profit and loss

[kevin at limits.org]

On Thu, 3 May 2001, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> ------------------------------
> From: calbert at tiac.net
> 
> It certainly reflects an increasing diversity of trans national 
> transactions. And as you, I and Jbor believe, this is a POSITIVE 
> trend. More participants, a greater diversity of objectives, a levelling 
> playing field, a contraction of "protected" markets in ALL nations - 
> who could possibly be so obtuse as to argue that this is a bad thing?

The problem arises when a given nation/economy is through either a
GATT-esque regulatory scheme or simple survival-of-the-fittest
competition, required to sacrifice a desireable element of quality,
whether that be a critical, modern environmental regulation, or a law
limiting the ingredients that you can put in something and call it beer.

Another problem is when, as in NAFTA, the regulatory oversight of abuses
is performed not in a nation's courts, but in arbitration.

> Another silly element of the "Teufelsdröckh manifesto" is the 
> demand that corporations must be subject to local community 
> oversight.....these are functions handled on the NATIONAL level, 
> generally, though not always and perhaps not always perfectly, 
> administered by people with a proven expertise, or at least some 
> academic veneer of same, in their particular field. WOuld these 
> "community boards" be composed of participants who are obliged to 
> exhibit some understanding of what they wish to manage, or will they 
> be staffed by the winners of "democratic" elections - in which there 
> is a real possibility that the "pretty ones" prevail over those, perhaps 
> less charismatic, who may actually know something about the 
> market they are about to "supervise"?

I will certainly not put my stake in with the manifesto you're responding
to (because, for starters, I didn't read it), or latch my arguments onto
those of others.  But I will say that your argument seems to be based on
what is, to me, an unhealthy fear of peer review and the democratic
process, which kind of gets to the point of why there were street battles
in Quebec City two weeks ago:  the negotiation process was closed, and
their final product was to be undisclosed.  (They did concede to release
the draft agreement, but apparently with a backhanded "it will take us
many many months to translate this into Spanish and Portugese, and we
won't disclose the English version until we do.")

I recognize the value of basing major policy decisions on what Republicans
like to call "sound science" (which is, of course, a joke given the GOP
track record in that department).  That said, a good part of my distaste
for your reasoning -- we'll call this the part that's based on practical
experience -- comes from working in Washington, DC, where people retire
from industries to work for the government, and then retire from the
government to work for the industries again.  You've either naive about
the many "industry analysis" reports from scientists who are obviously on
the take, or you're one of Them.  Dick "Halliburton" Cheney and the
Treasurer from Alcoa are just the tip of a very large iceberg of biased
and perhaps even venal adminstrators with a proven expertise in their
particular fields.

So please, don't tell me that I should shut up and let my leaders do their
highly sophisticated job without any oversight.

> Which leads to the following:
> 
[cutesy example snipped]
> 
> At exactly which point does T suggest that his mom surrender her 
> sovereignty over her project to the caprice of her drunken, fighting 
> cock-pit operating neighbour? WOuld that be a function of sales 
> volume, payroll, or just warm yummies?

Again, I didn't read T's statement, and he is big enough to answer for
himself on those grounds, but when you're talking about the democratic
oversight of corporate enterprise, the answer is "when her enterprise is
incorporated."  Or am I on a different boat, on a different sea?

> Here is a suggestion - subject yourself to the idiots who make up the 
> balance of my local condo association - just for ONE meeting....It is 
> a dead bang cure for the delusion that progress springs from 
> collective action and consensus.......

I've sat through my fair share of school board meetings and cluster
association meetings and rally organization meetings and so forth, many of
which were held under Robert's Rules of Order because someone watched too
much TV, and of course everyone wants to interrupt to ask how this affects
them, personally, as in "well, if I'm starting with _six_ apples, but
we're still taking away two, how many would that leave _me_ with?"  I know
how that feels.  But would you prefer for decisions about what type of
shrubs are planted between the pool and the tennis court to be made by

	a)  Municipal/ County officials
	b)  State officials
	c)  Federal officials
	d)  UN officials
	e)  Tom Pynchon

?

-- 
Kevin Troy