Hello Monsieur Phelps, I was surprised to read your reaction, but I
am glad that you love me. Merci, I love yo too, not the problem.
However, let me give you my reaction. "Why is pricing a silver chain
at $850 “dishonest”, as you say,actually far more dishonest than the
theftof intellectual property?
Do you really contend that my selling an item for more than YOU
thinkit’s worth is more of a crime than if I were to steal an idea,
designor concept and make a profit from that theft?" Sure. Let me
see. The price of silver is appr. $ 34 per ounce, yes?, so just
let’s assume that I need two ounces, because I want a sturdy chain,
so I am too lazy to make this, I would give it to one of my workers,
so there is labour in it, say one hour and 60 grams of the Sterling,
so let’s say this costs me 90 Euro in labour and appr. 60 Euro for
the silver - of course I can make a chain with much less, but okay,
so this is 150 Euro, but Tiffany does not make the chains like this,
well, I assume, it’s not handwork at all, so, I am sure that their
labour is way less, so let’s say they make the chain for $ 130, why
exactly do they have to make $ 720 profit on a silver chain I do not
understand and I never will? But, sure thing, you gave the answer,
although I am sure you do not understand the consequences of it, it
is ‘pure and simple free market capitalism’ and ‘my completely
voluntary participation in it’.
You are right, of course, I have never been for capitalism; one of
the many reasons why not is that I am for free markets for some
products and in capitalism, there are cartels, monopolies and
something we use to call lobbies but we should call blackmailing and
buying governments now. Also, of course, my participation in free
market capitalism is not voluntary at all. If I live in the America,
I can choose not to have health care or participate in health care
driven by the profit motive.
This is not really a ‘choice’ as I cannot choose to have good health
care without participating in capitalism, something which is,
however, possible in France. I do not know what to make of your
statements saying that the labour is nothing. Capitalism is a
geographical project, always in flux, going there were labour is
cheapest, were regulations are the most lax. It has not much to do
with the existing or not existing markets, because capitalism is
global now and so is the Fordism, the old model or manufacturing and
creating markets in the same places - manufacturing can happen
everywhere and consumption can be everywhere else. The new model is
called flexible accumulation, and it does not work in
contradistinction to Fordism, which worked for a couple of decennia,
because the America and the Europe cannot compete with low labour
costs in China and the South East Asia - there is simply not one
single trump card left (so, Krugman and his theory of international
trade are wrong): the Chinese, the Indian, the Indonesians and so on
speak English as well as the Americans do and they spell it better;
technological advances take place everywhere, since there are smart
people everywhere; new technology makes it possible to manufacture
something in 15 places at once - one part in China, another in South
America, another in Israel, this happens full swing… At the same
time, the average industrial wage in China is $ 380 a month. There is
no way for the America or the Europe to gain productivity - and this
is the essence of the whole problem. If we, as by the magic, could
invent a machine that could make what the Chinese also make, but 25
times quicker, there would be no worries, but there is no such
machine. There has not been any substantial gain in productivity in
the Europe or the America for a long time. And so, we are losing the
race. We, it is to say, the populations. We will see a deeper divide
in our societies, we will get less rich, and many things we assumed
were in order will become a real problem and a fight. And this whole
process is driven by the cost of labour. “You must have different
history books than I do. I can’t for thelife of me find where in
history capitalism, global or otherwise, hasproven unviable, unless
it has been so heavily regulated that it really isn’t capitalism
anymore, but fascism (government control of private enterprise) or
socialism (government ownership and control ofall enterprise). Both
of those have a historical record of failure.” Well, this is simply
not true, but do not take my word for it. Read Karl Polanyi’s The
Great Transformation. Unfettered capitalism, which only existed for
perhaps 2 or 3 decades in the 19th century, was so destructive that
very quickly a lot of laws were made to transform it. But read
Polanyi about it. And you mindblow me. Are you really in earnest
going to say, after all that has happened recently, that we need
freeer markets? The financial meltdown could only happen because
financial institutions were deregulated and left alone and because
bankers were sitting in governments all over the world. And they are
still sitting there and in the meantime, millions of workers are
unemployed. And the last thing on their minds is trying to do
something to alleviate this misery. This, indeed, is capitalism. I
will talk about intellectual property another time, but I think that
this is the problem which leads to the infinite regress. Show me any
model of ring you like and I will most probably find you a ring which
is pretty much the same but which was made in antiquity or in the
middle ages. We, goldsmiths, are all members of something greater
than any of our products and strivings, we are part of a tradition, a
craft, an art. Someone invented the wheel way before our time, still
we all use it and never think about it. We all do bead setting,
although we did not invent it. You can say that this is a process and
not an end product, but so what? It has not the importance. If you go
to my website and you ‘steal’ one of my creations, so it means you
can copy it, so it was not very distinctive to begin with. In this
sense, although it has, I admit, some limited use, legal copyright is
a lot of the bullshit. If you want to ‘copyright’ your pieces, make
something that is so distinctive that only you can make it, make
something so that people know immediately that it was you who made it
and not something else.
A ‘signature’ should be IN the piece. No one can write music like
Beethoven, no one even ever tried. And so it is unique.
