I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged about the oxymoron that is "Creative Industry", is how Capitalism robs creativity of any and all integrity. Exploring ideas for the sake of creation, for any reason beyond money-fetishizing, is a wonderful and incomparable thing.
Imperfect as it is, money is the best available measurement of usefulness of a product or service to other people. There's nothing wrong with doing useless things for the hell of it, but attempting to put it on a morally high ground is ridiculous.
> attempting to put it on a morally high ground is ridiculous
Is it?
In my view, organizations are almost living entities in and of themselves. They can become more ruthless than any individual because of their critical mass and "mission".
Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but we have org A ("business"), primarily self-interested, and org B ("non-profit"), which isn't. Sure, there's potential for evil and corruption everywhere, but that doesn't make their two starting points one and the same.
Aren't organizations built for maximizing profits inherently on a lower moral ground than non-profit organizations?
> Aren't organizations built for maximizing profits inherently on a lower moral ground than non-profit organizations[1]?
No, certainly not inherently. Even if we define moral ground as the degree of altruism of motives (which is way too narrow in my opinion), non-profits do not inherently pursue altruistic goals, but rather non-monetizable goals.
But if we define it as something that the society should encourage because it's beneficial to the society then for-profits are arguably on a higher ground since they are demonstrably beneficial to people who are willingly giving them money while all some non-profits can show in their defense is abstract ideas. KKK is a non-profit.
But if we define it as something that the society should
encourage because it's beneficial to the society then
for-profits are arguably on a higher ground ... KKK is a
non-profit.
And Comcast is a company. Just because people give money to an organization and extract value from it doesn't mean society should encourage that company's behavior. Your argument makes no sense. You're saying:
1. Moral ground is "something society encourages because
it's beneficial to society"
2. People give for-profit companies their money
3. Therefore, companies have a higher moral ground since
companies are "demonstrably beneficial to people"
How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion? You then throw an example of a bad non-profit (KKK) as I can equally give you an example of a bad company (Comcast) that takes people's money, provides a necessary service to their customers, but is by all accounts one of the worst, most parasitic organizations on the planet.
The reason you don't understand my argument after reinterpreting it is because you have for some reason excluded a few important words from it: "inherently", "should" (as in "should encourage") and "willingly". I am inclined to think your confusion is intentional and therefore explaining myself will be a waste of time.
Please, that's a cop out. I didn't re-interpret anything and "should" doesn't add anything to that sentence.
"if we define it as something that the society should encourage
because it's beneficial to the society then for-profits are
arguably on a higher ground since they are demonstrably beneficial
to people who are willingly giving them money"
That's a direct quote from your comment. I merely asked how you got from A to B. How are for-profits "demonstrably beneficial" given your definition of moral ground? You're stating a definition and just stating a conclusion you draw with no actual substance into how you're making that conclusion.
I challenge your statement that for-profits are "demonstrably beneficial" merely because people give them money!
Technically, yes, but definitely not what I was talking about, as I defined non-profit as an organization which isn't primarily self-interested. The KKK isn't for-profit, but it is for-power, and definitely self-interested. I also included "Sure, there's potential for evil and corruption everywhere" to avoid such a strawman argument.
> non-profits do not inherently pursue altruistic goals
They usually do. But we seem to disagree as to what a non-profit is, so for the sake of the argument, I'm talking about altruistic non-profits, not the KKK. Let's include non-power in that non-profit definition.
> But if we define it as something that the society should encourage because it's beneficial to the society then for-profits are arguably on a higher ground since they are demonstrably beneficial to people who are willingly giving them money
Willingly? In theoretical economics/free markets/etc, sure. In real life, there are monopolies, lobbying, politics and all sorts of bullshit. You are surely aware that as a consumer you're often stuck with picking the least-worst of your options. If there's one ISP serving your area and you hate them, your free will spans between 'no internet' and 'pay those scumbags'.
"Organizations" includes businesses[1]. I'm making a distinction between for-profit (/for-power?) organizations, vs. not, in order to compare their baseline "moral ground".
