The training lecture goes on...
Apr. 10th, 2008 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencer"As you will readily observe, the same sequence of stages takes place here. Our primitive humanoids discover that their lives can be enhanced by making tools, growing food, hunting, fashioning clothes, and so on: stage one. They observe that by exchanging the fruits of their labours, they can benefit from others' aptitudes as well as their own, and the seeds of community are planted: stage two. They devise a system governing these exchanges: stage three. The system--'business'--becomes a thing in itself, stage four, and takes precedence over the activities which gave rise to it, stage five. And once again we come to the plateau. Odoacer, you are doing it again. Kindly desist, and continue in your forbearance till I am out of earshot. It really is quite distressing.
"Societies at stage six in this progression are governed in reality by business. Those pursuits, some life-enhancing, others less so, by which humanoids help each other and exercise their own vital powers along paths of excellence, are now done badly and without care by machines. The only way in which people are involved is to maintain the machines, record their rate of work, sell the products and receive therefor a stipend which manages to be both entirely out of proportion to the actual per item cost of producing the goods and lamentably insufficient to support the employee. Some live their whole lives, working every day for years, without once performing a single action which is in itself productive. The entire society has become dependent on this unproductive activity, like a drug the abandonment of which would destroy the addict. There is widespread disenchantment, as in the previous example, with 'business' and its ancillary effects, and here there are a number of convenient scapegoats: technology, government interference, the people themselves, as if an incompetent chef were to blame the diners for his mauvaise cuisine. One might imagine that were all the people to disappear from the face of the planet overnight, the businesses would somehow remain, independently alive and after their own fashion aware, unable to die but deprived of their source of nourishment.
"As you will readily appreciate, this state of affairs, while regrettable for the people involved, is ideal for us. The split, the dichotomy, between the manufacture of necessary goods and the financial sustenance of the citizenry, leads inevitably to that phenomenon I have dubbed 'the financial black hole.' A small number of individuals are remunerated not for what they do, but for the number of people they have under their command and the work that they do. These individuals thus become absurdly wealthy, and this wealth attracts more wealth, for it is toxic to the very nature of "business" to lose money or to stagnate at a median level. You will recall the paradox of the planet whose every nation's most earnest desire is to be a net exporter of goods. Similarly, every 'business' is constructed to be a net importer of money, at ever increasing rates, without cease. Those which fail in this, inevitably, fall by the wayside.
"There is a stage seven, and again it consists of a recapitulation, in which our society develops the ability to discriminate between those activities which may usefully be delegated to machines, and those which are and ever shall be best performed by a humanoid being, who may then be directly rewarded for his or her efforts. The transition in this case is much more prolonged, traumatic, and generally messy, and most societies you will encounter are currently in this interregnal period. The establishment of the Sagittarian Accords has assisted the transition to stage seven in numerous cases, and ameliorated many of the deleterious effects--if whoever is producing that offensive sternutation does not abandon his efforts instanter, I shall begin again from the incipit--thank you--but even on Sagittarian worlds there remain, for the moment, potential rich pickings for the enterprising Nyrond. There may be a stage eight, but since a society at that stage would afford us no further opportunities, it is profitless to theorise about it, though Heraclitus and Dagobert have presented a fascinating vision of the ultimate, so to call it, money-death of the universe, when every sentient being possesses exactly the same amount of money and no-one has enough to do anything with it. For myself, I would say that this hypothesis speaks more to the vigour of their imaginations than to any possible future development with which we ought to concern ourselves.
"Ah. It would appear our allotment of time has elapsed with startling celerity. Next time we meet, I should like to see a proposal from each of you as to how you would extract the maximum of negotiable currency from a society in any stage from three to seven. Thank you, gentlemen."
"Societies at stage six in this progression are governed in reality by business. Those pursuits, some life-enhancing, others less so, by which humanoids help each other and exercise their own vital powers along paths of excellence, are now done badly and without care by machines. The only way in which people are involved is to maintain the machines, record their rate of work, sell the products and receive therefor a stipend which manages to be both entirely out of proportion to the actual per item cost of producing the goods and lamentably insufficient to support the employee. Some live their whole lives, working every day for years, without once performing a single action which is in itself productive. The entire society has become dependent on this unproductive activity, like a drug the abandonment of which would destroy the addict. There is widespread disenchantment, as in the previous example, with 'business' and its ancillary effects, and here there are a number of convenient scapegoats: technology, government interference, the people themselves, as if an incompetent chef were to blame the diners for his mauvaise cuisine. One might imagine that were all the people to disappear from the face of the planet overnight, the businesses would somehow remain, independently alive and after their own fashion aware, unable to die but deprived of their source of nourishment.
"As you will readily appreciate, this state of affairs, while regrettable for the people involved, is ideal for us. The split, the dichotomy, between the manufacture of necessary goods and the financial sustenance of the citizenry, leads inevitably to that phenomenon I have dubbed 'the financial black hole.' A small number of individuals are remunerated not for what they do, but for the number of people they have under their command and the work that they do. These individuals thus become absurdly wealthy, and this wealth attracts more wealth, for it is toxic to the very nature of "business" to lose money or to stagnate at a median level. You will recall the paradox of the planet whose every nation's most earnest desire is to be a net exporter of goods. Similarly, every 'business' is constructed to be a net importer of money, at ever increasing rates, without cease. Those which fail in this, inevitably, fall by the wayside.
"There is a stage seven, and again it consists of a recapitulation, in which our society develops the ability to discriminate between those activities which may usefully be delegated to machines, and those which are and ever shall be best performed by a humanoid being, who may then be directly rewarded for his or her efforts. The transition in this case is much more prolonged, traumatic, and generally messy, and most societies you will encounter are currently in this interregnal period. The establishment of the Sagittarian Accords has assisted the transition to stage seven in numerous cases, and ameliorated many of the deleterious effects--if whoever is producing that offensive sternutation does not abandon his efforts instanter, I shall begin again from the incipit--thank you--but even on Sagittarian worlds there remain, for the moment, potential rich pickings for the enterprising Nyrond. There may be a stage eight, but since a society at that stage would afford us no further opportunities, it is profitless to theorise about it, though Heraclitus and Dagobert have presented a fascinating vision of the ultimate, so to call it, money-death of the universe, when every sentient being possesses exactly the same amount of money and no-one has enough to do anything with it. For myself, I would say that this hypothesis speaks more to the vigour of their imaginations than to any possible future development with which we ought to concern ourselves.
"Ah. It would appear our allotment of time has elapsed with startling celerity. Next time we meet, I should like to see a proposal from each of you as to how you would extract the maximum of negotiable currency from a society in any stage from three to seven. Thank you, gentlemen."