=IwAR0A6p6AmfcudnVvNIlJCdcziBZ3seSf_b1e2H1CoCC2-ROz9BIye3vXeOs

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When I was growing up I remember being told once, "Don't believe everything you hear." When the Internet came along, we were told, "Don't believe everything you read on the Net." As time went on, this misinformation was given a name: Fake News.

When I read about these two groups--Crowds On Demand, and Demand Protest--it causes one to question the things we are seeing in real life. What is really happening? Who is manipulating whom? Both of these organizations claim to be skilled at influencing public opinion. That is how they set their prices. Purportedly they are able to deliver on their promises.

How does this make you feel when you read these websites and then watch today's news?

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Related Link

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Photo at top of page by Rob Curran on Unsplash

Putting Marxism In Perpective: Brief Interview with Economics Professor Evan Osborne

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Near the beginning of August an article headline caught my attention: Economics professor barred from teaching class critical of Marxism to student body.

The professor in question was Evan Osborne of Wright State University, who received his Ph.D. in economics from UCLA in 1993. The striking feature of the article for me was the fact that there are five pro-Marxist economics classes taught at Wright State University, and this would be the only one critical of Marxism. The innocuous title of his class would be "Marxism: A History of Theory and Practice."

As a result of the publicity generated by media coverage of the school's opposition to Prof. Osborne's proposed class, things have changed. He's now going to get the opportunity to teach the curriculum he developed. (EdNote: He had taught this course in the past but it was not available to undergraduates.) After seeing The College Fix article I reached out to Professor Osborne to get further clarifications on some of these ideological economics matters.

EN: What is the appeal of Marxist economic ideology?

Evan Osborne: Market economies produce a lot of inequality in outcomes. They also produce continual progress across time, but people who are bothered by inequality right now, can only think of it as a result of some unfair process, don't view the ability to be free to start a business, buy what you want to buy and not what the government tells you you must buy, and other commercial freedoms as part of freedom more generally are prone to be fans of Marxism.

EN: What are its biggest flaws?

EO: Marxism fundamentally gives a small handful of people the power to direct the fates of millions. The results, when compared to when people are free to run their own lives, are of course miserable. Morally that is a problem already, but empirically it leads to mass terror when plans don't work out as planners forecast, and frequently mass famine when the government's plans don't work out.

EN: How would you differentiate between Marxian and the Socialist economics espoused by Left-leaning Democrats like Bernie Sanders?

EO: You are right to ask that, because they are different. But they have a common feature of supposing that a political process is better than a decentralized, competitive market process in producing wealth, and increasing amounts of it overtime. People like Senator Sanders call themselves democratic socialists, but if the senator and people like him ever got the kind of power that governments in Britain, France or Sweden had in decades past, the results would be the same as they were in those countries. I do fear though that today's American left is far more demagogic than these examples.

EN: What were your biggest takeaways, regarding how we understand China economically, from having taught in China, both Taiwan and Mainland.

EO: I actually never taught in China, although I spent several months there as a visiting scholar. I saw enough to know that actually China is a fairly free economy now, although considerably more corrupt than Taiwan. Honestly, I think that the processes through which mainlanders get their clothing, food, and consumer goods generally is not that different from how it happens in Taiwan, although it is dramatically different from the circumstances in China in 1979. The dramatic increase in the average wealth in China, and the obvious signs of it in Chinese cities, is actually one of the great human rights victories of the postwar era, although clearly the Chinese government violates many human rights daily.

EN: We live in a broken world and there's no perfect economic system. What are Capitalism's biggest shortcomings?

EO: Capitalism makes some people very rich, and those people may be able to influence the government to limit their competition, making them harder to displace through the usual market process. If by "capitalism" you mean completely unregulated businesses, clearly many environmental problems would be generated.

EN: What is the role of incentives when it comes to economics and the creation of wealth?

EO: Irreplaceable.

EN: In January I read an article that said for the first time in human history half the world was middle class or above. That article attributed it to Capitalism. Would you say this was an accurate assumption?

