Thinking Economically, How Economic Principles Can Contribute to Clear Thinking, by Maurice Levi
New York: Basic Books, 1985
LC HB71.L53 1985
"...the extra satisfaction from consuming more will eventually decline. The economist believes that this is true of every product or activity we3 consume. It is referred to as the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility."
that individuals obey this law of diminishing marginal utility but producers do not, but instead stockpile commodities to satisfy their production goals, a totally different dynamic than diminishing marginal utility, seems to me to be at the heart of what homo sapiens does to adapt. at some point there arose an agreement among packs of individuals to feed commodities in and out of the collective hoard with an idea of production rather than consumption, a totally different way of accounting for substances. this proved itself first in hunting and gathering. individual consumption is incapable of managing it. too many complexities. no resolution of functional variety necessary to beat other species at predatory competition. the management of a material concept abstracted from individual consumption made the difference. how did they succeed in keeping everyone convinced there was a benefit in a way of reckoning material that essentially denied the reality of individual consumption? If I could identify how they did this, i could start a new trail of species adaptation.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Plato on the song of a swan near death
The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters
ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989
LC B358.C57
pp. 67-8
“Evidently you think that I have less insight into the future than a swan; because when these birds feel that the time has come for them to die, they sing more loudly and sweetly than they have sung in all their lives before, for joy that they are going away into the presence of the god whose servants they are.”
as a homeless in Santa Cruz, CA, I wandered into an estuary where I found a large swan's nest. I wrote a poem about this among the 1221 poems I wrote in 1999-2003. “Leda” was in the title.
In the nest I felt more protected than on the streets and I took all my clothes off and started to masturbate. I don't recall what image I used.
Before I could ejaculate I was interrupted by the sound of a swan leaving the water and entering the vicinity of the nest. It then approached me slowly. Right in front of me it hesitated. I reached out and stroked its breastbone. As I did this it turned its head to one side and then the other. I realized later it was assembling a more rich image of me than one eye, set opposite the other, could develop. I shouted out, “Leda!” Suddenly, it reared up, spread its wings, and I noticed a spider couched in each wing at the base by the chest, two of them. I didn't know spiders made use of birds as a habitat this way.
Then the bird swatted me with one wing, then the other. Its blows were strong and I immediately feared for my life. I grabbed my shoes and threw one of them at the bird. Then I grabbed ahold of it and thinking I would cripple its ability to fly but not kill it, I broke its neck. It lay motionless and I examined it. One of its eyes was seriously wounded. This was a pre-existing condition.
I held my right hand in the angle of the interior angle of a pentagon and placed it over the wounded eye. Then I held open the mouth and spit into it.
Right then there was the sound of another bird entering the vicinity of the nest. I guessed this was the mate. I repaired, after putting on my pants, to a distance away from the nest. From this vantage I began to sing. I believed I was singing on behalf of the inert swan. I had not known of the nature of the song of a swan before death.
Then the living swan went away. A threesome of six year old boys came wandering through the estuary and I hailed them and told them briefly what had happened and asked them if they knew anything about swan anatomy. One said he did. We went to the inert swan and this boy gave the swan c.p.r., but to no avail. The boys left one way and I another.
Having just read Plato on swans I now know the significance of the term “swan song” for someone near his end. Also, I can wonder that I sang for a swan its final notes, without awareness of how necessary that was.
ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989
LC B358.C57
pp. 67-8
“Evidently you think that I have less insight into the future than a swan; because when these birds feel that the time has come for them to die, they sing more loudly and sweetly than they have sung in all their lives before, for joy that they are going away into the presence of the god whose servants they are.”
as a homeless in Santa Cruz, CA, I wandered into an estuary where I found a large swan's nest. I wrote a poem about this among the 1221 poems I wrote in 1999-2003. “Leda” was in the title.
In the nest I felt more protected than on the streets and I took all my clothes off and started to masturbate. I don't recall what image I used.
Before I could ejaculate I was interrupted by the sound of a swan leaving the water and entering the vicinity of the nest. It then approached me slowly. Right in front of me it hesitated. I reached out and stroked its breastbone. As I did this it turned its head to one side and then the other. I realized later it was assembling a more rich image of me than one eye, set opposite the other, could develop. I shouted out, “Leda!” Suddenly, it reared up, spread its wings, and I noticed a spider couched in each wing at the base by the chest, two of them. I didn't know spiders made use of birds as a habitat this way.
Then the bird swatted me with one wing, then the other. Its blows were strong and I immediately feared for my life. I grabbed my shoes and threw one of them at the bird. Then I grabbed ahold of it and thinking I would cripple its ability to fly but not kill it, I broke its neck. It lay motionless and I examined it. One of its eyes was seriously wounded. This was a pre-existing condition.
I held my right hand in the angle of the interior angle of a pentagon and placed it over the wounded eye. Then I held open the mouth and spit into it.
Right then there was the sound of another bird entering the vicinity of the nest. I guessed this was the mate. I repaired, after putting on my pants, to a distance away from the nest. From this vantage I began to sing. I believed I was singing on behalf of the inert swan. I had not known of the nature of the song of a swan before death.
Then the living swan went away. A threesome of six year old boys came wandering through the estuary and I hailed them and told them briefly what had happened and asked them if they knew anything about swan anatomy. One said he did. We went to the inert swan and this boy gave the swan c.p.r., but to no avail. The boys left one way and I another.
Having just read Plato on swans I now know the significance of the term “swan song” for someone near his end. Also, I can wonder that I sang for a swan its final notes, without awareness of how necessary that was.
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