[PeDAGoG] [REDlistserve] A new article on the RED website - "The path to a just and sustainable society"

Fri Oct 1 17:25:48 CEST 2021

On 30/09/2021 14:25, Hari DK wrote:
> Two questions to critics of capitalism in general..
> 
> -what of the 'heroic journey' of the individual entrepreneur, who assumes
> individual risk in order to bring a project to reality? I know several of
> them who are motivated by much, much more than the desire to make a huge
> profit. However, the desire of others to make a huge profit provides them
> the 'fuel' (risk capital) they need. What about social enterprise that
> scales through blended impact and risk capital?

Unexpected winners can always be found, even in a game that is rigged.
The American Dream does not always turn into a nightmare and there are
even trailer parks filled with hopeful souls, who crashed once or twice
before, but who incredulously (to me) maintain their beliefs in that game.

Two texts come to mind here (observing a 50/50% gender split):

 - Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

- and Katharina Pistor's excellent analysis/review: 'The Code of
Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality'.

I don't suppose it should be necessary to point to critiques of
microfinancing and all that sort of developmentalist stuff?

Whichever way - however you twist and turn it - it is a system, a game
play, where benefits come at the cost and pain of someone else. It is
that cost/pain, I believe, which one can try to minimise in the course
of one's life and in the process of realising one's dreams. There is no
win/win, so one needs to minimise one's winning.

There are many pathways - of course - such as avoiding supermarket food,
not driving a big car around for fun, not buying new clothes, building
ecovillages, whatever ideas people come up with. Keeping in mind that
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> -a practical question - I live in India and am trained as an engineer. The
> other day I saw some beautiful projects based on data and artificial
> intelligence by some students who were trying to solve practical societal
> problems in healthcare and sustainable transportation. Should I tell them
> "don't work on these, they are based on the capitalist empire in which you
> have no agency'. What is the future of engineering, innovation and
> technology - which do have so many positive benefits after all?

Those benefits - which are not easily disentangled from the costs and
pain upon which they rest - are not always clear-cut. I would tell them
that. I would analyse and move far beyond the illusion that
cyberspace/AI are immaterial. They are not. They are extremely material
with extreme costs.

Perhaps consider Roberto Verzola's work 'Towards a Political Economy of
Information' which begins with this telling little vignette:

“We are all familiar with the typical story of an isolated village at
the edge of the forest. Some villagers have to go to town to buy a few
necessities, and maybe to stock the village store. Others need to go to
sell some products for cash. Villagers start to feel that the foot path
to town is insufficient for their needs.

Village activists may even pursue the issue and organize the people to
demand a better road. Eventually, public opinion is swayed, and a
petition is submitted. The government, the villagers are pleasantly
surprised, is amenable to the idea. Road-building eventually starts.

As completion date nears, the village organizes a welcome party for the
first vehicle that is coming in. A few days later, the village wakes up
to the rumble of engines and smell of diesel exhaust. The vehicles have
come. And they are logging trucks, carrying men with chain saws.” -
https://rverzola.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/towards-a-political-economy-of-information-full-text/

The IT industry is a disaster for people and planet. When I click send
in a minute I have engaged a system that is worse than the aviation
industry. What's the gain, exactly? Sounds like you take them as read,
those benefits. I would argue that they require critical evaluation on a
case-by-case basis.

Whichever way we move forward, at this stage I reckon the most important
thing is to create and maintain spaces of conviviality where the spirit
of community and love can endure. The collapse is coming sooner than
later, probably, and eventually all we will have left - once AI and the
technosphere are reduced to value-less memories that are better
forgotten - is dreams and ideas of freedom. And even those are under
severe attack.

mp