EO: Yes.

EN: Do you have a blog or place where people can read more of your ideas?

EO: I don't have a blog or anything like that, although I have written three books, two of them academic and one textbook for my own students. They are all available through Amazon.

* * * *

List of unique or at least distinctive courses designed by Evan Osborne:
Economics of State and Society; Marxism: Theory and Practice; Adam Smith; Economics of Diversity; Financial and Economic Instability; The Great Depression; Globalization; Business and Society.

Related Links
Marxism: Theory and Practice (The curriculum Prof. Osborne developed.)
List of scholarly articles published by Prof. Osborne
Life Among the Academic Radicals
Books by Evan Osborne (at Amazon)

Is It Advertising or Is It Art?

THROWBACK THURSDAY
This post originally appeared in 2012

Interesting article by Curtis Gilbert at the Minnesota Public Radio site yesterday. Minnesota's Twin Cities are again trying to define where the line is between art and advertising.The cities have laws that prohibit signs from being excessively large, but such measurement restrictions do not apply to art.

The law became a problem when the store Creative Kidstuff wanted to install two giant cat images on the two sides of their entrance. Clearly the art is informing people where the Kidstuff store entrance is located. This violates the advertising signage rules.

But it's more than simply size restrictions. The anti-advertising advocates really don't want any promotion going on in public spaces.

You can read the article here: Cities debate art vs. advertising.

ST. PAUL Minn. — Minnesota's two largest cities are considering where to draw the line between art and advertising. Later this year, Minneapolis may relax the definition of "mural" to allow for pictures of products. And tonight, the St. Paul City Council will decide whether two cartoon cats count as signs or sculptures.

"Everywhere you look, advertisers are finding a place to put something, to sell you something you don't need," the executive director of the anti-billboard group Scenic Minnesota, Ossian Or, is quoted as saying. The implication is that outdoor advertising is a form of crime that ought to be outlawed.

But advertising has many more functions than just to sell. In the case of these giant cats it's simply wants to tell, in a wordless but entertaining way, that this is where our store is. How else are you going to find these places if you can't announce, "We're here!"?

For Scenic Minnesota billboards, too, are a blight. But many a weary traveller has found comfort in knowing that a there's a motel up ahead in the next thirty miles, or a place to grab a bite to eat.

I think part of the problem with advertising is the bad rap it gets from people who tar it by misrepresentation. Here is a typical anti-advertising quote, this one by Carrie Snow. "Advertising degrades the people it appeals to; it deprives them of their will to choose." O.K. please tell me how those two giant cats are depriving people of their will to choose? How about the T-shirt with a Lund Boats logo on it? Does this somehow force people against their will to buy boats and become fishermen? Yet advertising continues to be treated as if it were almighty and omnipotent.

* * * *
2018 ADDENDUM

According to the 2012 NPR article, "Since 2001, Minneapolis has banned murals that "advertise or promote any business, product, activity, service, interest or entertainment." If that law still stands on the books, it seems to me that the spectacular six-story high Dylan mural on Hennepin is a violation. Rock stars, like Pet Rocks, are a product. Like politicians. Like pottery. I mean, aren't the faces of celebrities a form of a branding? Jim Morrisons iconic face was his logo.

In fact, there's a sense in which the buildings in downtown Minneapolis are a form of advertising. Each is distinctive for a reason. No two are a like so that people associate the structure with the brand it represents. Do we really hate capitalism so much that we so dislike the color its advertising adds to a cityscape?

Disclaimer: The author of this blog is an artist who made a living in advertising.

The Economic Singularity: New Book by Calum Chace Designed to Awaken Us to Tomorrow's Perils and Possibilities

“The jobs of the future don’t exist today and the jobs of today will not exist in the future. Technological Singularity will change everything, but its first manifestation will come in the domain of economics, most likely in the shape of technological unemployment." ~Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy,

Calum Chace is a British futurist whose most recent book, Surviving AI, introduces us to the potential changes that will be wrought by the coming of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The books addresses both the possibilities and perils of the advances currently taking place in the realm of computer technology. After reading Surviving AI we made contact and I was able to interview the author about his newest book, soon to be released, The Economic Singularity.

