[FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

[Marcus Daniels]

Maybe fairness is too limited perspective?    Like companies that hire a bunch of people and then exhale all of the underperforming ones.   Similarly, if some families (like the House of Windsor) find a way to ensure they will reproduce, educate their young and maintain influence, generation after generation, then perhaps that population (e.g. England) has done its job?   It just depends what you measure.   Are some people progressing vs. are all people progressing?    In this view, it seems questionable that the population is needed any more, up to some dangerous level of inbreeding.  But also in this view, the transfer of wealth is to keep what "works" going.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2021 1:26 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

I think Merle's request for us to start with "what is wealth?" before we go on to "what is it for" was not pedantic... it rather reflected that likelihood that we don't all share the same idea of what wealth is, even at the broadest scale.  I also think they are inextricably tied.

I admit to thinking this group would be unable/willing to talk much outside the most obvious definition ($USD or private control of
resources) but I have been pleased to see that the question has lead to a broader apprehension of the idea.    The most recent tangent on education (implying knowledge, skill, credential building/acquiring) is a good example. Kudos particularly to Cordingly for making a stab at a more elaborated taxonomy (part of what i wanted to provoke with the question).

I particularly like Glen's introduction (in support of Gil's anecdotes) of *access* to resources vs *control* of them which reflects on the ideas of public/private, commons, synergy and leverage, and re-use (does every person need to haul their own toilet, coffee maker and bed around with them everywhere they go?  Just the RV crowd).  Temporary custodial access/control (the public toilet while you are using it, a book from the public library while you are reading it, a park bench or a few square feet of public beach, etc.) also implies "custodial responsibility" to leave those items "no worse for wear" and in some cases improved (e.g. pick up some trash).  There are good reasons for "a commons" and even more better good reasons for maintaining them, yet we so often fail (the tragedy of "the tragedy of the commons) for what feel like mundane if not dysfunctional reasons.

Discussions of "wealth", especially in the context of free markets and communalism usually include some idea of how "wealth builds" which can range from autopoetic virtuous cycles of production (organic farming, Rep Rap 3D printing factories, nanotech grey-goo) to expanding exploration for exploitation (mining, unsustainable agriculture, timbering, etc.) to enhanced efficiency/utilization of existing resources...   Merle would probably introduce ideas of circular (and
toroidal?) economies and many would acknowledge the tension between economies of scale/globalism and locally (partially) closed systems. 

I'm a fan of limiting intergenerational wealth-transfer, though I don't know how to effect it except for myself in a free-market context with my own progeny.   I don't begrudge my children a little hit of "wealth"
when I die, but I don't feel obligated to provide it, and definitely don't want the expectation of it to be an enabling thing, not that they are at much risk (like Don, Eric, Ivanka for example).   I wouldn't resent them inheriting my "farm" if I had one and they were farmers or my smithy or my cobbler's shop if they had followed my footsteps, and in fact since they would likely have joined me IN those enterprises decades ago, they would have been *naturally* and *organically* theirs as much or more than *mine* by that time anyway.  I also would feel fully righteous to go help my children build a house or raise their kids as my "legacy" to them...   much healthier than handing them a pile of cash (no matter how small or large) one day.

"Inheritance" made more sense (IMO) in these intergenerational continuation contexts, not in the government-subsidized mortgage and speculative markets context we now live in.  My daughters know I'm looking to repatriate the land I live on which was "bought" from the San Ildefonso Pueblo 50 years ago and while I'm sure *they* might like to have the cash equivalent in their bank accounts (or pay down *their* mortgages), they actually understand and support the concept.  If anything, my continuing to live on the land is perpetuating the original wrong (I can't find what PNM paid them for the chunk, nor the "developer" who bought it from PNM 10 years later, but I'm sure it was a pittance). 

Nobody who lives in the Americas doesn't in some sense live on land stolen from the Native Americans.  The paradox of the 40 acres-and-a-mule reparations that was never realized during reconstruction... *whose* 40 acres were we going to give to the freed slaves?   While something like this is true around the world (who WERE the original peoples in any given locale?  All of Eurasia stolen from the Neanderthals/Denovisians/Peking-Man by Homo Sapiens?  Yup!   And ALL that and more stolen from the megafauna?   Ad infinitum, ad absurdum.  

While Glen may be right that these long-winded personal anecdotes serve the anecdotalizer's ego (Glen made the point in the context of SW
development) I don't believe it *only* serves that purpose.   Jon and Glen have pointed out the utility of grounding abstractions in particulars, so I trust that balances it somewhat.

mumble,

 - Steve


On 3/16/21 9:22 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Well, going back to the topic SteveS tried to discuss, I reject the semantic pedantry around settling on a crisp definition of "wealth" before being able to have a discussion. The dictionary definition is fine. But 1 component of being affluent or having a hoard of valuable artifacts is, as Gillian makes clear, the breadth of one's repertoire. Being poor is very difficult and time consuming. The specious Puritan rhetoric that even if you're poor, all you need do is spend all your free time working, forgets that you tire out (in short-) and burn out (in long-term), physically, mentally, emotionally.
>
> And the primary detriment to that exhaustion is that the curiosity and energy you pour into various parts of your repertoire is drastically limited. Nobody's going to, say, read Ulysses after the night shift of their third job, especially if they have a kid, or have to pay bills with money they don't have.
>
> So all these ways of knowing infinity sound like toys for wealthy people to me. Getting psilocybin into the hands of *public health* psychiatry would be fantastic. But the core problems won't be solved as long as we're living under individualist neoliberal capitalism. A basic income, public health, and reliable infrastructure will do more to help your everyday yahoo know infinity better than a few one-off indulgences by a few already wealthy dudes.
>
> As Nick and Robert suggest, having the time and energy to explore and expand one's repertoire. That's what wealth allows, even if it seems like most of the celebrities squander it.
>
> On 3/15/21 9:15 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Totally different item: I sure would like to take some of you (especially you glen)  the places I have been where I intellectually, viscerally, emotionally, somatically, and kinesthetically experienced and understood really cool things like infinity.

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