The Odd Couple

Over at Kuro5hin there's a dual review of two books that probably don't often share shelf-space: Naomi Klein's No Logo and The Future and Its Enemies by some person named Postrel.

Comments

[Tim Stich]

I remember reading about Naomi Klein in that Fast Company mag that used to be delivered to our office for some reason. She and some anti-globalist nutjob were sharing the spotlight. Now poor Mrs. Postrel has to share a book review with her? Gack! Someone put Mrs. Klein in her own Target commercial and get her the hell outta here.

[Kevin Carson]

Postrel's "stasist/dynamist" duality is ironic, given the respective positions of the average downloader and the RIAA, to take one example, on file-sharing. Or on the role of statist measures like the Uruguay Round's IP provisions in giving TNCs a monopoly on production technology and locking out the emergence of Third World competition. Or on collusion between TNCs and corrupt authoritarian communist or banana republic regimes in terrorizing labor organizers.

The free market is indeed a dynamic weapon of revolution. And the state is a weapon of stasis for those benefiting from the status quo. But it's the global corporations who stand to lose the most from a genuine free market, and the global corporations who depend most on the state to protect them from it.

[Anonymous]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393051242/reasonmagazinea-20/
http://www.salon.com/news/special/wto/

[Kevin Carson]

ESPECIALLY the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I always call up to harass them during pledge drives.

They like to pile on the guilt for watching their programming without paying for it. I call and tell them that even if only 1% of their funds come from taxpayer money, that means they robbed me at gunpoint. Therefore, all bonds of mutual obligation are dissolved between us. I can watch whatever I want, any damn time I want.

[John Thacker]

"Ironic?" How so? Useful, interesting, thought-provoking, yes. I don't really disagree with your comments, either, except I don't see how Ms. Postrel's "stasist/dynamist" duality is ironic.

"Corporations" are no more positive or negative than people are, inherently. They can both be powerful forces for change or for stasis. They can be efficient within the free market or attempt to manipulate the state. I don't see that as being ironic, merely fact.

[Anonymous]

corporations are all evil

[River]

To prove Postrel's "dynamist/stasist" thesis -- keep a close eye on this thread ... then watch it disappear into oblivion after, what, 4 days?

Well, that's dynamism for ya.

Dynamism is built into nature. Things move on. But not so with governments. For example, it takes them 44 YEARS to realize that their flag is outdated: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_778259.html?menu=news.quirkies

Well, that's stasism for ya.

[Ted]

people are all evil

[Neil Block]

(and, inherently, government is no better)

[Anonymous]

"corporations are all evil"...including the Corporation For Public Broadcasting?

[Anonymous]

let's not all start chewin' on each others' clits just yet ladies. we still have a long way to go and a lot of work left to get there.

[Anonymous]

One big diff between corps and guvs: Corps don't wield guns.

[Kevin Carson]

Anon:

Most ruling classes, at least since feudalism, have not wielded guns. They have acted through the state and relied on its guns. All the subsidies and privileges and other forms of intervention in the market that the global corporations depend on, come from the state's armed force. Abolish the power of the state, and you abolish state capitalism with it.

[river]

I agree. All sides, all factions, ought to simply stop hiring that gun.

Nice trick, if we can do it.

[the pessimist]

"Abolish the power of the state ..."

How do you propose to do that?

And didn't we try that (unsuccessfully) in 1776?

"Abolish the power of the state ..."
That's like saying, abolish street muggers; or abolish car thieves; or abolish pick-pockets.
Sure! While we're at it, let's also abolish cockroaches, even though they pre-date us by some several billion years.

[D Anghelone]

And there are outfits like Sandline, the former Executive Outcomes.

The reality of the SMO?

[D Anghelone]

""Corporations" are no more positive or negative than people are, inherently. They can both be powerful forces for change or for stasis. They can be efficient within the free market or attempt to manipulate the state. I don't see that as being ironic, merely fact."

Governments are no more positive or negative than people are. And corporations are government charters. Klein sees a retreat of state influence from public life in the power of the branded corporation. Perhaps she'd better see the corporation as proxy for the state.

Do corporations manipulate the state or vice versa or are the contentions between but family fights?

[Anonymous]

http://gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=430

---
She points out that the velocity of change has increased to such a degree that we can no longer assume that learning between generations will be uni-directional. In a time when 12-year-olds are teaching their grandmothers how to use computers, she observes, "The truth is that parents don't know the answer to everything anymore. And they can't pretend very well, except in remote places."

In families and on campuses, she also sees a shift toward more interactive dialogues, in which questioning authority is increasingly the norm. The constant learning that is required in these interactions carries with it the underlying meta-value of respect for others who think differently and who are different in many ways. As the inertia of identifying with a fixed cultural view gives way to a more fluid expression of ourselves, she emphasizes, "You are not what you know but what you are willing to learn."

[J. Dred]

Domang, good to see we still have mercenaries around. I mean, they do get paid, don't they?

[D Anghelone]

Mercenary? Contract Soldier, please. And they seem to get paid well enough.

The head of Sandline says that PMCs should be regulated by governments or the UN.

And he speaks the lingo:

"One recalls how he told the assembled press corps that an Italian UN peacekeeper had died "of natural causes". When the body was found, riddled with bullets, Spicer smoothly pointed out that he hadn't misled them - clinically speaking, the soldier had died when his heart stopped beating."

>

"While I respect the things that one matures into, I'm a great questioner and deflater of bullshit. One of the strengths of the British national character is that we do question and we are independent as a type."

Hmmm...

But these Brits are pikers. Dyncorp surely generates more income.

[J.Dred]

Continuing our little discussion, Domang, let's dispense with the euphemisms, shall we? ("Contract soldier," yeah, sure.) Just crack the dictionary, OK?

Regarding the "natural causes" double-speak, the head of Sandline would do well to hit the books as well. In mine, there's still a "cause" and an "effect." Bullets were the original cause; a stopped heart was the result, the consequence. And bullets are man-made, not nature-made.

So much for his "natural causes" excuse.

[London Daniel]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://www.enlargement-for-penis.com
DATE: 01/26/2004 11:26:55
Reality is not affected by our apprehension of it.