This book will be eye-opening for those who have not been reading about the economic problems that AI and robotics are likely to produce, if not sooner then eventually. The past fifty years we've been distracted more by the population explosion, the depletion of natural resources, climate change and other potential disasters. Artificial Intelligence and the emerging supercomputers have not really taken up a lot of our worry-time. That is, unless you're a professional futurist working in the area of emerging technologies.

For Calum Chace, this theme is central. As a result he's read widely on the subject and explored a lot of territory that most people have been unaware even existed.

Ben Medlock, co-founder of Swiftkey, states: "Following his insightful foray into the burgeoning AI revolution and associated existential risks, Calum focuses his attention on a nearer term challenge - the likelihood that intelligent machines will render much of humanity unemployable in the foreseeable future."

Interestingly enough, massive unemployment does not have to become a problem, Chace explains, as long as we rethink our social systems and adjust to the new realities of unprecedented productivity gains and abundance.

He lays out the premise of the book up front:

There is a lot of talk in the media at the moment about technological unemployment – the process of people becoming unemployed because machines can do any job that they could do, and do it cheaper, faster and better. There is widespread disagreement about whether this is happening already, whether it will happen in the future, and whether it is a good or a bad thing. This disagreement is natural and inevitable: one of the main features of a singularity is that what lies beyond its event horizon is hard to see. Nevertheless we must try to peer into the hazy future if we are to prepare ourselves for it. In this book I will argue that technological unemployment is not happening yet (or at least, not much), that it will happen in the next few decades, and that it can be a very good thing indeed - if we prepare for it, and manage the transition successfully.

Chace puts the current era of technological change into a historical context, citing the disruption caused by the industrial revolution. The impact of machines on agriculture is vividly demonstrated when you look at the numbers. In 1900 41% of the U.S. was employed in agriculture. By 1970 this was a mere 4%. In Britain farmers are but 1% of the population.

Though machines replaced labor, humans had other capabilities besides muscle. This transition, like many, had challenges but they were for the most part overcome. Chace believes that this time it will be different and he cites various scholars who stand on both sides of this position, that there will be massive unemployment coming, very likely in our lifetimes.

This is one of the strong features of this book. Though he himself clearly has a position on these maters, he takes great pains to quote opposing points of view. Many are pessimistic about the future but there are many equally optimistic.

WE LIVE IN AMAZING TIMES

I myself have written a couple articles stimulated by the film Back to the Future, so it was fun to see this reference here:

We are strangely nostalgic about the future, and we are often disappointed that the present is not more like the future that was foretold when we were younger. 2015 was the 30 the 1985 movie “Back to the Future”, and it was also the year to which the hero travels at the end anniversary of the story. Journalists and commentators complained about the failure of hoverboards and flying cars to arrive, as predicted in the film.

We didn't get hoverboards, but we did get something even more significant. As recently as the late 20 century, knowledge workers could spend hours each day looking for information. Today, less than twenty years after Google was incorporated in 1998, we have something close to omniscience. At the press of a button or two, you can access pretty much any knowledge that humans have ever recorded. To our great-grandparents, this would surely have been more astonishing than flying cars. (Some people are so impressed by Google Search that they have established a Church of Google, and offer nine proofs that Google is God, including its omnipresence, near-onmiscience, potential immortality, and responses to prayer. Admittedly, at the time of writing, there are only 427 registered devotees, or “readers”, at their meeting-place, a page on the internet community site Reddit. lxxviii

New Jobs?

Here's the issue Chace wants us to consider. If machines end up taking most of our existing jobs, can we create new ones? If not, then what? Just because it didn't happen in the past doesn't mean it an't happen in the future. The author proposes that the real solution will have to be a fundamental change with regard to our Capitalist economic structure. Thinking outside the box he suggests that we consider the Star Trek Economy.

