Re: Profit?

[Tad Turner <tad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/24/02 at 1:04 AM, pelagius pelagius <pela_gius@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> But you're making a couple of big assumptions.  An artist who
> self-releases is not exactly exploiting another's labor (except
> perhaps people at the pressing plant, print shop, post office,
> record store, but in those cases the label owner is being a
> "consumer").

I think that's correct. They're not even exploiting the others: it's the
OWNER of the pressing plant, print shop, record store that's potentially
exploiting their workers. (I think this is the "consumer" point you're
making.)

>  Secondly I question the assumption that a label
> necessarily needs to be operated as a business.  What about
> those labels that lose money or just barely break even?

Break even is fine; there's nothing that says you have to make a profit.

"Loses money" is questionable for me. How can you sustain a money losing
operation? Seems like a shaky foundation.

My belief is that profits aren't bad, exploitation is. Cultural
producers and the entities that serve their needs in a "advanced"
economy should be entitled to make a living.

We shouldn't be satisfied with "losing money" or "barely breaking even"
when it's due to the exploitation of media conglomerates.

(Competition isn't bad either, in my book, although I'll argue that the
music "industry" isn't competitive at this stage of it's evolution.)

> This is why I take issue with the original poster's point that
> there is no "alternative economy."

To repeat myself, is it an "alternative economy" because everyone
believes it's the best way to sustain life and build culture, or is it a
strategy that's responding to a set of rules laid down by the
McCapitalists?

> If one expects independant music to make a profit for a bunch
> of people who have nothing to do with making music well then
> you're obviously playing by the same rules as the big boys.

Not sure who you would consider to have "nothing to do with making
music," but I'd say that distributors, promoters and clearing houses
perform a real function in cultural production based on mechanical
reproduction.

At some point, you have to confront a division of labor, where an
artist, in order to reach her/his audience either can't do all of these
tasks, or it becomes cost saving to have an entity that specializes in
them for a group of artists. This isn't by definition exploitative. 

There is, however, a discussion to be had concerning what level of
"industry" music or cultural production needs/should be organized.

Clearly, an industrial process such as microchip production, should be
organized on a global level to reduce the amount of pollution created.
But our current music industry is so moribund and uncompetitive that
only the "socialism" of our lawmakers in Washington is keeping it alive.

-Tad