making money
Apr. 7th, 2008 06:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eCouldn't sleep. Thought I'd write this down so my mind will let me alone and I can go back to bed.
In the course of a conversation yesterday my Mum mentioned a way to turn my artwork into money. I've often felt that my artwork was one of the things I should do more of and should find a way to use it to get more income. I thought about her suggestion for while, but ended up feeling that it was a bit hopeless -- the work would make a little money, yes, but not enough to make any difference. I would still live in poverty. When I thought more about why that was so, and whether I could somehow make it earn more I realised it resonated with something I've been hearing and reading more and more lately.
If I did as Mum suggested it would cost a lot of money in outlay. The major costs were in managers and middle-men. Each thing shouldn't cost a lot, but did because it had to support layers of people above it that squeeze the maximum money from it. There is nothing wrong with paying for what you want in a healthy capitalist society; it can work brilliantly. The problem comes when people can artificially tighten a bottleneck and make people pay more than something is worth. It results in a very top-heavy system made up predominantly of managers and middle-men. Such a system is fragile and makes it very difficult for those who actually do create things.
Last week I listened to an episode of Background Briefing that I'd missed much earlier. It was about the dangers the financial sector presents to our civilisation, and why something that is supposed to represent the purest capitalist philosophy has turned it all upside down. It creates little or nothing for society, but has become the richest of all, is sending viable businesses broke in the process, and is threatening the very fabric of our society.
This made me think about how discouraged I become when I try to work out ways to earn money with what I can make. Everywhere I look, layers of middle-men stand between me and potential customers.
I have nothing against people earning money without working. (I class doing something you enjoy as not working.) This is what almost everybody wants for themselves and their family. Yes, they do. Ask anybody what they'd like most. If they're honest they'll say they want their own business where others can do the work and they can retire and "live in the manner to which they'd like to become accustomed". Or they'd like to own property so they can live off the rent. Of course some people have been so completely taken in by the insane work-ethic they never think why they go to work every day. Or if they do, they guard their desires for a life of enjoyment as a guilty secret.
Very few people actually do make the stuff that our civilisation lives on. We can actually have the same standard of living (or even better) without much of the worthless crap that clogs our society, and there really is no need to force people into slavery in order to produce it. Certainly we would use the world's resources at a less rapacious rate. What am I talking about here? Well, most importantly we could stop making all the disposable stuff. It fills up garbage dumps, makes fake work, and depletes the earth. We would be better off making the stuff properly once so that it lasted a lifetime. Also the culture of image, fashion, marketability, advertising, and yes, much art, could be lost and save us all a heap of time and effort. We would be better off paying everybody a living wage so that only stuff that was truly useful was made. Currently we pay people to destroy the planet. Much better to pay them for not doing it.
When I talk about a universal living wage people often think I'm communist and am against people being rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reducing everybody to the same level of wealth would be as dangerous as the current system. Any ecosystem needs variety for it to remain healthy, and the same is true of society. Unfortunately the current system concentrates wealth in just a small number of hands, reducing what is available to everybody else. It would't matter so much if there was a reasonable amount of variability within the bulk of society and the ultra-rich were simply separate from the rest of the world, but this isn't how it works. The richest raise the price of goods and services beyond what the rest can afford. And in the crazy scramble to gain money it turns out that those who don't actually make anything get the largest slice of the money pie. I have a friend in New Zealand who is working herself into an early grave, for minimum wage, making meals for people in a nursing home. She is scratching out a bare existence, while the managers there live a much more luxurious existence. Something is wrong here. I'm not begrudging the managers their lifestyle, but I find it hard to reconcile that with the fact that someone who does the actual grunt work lives in what amounts to wage slavery.
Part of the problem is our compulsion to over-consume. I'm proud of the fact that I manage to live comfortably on very little income -- I'm not a big consumer. Even if I manage to become moderately wealthy one day (yes, I'd like to) I will still not be a big consumer. I don't see the point. I don't want to spend money on an illusory lifestyle. I'd rather have less of truly worthwhile things. I don't want to have to discard vast amounts of packaging or pay for "services" I don't need.
I don't want much, but I do need to put a bit more of a safety margin between me and starvation.
Damn it. The sun's coming up. I'd better get back to bed. There is some programming that needs doing today and at this rate my brain's not going to be up to it.
Darn... I wanted to mention the other thing I've been musing on lately: how people can think they like something when it is obvious they don't really, or have been duped into wanting something utterly worthless or self-destructive. That thread ties into my thoughts about why we consume so much and are so reluctant to change, but it will have to wait till later.
In the course of a conversation yesterday my Mum mentioned a way to turn my artwork into money. I've often felt that my artwork was one of the things I should do more of and should find a way to use it to get more income. I thought about her suggestion for while, but ended up feeling that it was a bit hopeless -- the work would make a little money, yes, but not enough to make any difference. I would still live in poverty. When I thought more about why that was so, and whether I could somehow make it earn more I realised it resonated with something I've been hearing and reading more and more lately.
If I did as Mum suggested it would cost a lot of money in outlay. The major costs were in managers and middle-men. Each thing shouldn't cost a lot, but did because it had to support layers of people above it that squeeze the maximum money from it. There is nothing wrong with paying for what you want in a healthy capitalist society; it can work brilliantly. The problem comes when people can artificially tighten a bottleneck and make people pay more than something is worth. It results in a very top-heavy system made up predominantly of managers and middle-men. Such a system is fragile and makes it very difficult for those who actually do create things.