Money is not required in Star Trek's United Federation of Planets because energy has become essentially free, and products can be manufactured in so-called Replicators, devices which create useful (including edible) objects out of whatever matter is available.

...The Star Trek economy is the post-scarcity economy, the economy of radical abundance. In their 2012 book “Abundance: the future is better than you think”, Peter Diamandis and Stephen Kotler argue that this world is within reach in the not-too-distant future, thanks largely to the exponential improvement in technology.

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

In chapter five Chace outlines an alternative social structure, built upon a Universal Basic Income and an economy of abundance.

The point of this book so far has been to persuade you that within a few decades, it is likely that many people will be rendered unemployable by machine intelligence. If I have not wholly succeeded in that aim, then I hope you are at least prepared to accept that the possibility is serious enough that we should be thinking about the implications, and what to do about it if it happens. But UBI will not alone be sufficient to enable us to cope with the end of jobs. The other big problem we will have to tackle is cohesion. We will address that later on in this chapter, but first we should review the alleged problem of how people find meaning in a world without jobs.

It's not Marxism or conventional socialism that he's proposing. It's essential that we begin thinking of a new paradigm. Capitalism may not be too well-suited for an economy of abundance, where machines do the work, where most people are unemployed, and where technology is changing the species quickly.

The book is not yet available, but when it hits Amazon.com you'll find it a useful addition to your readings on this important subject. If you're young, it may have a bearing on your career.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Think about it.

Fall of the Creative Class

Last week a Facebook friend posted a thought-provoking critique of Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class. For those who care about these things, and I realize a lot of folks don't, the article addresses the current relationship between the arts and contemporary culture, and challenges certain beliefs regarding the economic value of art in society. The article, by Frank Bures, is titled "The Price of Everything." It's popularity may be due to the fact that it attempts to knock over one of our newly erected sacred cows.

Having a little background on Florida's ideas, some controversial, is helpful but not necessary to find Bures' piece stimulating. (He briefly outlines them in the article.)

Early in the piece Bures laments that many people found his observations "depressing." After analyzing this reaction he concludes:

I suspect it has to do with a shift in our attitude toward art and its place in our lives over the last decade or so — namely, the idea that if something is worth doing, it should also make money. Intrinsic value – in virtually every sphere– has given way to the metrics of financial return. Or as political philosopher (and Minneapolis native) Michael Sandel notes in his new book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, “We have drifted from having a market economy, to being a market society.” 

When I read these words I was reminded of Dr. Francis Schaeffer's concerns expressed in his book and video series, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? that he wrote with Dr. C. Everett Koop. It's basic premise is that there are some things that have value which should not be measured in purely economic terms. He illustrates this in a variety of ways, including the manner in which a price was placed on human beings during the slave trader days. The authors extrapolate that this same demeaning of what it means to be human is what led to justifications for abortion and euthanasia. When people are not productive, then we should get rid of them because they are a drag on society and progress.

Please don't stumble on the abortion statement there. My point, as Bures notes, is that capitalism seems to lay claim to everything nowadays, and that Schaeffer tried to argue that some things should remain in a more sacred realm. i.e. People.

In contrast, Richard Florida argues that art and "creatively 'activated' spaces can help jumpstart a local economy." Bures balks at this. Is this the role of art? Does art only have value when it is used to improve the economy?

In his summing up, Bures writes:

My fear is this: Once people realize that art may not be stoking a secret gravy train, they will simply want to get off it. If creative placemaking schemes don’t pan out, the false hope they engendered might do more damage to arts funding in the long run, because they will have shifted the focus away from our most compelling reason for support of the arts. We should fund art because it makes the space around us the kind of place we want to live.

Art matters. Design and beauty matter.

This is not to say that commerce is evil either. But things need to be kept in perspective. And like Bures, I am wary of what is hot today as an idea because it will be out of fashion tomorrow. The "hippie" movement was a statement against materialism that declared people are more important than things. A decade later the Yuppie movement swept 90% of those hippies away to chase BMWs and a lifestyle that was the complete antithesis. Alas.

