Template:M intro systems financialisation: Difference between revisions

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 Definitions: let us call “financialisation” the goal of reducing things to their most calculable, and manipulable ''values''. So: David Graeber’s social debt versus monetary debt.
-The most manipulable, [[fungible]], calculable, aggregatable articulation of [[value]] known to western society is [[cash]] — [[degenerate fiat]] cash, sorry crypto bros— and it is what we describe our relationships in. Hence “financialisation”, but it needs not involve money. Reviews, five point performance appraisals, RAG statuses, star ratings, measurable criteria — anything which can be ordered, pivoted, Pareto ratioed, and put into
+The most manipulable, [[fungible]], calculable, aggregatable articulation of [[value]] known to western society is [[cash]] — [[degenerate fiat]] cash, sorry crypto bros— and it is what we describe our relationships in. Hence “financialisation”, but it needs not involve money. Reviews, five point performance appraisals, RAG statuses, star ratings, measurable criteria — anything which can be ordered, pivoted, Pareto ratioed, and put into a ranked, tranched order.
+Things that can’t be ranked and counted — that aren’t legible to this great high powered information processing system — have no particular value in it, whether or not that actually have any value. And conversely things that can be counted can acquire value even if they don't have value. There are plenty of examples of this — things that sell at a greater margin than they cost — carbonated soft drinks, bottled water — or bitcoin, fashion, cosmetics professional sports, commercial music.
+The will to financialisation distils down to a worldview that analogue, informal, unique, requiring judgment, requiring [[metis]] is expensive, slow and unscalable and therefore ''bad''.
+These things used to be ''premium''. Now we have premium mediocre — artificially scarce, novel for its own sake, expensive for its own sake — see above.
+We are all out here desperately searching for meaning, and it is up to us what we settle for. But if we settle for the premium mediocre the authentic will wither and die.
+Our own attitudes, and the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, matter. If we settle for premium mediocre that is what we will get
+====Consequences of this instinct====
+*Private equity
+*Outsourcing/management consulting
-Distils down to a worldview that analogue, informal, requiring judgment, requiring [[metis]] is expensive, slow and unscalable and therefore ''bad''.
 ====The desire for digital certainty====
-[[James C. Scott]]’s observation that a top-down organisation can only operate by what it sees, which necessarily misses nuance.
+[[James C. Scott]]’s observation that a top-down organisation can only operate by what it sees, which necessarily misses ''nuance''. Centrally planned states have the blessing and the curse of scale. A relatively small governing class can effectively accommodate — satisfice — the needs of a great many people as long as everyone’s needs are suitably ''generic''. The more generic they are the better margins can maintain.
+The normal offsetting effects of competition are muted in an interconnected world where the scale advantage can usually drown out market entrants as long as the market/product demand stays relatively constant. There are few but significant disruptions (computers, internet, mobile internet — not yet clear whether AI is another one). Beyond these market dominators can generally defend their positions.
 [[Robert Michel]]s’ [[iron law of oligopoly]], that at  all organisations concentrate “power” and become top-down

Template:M intro systems financialisation: Difference between revisions

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