Last week I listened to an episode of Background Briefing that I'd missed much earlier. It was about the dangers the financial sector presents to our civilisation, and why something that is supposed to represent the purest capitalist philosophy has turned it all upside down. It creates little or nothing for society, but has become the richest of all, is sending viable businesses broke in the process, and is threatening the very fabric of our society.
This made me think about how discouraged I become when I try to work out ways to earn money with what I can make. Everywhere I look, layers of middle-men stand between me and potential customers.
I have nothing against people earning money without working. (I class doing something you enjoy as not working.) This is what almost everybody wants for themselves and their family. Yes, they do. Ask anybody what they'd like most. If they're honest they'll say they want their own business where others can do the work and they can retire and "live in the manner to which they'd like to become accustomed". Or they'd like to own property so they can live off the rent. Of course some people have been so completely taken in by the insane work-ethic they never think why they go to work every day. Or if they do, they guard their desires for a life of enjoyment as a guilty secret.
Very few people actually do make the stuff that our civilisation lives on. We can actually have the same standard of living (or even better) without much of the worthless crap that clogs our society, and there really is no need to force people into slavery in order to produce it. Certainly we would use the world's resources at a less rapacious rate. What am I talking about here? Well, most importantly we could stop making all the disposable stuff. It fills up garbage dumps, makes fake work, and depletes the earth. We would be better off making the stuff properly once so that it lasted a lifetime. Also the culture of image, fashion, marketability, advertising, and yes, much art, could be lost and save us all a heap of time and effort. We would be better off paying everybody a living wage so that only stuff that was truly useful was made. Currently we pay people to destroy the planet. Much better to pay them for not doing it.
When I talk about a universal living wage people often think I'm communist and am against people being rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reducing everybody to the same level of wealth would be as dangerous as the current system. Any ecosystem needs variety for it to remain healthy, and the same is true of society. Unfortunately the current system concentrates wealth in just a small number of hands, reducing what is available to everybody else. It would't matter so much if there was a reasonable amount of variability within the bulk of society and the ultra-rich were simply separate from the rest of the world, but this isn't how it works. The richest raise the price of goods and services beyond what the rest can afford. And in the crazy scramble to gain money it turns out that those who don't actually make anything get the largest slice of the money pie. I have a friend in New Zealand who is working herself into an early grave, for minimum wage, making meals for people in a nursing home. She is scratching out a bare existence, while the managers there live a much more luxurious existence. Something is wrong here. I'm not begrudging the managers their lifestyle, but I find it hard to reconcile that with the fact that someone who does the actual grunt work lives in what amounts to wage slavery.
Part of the problem is our compulsion to over-consume. I'm proud of the fact that I manage to live comfortably on very little income -- I'm not a big consumer. Even if I manage to become moderately wealthy one day (yes, I'd like to) I will still not be a big consumer. I don't see the point. I don't want to spend money on an illusory lifestyle. I'd rather have less of truly worthwhile things. I don't want to have to discard vast amounts of packaging or pay for "services" I don't need.
I don't want much, but I do need to put a bit more of a safety margin between me and starvation.
Damn it. The sun's coming up. I'd better get back to bed. There is some programming that needs doing today and at this rate my brain's not going to be up to it.
Darn... I wanted to mention the other thing I've been musing on lately: how people can think they like something when it is obvious they don't really, or have been duped into wanting something utterly worthless or self-destructive. That thread ties into my thoughts about why we consume so much and are so reluctant to change, but it will have to wait till later.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Consuming.
Date: 2008-04-07 05:28 am (UTC)Re: Consuming.
Date: 2008-04-07 07:52 am (UTC)It is the same with drugs of addiction.
The thing that upsets me most is how little we learn about living life. We get blasted with advertisements telling us how to waste it, duped by religions imploring us to deny it, and conned into selling it to someone else, but rarely does anything get said about actually living. Buddhist philosophy comes close, but even that seems to miss the point.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 04:48 pm (UTC)And then there's a bunch of art on the web, so maybe team up with somebody who's more into the sales end of the business.
Where to find them? This i more like finding a partner or accomplice.
But here in America many owns have "small business incubators": usually old buildings now getting their second use.
One more suggestion, and I'm fixin' to use it myself: volunteer centers. They do have a few paid staff, and the job is to interiew agencies (e.g., local YMCAs or Senior Centers) and interview people often teens and seniors) and put the two together (clarify expectation and duties, run training, whatever it takes to help them accompish their mission).
If there's something like the United Way or Community Chest in the US, they may run it. It's not a huge salary that would support an upper middle class lifestyle, but at least (thinking of my own case) I'd be doing real good and not making engines of death and destruction.
And don't forget what Jane Jacobs said: the really interesting ploaces to work (or find customers) are in strip malls in seedy neighborhoods and non-fancy (sometimes run-down) urban buildings. Forget office parks and malls and downtown buildings. The nicer the building and location are, the better the chance that the company is fixin' to make a fatal mistake.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 11:31 pm (UTC)I tried to find your number to call you, but I couldn't :(
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 01:03 am (UTC)There's a coincidence. I was actually thinking of phoning you yesterday.
Hmmm... I'll try your phone soon as I get offline. Hope you have the same mobile number...
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 06:46 am (UTC)