Read it, think about it. It's a bite-sized morsel to chew on for today. The Price of Everything. And check out Richard Florida's response at the end. Let's keep the dialogue going. It's good for us.

Architectural Reflections: What Our Buildings Say About Us

“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” ~Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

I was eight years old when I first pondered the meaning of the homes we lived in. I was swinging on a swing set in the playground behind Stafford Elementary School in Maple Heights, Ohio. My inquiring mind had made the observation that most of the animals in the natural world lived in holes in the ground or in trees or places where they could hide, blend in and not be seen. People, on the other hand, at least the ones in my neighborhood, lived in houses painted white or bright colors and very much out in the open. As I wondered about this, it seemed to me that the animals lived in fear and thus had to be wary, whereas the people here were not afraid. They lived in houses right out in the open. It was a very interesting sequence of thoughts.

Thus did I first reflect on how the spaces we occupy reflect the character of those who occupy these spaces.

In my recent readings a statement was made in passing as regards the building of the skyscrapers in New York City and how some people took offense because they dwarfed the cathedrals which were once dominant in the skyline there. There was a time when the cathedrals were the ultimate structures in every town in the Christianized world. The meaning of this depends on who interprets, of course. For some it is a clear example of exploitation in the name of religion. For others, these are monuments to the most vital component of the culture.

But in modern times this all changed. In the 20th century, as a result of advances in technology and building materials, skyscrapers emerged. Interesting term. Buildings that scraped the sky.

Not everyone thought this wonderful. Henry James thought of skyscrapers as “soulless commercial tributes to America at its worst, utterly inhuman in scale, objects that bullied rather than adorned their surroundings.” The central character in James Baldwin’s In Another Country compared the skyscrapers of New York to phalluses or spears.

Whatever the interpretation, New York’s churches and cathedrals were dwarfed by these vertical outcroppings of glass, stone and steel. It’s quickly evident that the former pre-eminence of the church has been symbolically replaced by the pre-eminence of the mighty engine of Capitalism.

I think also of Las Vegas and the extreme decadence of the Strip. The Bellagio, Venetian, Wynns. One billion, then two billion dollar casinos, built by the generous contributions of willing dupes throwing it all away for a moment of pleasure and distraction. These extravagant monuments also say something about us.

What this says about the pervasiveness of shantytowns throughout the world I’m not quite sure. Do our monuments to progress help people forget their plight, or only serve to mock them?

So, Why Is Karl Marx Wearing A Clownsuit?

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other." ~ Karl Marx

This past week I saw a variation of the Swoosh Che image in my current edition of Communication Arts. The image is amusing because Che has become a symbol of the struggle against capitalistic exploitation. The Nike sponsorship implies that he's sold out.

Upon seeing the image this week in my current edition of Communication Arts, the image of Karl Marx in a Ronald McDonald clown suit came to mind. With the nationalizing of our banking system and other sweeping reforms being bandied about these days, I couldn't help picturing Mr. Marx removing his clown face and muttering, to no one in particular, "It's about time."

Perhaps you have a more suitable caption for this picture? Feel free to leave a comment.

To see more works by the illustrator Edel Rodriguez, here's a good starting point. For more original works by the illustrator who did Karl McMarx, just keep coming back to this blogspot. I'll do my best to make it worth your while.

To enjoy Mr. McMarx more fully, click image to enlarge.

Ethics and Advertising

So, here’s the question. Is there something inherently unethical about advertising? If not, then why do people hate it so much?

Maybe it’s because of the manner in which advertising has evolved. Capitalism is, to a large extent, interconnected to advertising. When we want to buy a pair of shoes, it helps to know where they can be purchased. And when we want to sell a pair of shoes, we certainly want people to know where they can buy ‘em. However, when I am not interested in buying shoes, and I am very interested in watching a show, sporting event or whatever on television, I strongly dislike being interrupted from what I want to do in order to hear some guy shouting at me regarding how cool his shoes are.

