We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day A minority of musicians not only dislike the capitalist world, but they believe they can eschew it. Some of them have set up the sort of micro-firms that capitalism makes so easy to do. So they have spurned being sub-contractors or suppliers to large firms, and have become entrepreneurs instead – and think of it as rebellion.
– Richard D. North in Rich is Beautiful
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Eschewing capitalism by becoming entrepreneurs.
Ugh.
My head hurts.
Whatever — works for me … I guess …
I’ve read a number of books recently about the movie-making process in Hollywood. Cobbling together a motion picture is predatory capitalism at its best. And the actors, directors, and auteurs consider themselves to be people of the earth and definitely anti-capitalist.
As Tman says, my head hurts.
John J. Coupal: You’ll find the producer of this independent movie(Link) an entrepreneur through and through…
A lot of lefties (especially left-anarchists), when they say capitalism, they mean the capital-employer-employee hierarchical relationship, and the contention that money seperated from labour is exploitation. So to them, a sole trader is a rebel against capitalism. Same word, different meanings.
Which is a measure of their incoherence. The key fact to most capitalist worker-employer relationship is that it is voluntary. Moreover in todays complex-system capitalism (not to mention welfare state safety nets!), no one in the western world is one paycheck away from starvation, so the left-anarchist notion that the relationship are defacto coersion is equally preposterous. The truth is preventing such relationships requires coersion.
I think the reason is that trade unions and the left have always concentrated their firepower on big businesses.
It’s much harder to try and get a trade union presence in a small business. People at the bottom are often quite close to the people at the top (1 or 2 levels above them) and so half-truths and distortions can’t stick.
Also, big companies generally have the best paid chief executives (“fat cats”) so they can stir up the us-and-them point-of-view.
Big companies often get picked on, but I’ve seen how people get treated in small and big, and big mostly treat staff better with better wages, canteens, sports facilities, better pensions, more training etc.
I’ve recently been into the back catelog of King Crimson which, of course, is the vehicle for guitarist Robert Fripp. In some of his current compilations, he takes aim at his old label and their greedy ways. And so simply founds his own company to carry on the conducting of his BUSINESS. He discusses his anti-business notions and talks of transparency etc etc. Well and fine. But it is obvious that he wouldn’t likely hand out financials to anyone who simply bought a newly compiled release of product already out their in several incarnations already.
It strikes me as similar, also, to George Lucas who still envisions himself a Hollywood Maverick because he has his own island off in the hills away from the ‘establishment’. And I think when anyone thinks of Hollywood (and not in the good sense) they think of George Lucas and his high eye-candy, low plot content movies as pure Hollywood.
So what is the real difference for these two ‘artists’? It seems not necessarily What but Who. Mr. Fripp has gone through bandmates like water with his controlling ways, and one can only imagine the ship that Mr. Lucas runs. I’m sure everyone at his studio and creative center have maximum freedom as long as they agree with him. So they don’t like dealing with the suits, the ones with the distribution channels and the contacts and the money, but I’m sure when they’re on top of the heap, they happen to like calling the shots.