nika & david wealth p3
21 min video – What is wealth? Part 3 – of nika and david on wealth
notes/quotes:
when indians started figuring our that in european society you could turn wealth into power.. because couldn’t do that in indigenous society.. ie: if have more stuff can make people do things they don’t otherwise want to do..t.. if you think about ineq.. it means power.. but it doesn’t have to.. really..
so when we use the word ineq we’re covering up for something much more profound.. which is the ability to turn wealth into the ability to push people around.. t
people telling other people what to do ness.. any form of m\a\p
1 min – my old prof marshal sahlins wrote an essay called the original affluential society.. where he developed this idea.. and he said.. the problem w our econ is it’s really religion/theology.. because if you look at h/g society.. yes.. they are rich.. because wealth/affluence is a relationship between what you want/needs/desires.. and the material means to realize that.. if want ie: fried fish.. relax.. adequate clothing.. well h/g’s have that in abundance.. they can get that working 2 hrs a day.. the rest of the time they can enjoy themselves.. so rest of time they can live like rich people.. in their own terms..
2 min – it’s only us who have created societies where there’s things like poverty.. because we created needs that by defn everybody can’t have..t
huge huge huge
we need to org around legit needs
and the question is .. how that happened.. if you think about it.. a lot of what christianity teaches us is that we have infinite desires.. which probably isn’t true.. right.. but that’s via augustine et al.. ‘this is how we were punished for original sin.. we rebelled against god and therefore our own desires rebel against our own common sense and we just want more and more and more..
garden-enough ness
3 min – so see same thing in all the christian writers.. but even in people like hobbes.. when they start (?ing) sociology.. they always says ‘well people have infinite desire for pleasure’.. why ?.. ‘because they’re miserable.. life is horrible/pain.. so pleasure is our way of forgetting about pain *(laughing but).. we want more and more pleasure.. but in order to guarantee our access to pleasure.. we need property.. so we want wealth and in order to want as much as that as possible.. and only so much stuff.. so we’re always competing over that.. and then in order to gain our access to property of course we want power.. et al.. so that’s why **everybody left to their own devices would just be killing each other and we need a govt to keep everybody in line
*on maté addiction law and cope\ing ness.. and hari rat park law
4 min – but the interesting thing is that for most of human history even though that’s the way philosophers said people acted.. people still didn’t act that way ie: middle ages people had a pretty clear idea what they wanted and when they got it they stopped.. max utility.. most people don’t.. in fact still.. so question is.. what got us to the point that we would act.. to want more and more
5 min – some say 1\ religion.. going to hell if not flourishing.. 2\ ads telling us that we need more stuff.. if you think about it.. if there wasn’t a natural urge in us to just stop at a certain point.. they wouldn’t have to do that.. if we just naturally wanted more and more they wouldn’t have to make us feel nervous about ourselves to make us need to consume more et al.. t
graeber stop at enough law
6 min – so i wanted to end by saying.. what is wealth.. in the way you could say the americans were right.. by any objective measure they were because one thing i always thought very significant was the fact that back then they used to kidnap people in warfare.. indigenous americans did this a lot.. they’d grab people and try to raise them as ‘proper human beings’ and then they’d have negotiations and exchange prisoners.. but every single case of an indigenous american being kidnapped and brought up as a european.. the moment they let their guard down and weren’t looking.. those guys would escape instantly.. whereas half of the europeans were kidnapped in native american societies.. and like.. they refused to leave.. so.. if there’s any objective measure.. which is the happier way of life.. i guess they must have been right
7 min – so if you look at wealth.. could say true wealth is having enough in relation to what you desire but i think in our society we’ve come to define wealth in a very weird/complicated way.. and i wanted to throw this out in the end as a topic for discussion.. ie: if no one had tried to steal the mona lisa.. would he be so famous.. and that’s true.. that’s when he became really famous..
8 min – and you think about it.. no one buys any of these very often.. .. but the reason we know what something costs is because someone might steal it.. it’s the only reason.. it’s insured.. same w diamonds.. so actually the thieves create the value.. if no thieves.. wouldn’t know how much these things cost..