Perhaps this is one reason why early Internet philosophers were so intent upon keeping commercial activities off cyberspace. They failed, of course. Like the wild west in days of yore, there were explorers (now called “early adopters”) and misfits who just wanted to get away from excessive regulations and laws and the commercialism of life “back east” and be free to be. Eventually the land had to be properly titled, surveyed and deeded and turned into “property” so it could be taxed in order to pay for lawmen and judges and systems to keep people "safe" from the bad guys in order for provisions to arrive safely. And then goods were regulated so they, too, could be taxed. And so on... for the sake of safety and security.

The Internet could not remain “free” forever. That seems a given. Like real geography, cyberspace has virtual real estate, cybersquatters, and increasing regulation. And it is populated by people who recognize new opportunities. Like 49er gold seekers and pickaxe manufacturers who scrambled to San Fran during the gold rush, prospectors have been busy exploring these new online territories and sifting data to find the real opportunities here.

It didn’t take long for eCommerce to gain a foothold. The efficiencies inherent in owning “stores” not made of bricks and mortar made it possible to sell goods and services at reduced rates. Manufacturers could by-pass middlemen in the distribution chain and hold on to a portion of their margins. Consumers would appreciate the savings that were passed on as well.

And so advertising made fast inroads in the new frontier. Web businesses couldn’t just rely on luck to draw customers. Systems had to be developed. But we’re off topic here and I need to veer back toward the initial theme.

There are a number of issues surrounding advertising today, two I will mention here. The first is the preponderance of interruptive advertising. The second is the whole debate surrounding branding.

I completely understand the annoyance produced by interruptive styles of advertising. I’m enjoying a quiet evening at home, then the phone rings and some jerk is trying to sell me something I neither want nor need. In the end, over the objections of the Direct Marketing Association, the government created a “Do Not Call” list which forbids this kind of intrusiveness.

Television advertising is similar. I don’t want it, but unlike the phone, you understand that the shows exist as a vehicle to promote products. You "accept" this unwritten compact by turning on the TV. It's an agreement to accept a certain amount of interference. At some point, you may stop watching when the advertising takes forty minutes of the hour long show.

Brand images are less intrusive, and I am not entirely sure why they have become so controversial. You watch a sports event and see logos galore. Why? Because if the racers did not have sponsors, where would they be? Certainly not out there doing high tech adrenaline stomping metal shredding in cars, snowmobiles, motorcycles or trucks. Sponsors support racers, and the racing organizations that host, manage, promote events.

Online banner ads are similar. To create good content, many websites need to pay their staff, since the people making content have housing and food costs in the real world. So web forums and other sites turn a portion of their web content into real estate they can rent out to the highest bidder. The rent rises where there are lots of eyeballs, which means the web developers need to make sure the content is vital, relevant and "alive" enough to keep folks coming back.

Now would someone explain why brand names on clothes are so awful in high schools? There are schools banning brands. I do not recall being corrupted by seeing the word Levis on a pair of jeans when I was in school. Baseball hats had insignias. What’s up with this trend?

And then there’s the whole issue of highway billboards. I sort of like it when I am travelling and I see that there is a Crackle Barrel at the next exit. (disclaimer: unpaid endorsement) The food’s good, the atmosphere wholesome. Same goes for motels. I like knowing that somewhere down the road is a place we can call home for the night. Billboards serve a useful purpose, as far as I’m concerned. Why do people hate them so much?

I’m not arguing for signs unlimited. But the reality is, the signs are self-limiting because there’s a finite amount of businesses that will benefit from paying monthly rent for that billboard space. There are also jobs created by customers using services they were not aware of till they saw the signs.

If I sound like an ad man… well, that’s because I am. Isn’t it nice to know how far it is till the next rest stop or truck stop or restaurant?

Another ethical facet of advertising pertains to the matter of truth. That, however, is a discussion we’ll have to save for another day.