been reading crispy’s site about punk rock and Josiah Warren. more on the punk rock side, though. Crisp argues that the philosophy of punk harkens back to Luther, and what punk and punk labels/bands have set out to do ultimately relates back to American individualist Warren. here is an excerpt in the article that is associated with Warren:
Things should be sold for exactly what they cost to produce and sell: the raw materials and the time that went into their making and marketing. If a community or a business could commit itself to that principle, then it could undersell communities and businesses based on the profit motive, and so in the long run could succeed and spread, slowly replacing an economy based on profit to one based on labor, without violence or constraint. ’
then Christina emails me this this morning:
Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates — and not so much to make money.
my dad has been through a myriad of lay-off’s mergers and been
shuffled around at the whim of a company’s reaction to both Wall
Street and its own revenues. (DEC to Compaq to HP) the one thing he maintains is that the businesses, when the owner or creator passes on the company, lose what they originally went into their business for, the goods/services they provide, then they suck. they’re not fun to work for when they’re not after anything but profit. you’ve got to be motivated by what you’re doing.
capitalism is destruction. I hope Craigslist is private and does not
open the door to WS investors by going public. because then it’s
instant destructo.
(read beyond this point at your own risk; if you value your sanity, leave now.)
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one of my breathren emailed his response, later in the morning:
cool. so when can we overthrow these empty headed suits and allow a real marketplace to flourish?
to which I beat him upside with this (from the punk article):
Dischord is conceived as a library of DC punk music; they don’t have A&R people out trying to recruit hot young talent. And they’ve managed to hold onto their values for twenty years. Mackaye says things like this: “It’s not that I’m out to smash the state. I’m just interested in building my own damn state.” He’s not interested in tearing down the system; he’s interested in building his own little system, or his own zone within the system where he can live and create the way he wants to.
then I got rolling:
I still don’t find much wrong with profit. profit is life. we’re profit from the freaking sun, taken far enough back. but you have to be motivated by something other than profit alone. unless you want to eat your young.
Eat Your Young would be a good name for a punk rock band.
more:
did I accomplish what I meant to convey? this article is severely (leftist/communist) biased. ‘teach them capitalists a thing or two about success!’ and they’re right. but so is WS, in a way.
let me explain.
it’s like ok, WS wants to crack open Craig’s list for the intrinsic value, maximize profits, then build a more and better Craig’s list. like that’s even English.
but that motive is very…modern. modern American. mercantilism?
ok, now any for-profit company has motives. is Bill Ford going to tell you he’s not interested in providing the best quality cars possible? no, of course he is. every for-profit company has a similar motive. WS even does – they provide investment opportunities for the greater good (TIAA-CREF). you shouldn’t separate the concept of profit from the concept of creating something valuable (or doing good). that make sense?
so WS wants to crack Craig’s list open and explode it for its full potential. WS types spend days measure and analysing value and worth of companies. that’s their job. they see in Craig’s list a shit ton of value.
how do you reconcile the fact that Craig’s list provides a valuable service and what WS wants to do is make it more readily available, garnering more profit to make the product better. that’s what WS is trying to do.
that’s what WS will do if CL goes public. buy enough of it and have your say.
now, if CL isn’t or doesn’t go public, it can grow on its own terms. that’s what is so admirable. this guy is not going to compromise his ideas and beliefs and motives. his co. WS sees the company and its potential given a set of industry standards and precedents. as stands, only the owner can take it there, or take it beyond.
you could argue that through this type of protectionism, CL is holding back a huge value to the entire of humanity, across the world. open this great product to the rest of us! take it worldwide as big and as best as you possibly can. WS and consultants will help you do that.
or you could argue that CL doesn’t want to be eaten alive quite yet. I don’t know why he was even talking to WS, if that’s the case. (former TIAA-CREF-er, Christina, explains this to me at dinner)
Eat Your Young is a great name.
to which the reply was:
i think you are off a bit on what the potential outcome of WS getting into craigslist would be. they dont want to make it better, hell in all likelyhood they want to dumb it down. simplify it. get rid of all that dirty political speech that happens on it and clean it up for investors. they are looking for the lowest common denominator that will allow them to maximize it’s profits.
it’s exactly the opposite of what crispy was sayin. they will make it suck.
look at naptser
now really, do you think a corporate Craig’s list would have room for great unadulterated SHIT like this.
fuck no. hell no. it’d cost you a cent a word or some shit.
it got better (I’m calling you out el s):
i was thinking of advertising the other day. i saw an ad for spaghetti sauce. the kind that comes in a jar… some well known brand but not known enough for me to remember. the add, in some way indicated their brand tasted better than others. was good. or fresh. or some such thing. and all of the sudden i pictured the people who made the ad. working in an office somewhere in some building, trying to come up with a new ad campaign, and these people may not even like the fucking sauce. they probably hate it. chances are they make a lot of money and pay for fine, very fine and delicious italian food from the greatest restaurants in the city where they live. probably new york city. they don’t eat this crap, they just want to sell it. they don’t like you. your taste sucks, especially if you buy this crappy spaghetti sauce in a jar.
they want you to buy this crappy grocery store spaghetti sauce in a jar so they can go and purchase vine ripened hot house tomatos, garlic that someone has already removed the paper from, some fresh basil from the farmers market and some really fine olive oil. they’ll go home tonight and make the most delicious marinara you’ve never had. so eat the crap in the jar. please.
to which my fully loaded reply was:
have you ever worked in a bike shop?
yep.
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seriously, WS takes over, Craig’s list would suck. bunch of lame-oh dorks up there in NYC thinking they know whats best for the world. the world is 100 steps ahead of the chumps on WS, at least culturally.
onward