RE: Market Forces - Myron's comment

["Aidan Ward" <aidan_ward@antelopes.com>]

Paul, Denizens,

>
> The vast majority of the world's citizens, in my view, could come to
> some agreement about what 'better' would like in terms of a
> global goal.
> The tragedy is that they cannot see a shared _way_.
>
> Sadly, 'Market Forces' is appealing in its simplicity. I have
> found that
> to many people, Dr Deming's philosophy is not.
>
>
You might be interested in an in depth philosophical treatment of this in
"Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life" by Albert Borgmann. His
thesis is that we actually live a device paradigm where we expect to be able
to access goods and services any time, any place, without understanding how
they are produced. The quest for every more consumption systematically hides
choices that have to do with our engagement with the world. Market forces
are of course one of the spectres that are used to distract us from real
choice.

I find this thesis fascinating relative to the DEN where people both espouse
the need to tune production processes to turn out ever more and ever more
accessible commodities but at the same time care about the real choices and
the human conditions in production. This schizophrenia could explain some of
the disjointed debate.

If I boil this down to a single question it is "What is our responsibility
for turning out goods that have been shown to fuel a distracted and
unfulfilling lifestyle?". We don't access this question because we have a
politically correct vagueness around what we regard as the good life.
Actually we can't address issues like Firestone properly without committing
to an aim for the system at the level of society.

Regards,

Aidan
Antelope Projects Ltd
19, Fawkham Road, Longfield, Kent, DA3 7QP, UK
Phone +44-1474-702259   Fax  +44-1474-704671  Mobile +44-7967-593497
www.antelopes.com <http://www.antelopes.com>