9 min – someone once suggested that life.. there’s no sci defn of life.. like a virus nobody knows.. how do you know something is alive.. can kill it.. could say same thing about wealth: wealth is something you can steal.. if can’t steal it.. not wealth.. i’d like to leave w that thought
q&a
10 min – q: if chief wants us to do things we don’t want to do then why do we call them the chief
11 min – d: chief basically was someone who deals w outsiders.. who entertains people by making speeches and who mediates disputes.. that’s what they do.. what the argument is.. is one way to prevent political authority from emerging is you take the person mostly likely to want that job.. set up a job for them.. but then make that job so incredibly unpleasant/miserable.. and keep them in spot light so much that there’s no way they can turn that into coercive authority.. so lot of people pointed out that native american chiefs were great orators.. ie.. their conquerors reduced to tears by speeches.. but then would kill them anyway.. one reason.. was.. they had no coercive power.. so had to be really convincing.. but at same time.. had to give everything away.. so actually the poorest person.. so it’s a way of taking the ambitious people.. putting them in the spotlight and then creating a situation where they really couldn’t turn that into a form of coercive authority..
q: so are you saying coercive enough to take them to war
d: yeah.. but in that extreme.. would have a diff chief/person.. they would have a war chief.. to make sure that would not become the basis for any sort of authority outside..
13 min – nika: also interesting how in indigenous societies how ed was conducted.. they never punish kids.. until the europeans teach them how to do that
14 min – nika: frank .. can you talk more about communism..
frank: i think that’s a question for all of us.. and the whole mankind.. i don’t have any idea of communist society.. so i don’t have a diff idea of wealth and poor.. but you can have a diff idea of what is wealth/poor when you do like david showed.. saying that maybe these two terms didn’t really make sense when you look at diff societies.. on saying ‘oh look how poor they were’.. of course they are not poor and we are not rich.. but these societies simply had a diff idea of what is wealth/poor.. so.. our wealth is because we have to work.. so i don’t know how wealth/poor in future would be diff.. but we can already see that rich/poor in other societies were so diff that we can’t even in a strict categorical sense use these terms to speak about i don’t know.. indigenous people.. to say less rich.. et al.. they simply had a diff idea of life or living..
black science of people/whales law – we have no idea what legit free people are like.. even looking at h/g and indigenous communities.. and garden.. et al
16 min – girl on left: i think we have this idealist vision of indigenous communities.. but i think you can look at poverty/wealth in more physical/energetic terms.. if you look at the human person.. needs 10 mega jule of energy per day.. and everything about this is to express your lifestyle.. and if look at human history.. for very long time on this border of not getting enough food.. just kind of getting the body functions to survive.. but then in revolution started to appropriate more energy.. but not beyond the 10 jules.. a kind of somatic energy just to extend the life/functions.. and w the agrarian revolution they started to use some energy to have some animals.. giving them energy.. then in industrial revolution .. 60-70s.. people started to use much more of that energy and they needed about like 10x more than that .. so need about 10 to maintain body and 10x as much to maintain your lifestyle.. to keep your house or drive your car.. to have power for all kinds of equip you have at your house.. interesting because still people on earth today who are suffering hunger.. an energetic/metabolic underclass because they don’t get enough food to sustain their body functions.. if you look at those diff’s.. metabalic diff’s.. that we consume in diff (?).. and turning back to the slaves.. there’s this term.. energy slaves.. so to maintain lives today.. you need about work of about 10 persons that would do things for you.. so how much energy for car/washing-machine.. need energy for 10 persons per day.. and those are energy slaves that work for you.. in the western societies.. but there are still those people in societies where people use much less.. and there’s still those who suffer of extreme poverty.. so i though this was interesting to look in those energetic terms .. going to provide more objective measure of what do you need to sustain your life..
nika: so you should answer your question about your book now
oh.. yeah.. i forgot that.. there are people who try to look at objective measures.. calorie use and so forth (then cut off onto p4)
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be you. 