*Epic thought-wrestling as Cory Doctorow (wearing the cheap spangled "Favela Chic" trousers), jumps into the mudpit of contemporary economics with Chris Anderson (in his Gothic High Tech "Economist Magazine" vest-suit-and-tie).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/28/cory-doctorow-free-chris-anderson
(...)
"Through most of the history of the industrial era, markets were seen as a fit tool for organising a small piece of human endeavour, while the rest of life – the military, volunteerism, families, public service – were outside the marketplace. Markets may be good at organising scarce goods, and they may even be good at organising abundant ones, but do abundant goods really need organising?
(((This just in: German brothels offer "flat-rate sex":)))
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/recessionhit-german-brothels-offer-flatrate-sex/495079/
"Also missing in Free is the frank admission that for many of the practitioners threatened by digital technology, the future is bleak. ((("Free, but bleak." All the bandwidth you want, but content-provision wants to be poor. Want a really great-looking Favela t-shirt? Check this out, but remember, you should pay for the convenience of that, instead of just swiping it free off her awesome FlickR set.)))
http://www.threadless.com/product/1856/Favela
"For while it is true that Madonna and many other established artists have found a future that embraces copying, there will also be many writers, musicians, actors, directors, game designers and others for whom the internet will probably spell doom. And for every creator who loses her livelihood because she is unsuited to the digital future, there will be many more intermediaries – editors, executives, salespeople, clerks, engineers, teamsters and printers – who will also be rendered jobless by technology. (((Dead guys at Hiroshima were also "rendered jobless by technology," but we've given up framing advanced nuclear power as "technology". Wonder why. The A-Bomb never destroyed all our newspapers, record shops and bookstores.)))
"It is possible to be compassionate about those peoples' fortunes – just as it is possible to mourn the passing of mom-and-pop bookstores, the collapse of poetry as a viable commercial concern, the worldwide decline of radio serials, the waning of the knife-sharpening trade, and a million other bygone human activities – while still not apologising for the future. (((Given that the icecaps are rapidly melting, some serious "apologizing for the future" is in order, though I'm not gonna hold my breath until Exxon-Mobil apologizes to the hapless legions of snow-bunnies and beach-vendors "rendered jobless by technology.")))
"Anderson paints a rosy picture of free, even noting the gains we all experienced as a result of the creative destruction of travel agents and stockbrokers thanks to Expedia and Etrade, but he fails to clearly and explicitly state something to the effect of: "The information revolution is not painless or bloodless. Its wrenching changes have and will put those of the industrial revolution to shame. Much of value will be lost." (((We have an amazing High Tech castle. There are giant black gaping holes in our walls where the moaning, hungry ghosts of a vanished order emit their banshee wails.)))
"On those lines, Free suffers from the same fate as many other recent business books: it describes a business-climate that no longer exists. The anecdotes and evidence come largely from the era of the cheap money bubble..."
(((What if the cheap-money-bubble WAS the reality, and it's the sorry epoch we're living in that is the spectral Gothic phantasm?)))
*Take it away, Alfred Tennyson:
*"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Free
Rode the six hundred.