...yet the same blacksmith could turn a sword into a plowshare and make society a better place.
Straw-man arguments might have their place but they are still straw-man arguments. Not every businessman starts out being mercenary, and not every practicing tradesman cares naught for his art.
I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness. Exploring ideas for the sake of solving real world problems, making people's lives better, is a wonderful and incomparable thing.
> I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness.
Socialism?
I think you meant 'communism' as practiced by those countries that have hi-jacked an otherwise pretty good idea to serve the interests of a select few fat cats.
I think you're reading too much into the parent poster. It's possible to point out negative properties of something without advocating for a radical shift, or any shift.
Business incentives stifle creativity; even in creative products. It may wax and wane depending on context, but it's a pretty uncontroversial idea. From the high end of LA creativity-through-the-sausage-machine film and tv, all the way through to the low end, where nobody wants to attend my one man show.
But the parent poster used the HN tigger word "capitalism" when discussing the idea, so lets down-vote the shit out of him! /s
People working on open source projects often solve real problems and make other people's life better, yet some of them consider themselves anti-capitalist or even socialist.
Many successful open source projects have a corporate backing to them, driving resources and energy into them.
Open source isn't anti capitalist. It's capitalism at it's best form. People join at their own free will, the rule of contracts (open source licensing) are strictly enforced, and there are lots of ways people can profit from open source.
Do that without expecting financial reward, and your soapbox would hold some meaning. "Usefulness" is not synonymous for monetization. Making the world better is not synonymous for making a few people that much richer.
That's not how Human nature works. The world is filled with failed experiments of "Just do good without expecting anything in return".
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" has failed utterly, at every scale. Be it the soviet union, or small bankrupt "kibbutzim" in Israel.
Capitalism is much more than "expecting a financial reward". It's a complex system of signals which let producers determine what is the most valuable and efficient use for their resources.
What Should I build in my basement? A sous vide cooker? A drone with a camera? A computer game or a new social network?
Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need?
Agree with everything you say, but would like to comment on this: Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need?
Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements.
Capitalism provides one set of signals, an overpoweringly large one at that, but it does not provide a complete picture of value to humanity.
> Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements.
You're taking the exceptions (and actually Bach earnt quite well from music). Van Gogh was almost unique among his painting contemporaries, partly because his paintings were, by the standards of the time, weird (I suspect this applies to Kafka as well). And what vindicates him now is an ultimately capitalist consideration - his works are popular, people pay for copies of them. Nowadays there are capitalistic art speculators who will buy the work of underappreciated artists if they like it themselves - see the recent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8829277 - which would solve that problem.
As for Kafka, he had a famously... weird approach to his work. IIRC he wanted his works destroyed; it's only the capitalism of his descendants that means we're able to appreciate them.
Art isn't the only place where people can be ahead of their time. Xerox PARC had a lot of good ideas, for example, but were only appreciated after some folks reappropriated them.
Gov't incentives meanwhile often create unintended effects. For example, incentivizing investment in the arts leading to rich people creating their own private museums, often inaccessible to the public, and using them as convenient funnels for tax deductions while still enriching themselves.[1]
Ok I'll try. All these people you mention are long-dead white men you are 'supposed' to like because it gives you social status. If they didn't exist there would probably be others you should like to give you signal how cultivated you are. You are forced to partake in their creations in school because of some mistaken cargo cult thinking "successful people like these artists so if force every to read/listen to/look at their creations they will be successful too!"
Contemporary pop art, on the other hand, entertains huge masses of people, gives them pleasure and delight, and makes their days happier.
I think economic theory explains that case as well. Simply put, the value of "making art" was worth more to those artists than the value of whatever money they could have made doing other things. So of course, they weren't trying to satisfy some latent global need of art, they were just doing what they preferred.
Just as a farmer is not trying to satisfy the world's demand for food, monitoring which crop is most needed. All the farmer does is he prefers a certain amount of money over a certain amount of labour and grows crops that maximize that amount of money. The world signals their demand by price.
