Intrinsic Value

In the seminal book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", Paul Kennedy asserts that empires eventually return to an equilibrium consistent with their original geography as a percentage of world resources. This is an example of the concept of intrinsic value, which, for nation states, must be viewed over a long historical period. In the current economic crisis, one of the values that has influenced markets negatively is American residential real estate. A bubble was constructed upon the perceived value of a single-family home that was dramatically inconsistent with its intrinsic value. Just as great power empires flourish during optimum conditions and then prove to be not sustainable when those conditions change, energy intensive, consumer intensive family housing must also reach an equilibrium consistent with its intrinsic economic value in the larger context of its existence.

What's lacking in the discussion of our economy presently is recognition that this allocation of resources and debt is no longer appropriate to global conditions. Just as one can very cheaply acquire large displacement American luxury automobiles of a few years vintage because the intrinsic value of the car is transportation, and transportation requires fuel but does not require a luxurious, planned obsolete vehicle, the financial system is now foreclosing and holding title to large quantities of the shelter equivalent of an American gas guzzling rolling boat. Houses offer the illusion of the life of a potentate: swimming pools and vast grounds tended by servants, tens of thousands of square feet of air conditioned and heated rooms to house just a few people, and ample storage for mountains of Chinese consumer goods, machinery, sports equipment, multimedia rooms, and multiple trucks, cars, motorcycles, and other fuel intensive, and depreciating machinery bought on credit.

A look in Trade Express is all that is necessary to understand the value of an Oldsmobile in a world in which Prius is the desired vehicle. When downsizing of space and energy use for shelter is the priority, the same phenomenon of instant, drastic devaluation applies to these bloated, "gas guzzling" American houses.

Blah blah blah.  The heart of the matter won't be found in prior posts. That would be the missing maturity of the personality pounded out on the anvil of youth in four seasons and seven years.   7 years on the  line while others had to grow up, came and went, or were already grown, too far to play at life in a make believe place.  Oh, Skip and Dick, my mentors, might have had a moment of envy (did you all?), but they had found their work in challenges more realistic, with tools and abilities equal to greater goals than mine.  Jeff did.  George did. Russell and the Bay area gang, Bob and the Tuscon gang.  And I'm happy to hear Bruce did, Kit did, and most of all Tony. They said thousands had come by '78 .  Some are too personal to list, and that would take all night.  It needs doing by me though.  I wonder sometimes if Ron the baker was not the greatest of all next to Mary and Roger and Tomiaki, anonymously and unheralded giving me luxury not dreamed of in the world.  I have not forgotten and miss it every day I have to eat bread from a store.

So the  analysis below is an interesting but not deep enough explanation of missing elements.  One can say war babies like me never grew up.  It is telling to me in light of the reasoning that undergirded my work at the time and since that I consciously broke off but a fragment of the male archetype, the Shaman, and this oversimplified, ignorant fragmentation, was a poison pill the great generalist and synthesis maven that I styled myself swallowed.  It will be a miracle if such a knucklehead can return from this maze and become the adult demanded by our teacher as the requisite of citizenship. There is a rumor that such creatures enjoy collaboration (rightfully earned by competition).

Where's the beef?

How strong an equivalence exists between historic Eurasian states and the US in terms of the cost-benefit of national identification? No Eurasian state has so ambiguous a cultural coherence or short shared identity. No state has so polarized its economic classes. No G7 state is spending a vast percent of it's citizens wealth and blood on obsolete, bloated arms programs and arrogant bullying of others, making its citizens involuntary pariahs in much of the world. No state has private foreign-owned contractors spying on its own citizens' every breath, even from space. And now we are to become paupers at the hands of the scions of this same state? Surely the assumption of automatic loyalty of diverse, relatively recent members of this vast continental aggregation, as the Palins clearly illustrate, at some point has to fray. At what exactly does our state excel? Education? Health care? Industrial success? Transportation? Housing? Employment security? Cultural harmony? Leisure time? Or just making a few clever sociopaths incredibly rich? Where is the beef?

Intrinsic Value: Cars and Houses Compared

In the seminal book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", Paul Kennedy argues persuasively that empires eventually return to an equilibrium consistent with their original geography as a percentage of world resources. This is an example of the concept of intrinsic value, which, for nation states, must be viewed over a long historical period. In the current economic crisis, one of the values that has influenced markets negatively is American residential real estate. A bubble was constructed upon the perceived value of a single-family home that is dramatically inconsistent with its intrinsic value. Just as great power empires flourish during "perfect storms" of unique, complimentary conditions and then collapse when those conditions change, energy intensive, consumer intensive, debt based family housing must also reach an equilibrium consistent with its intrinsic value as personal shelter in general context of human creative endeavor.

What's lacking in the discussion of our economy presently is recognition or disclosure that this valuation of resources and debt is no longer reflective of global conditions. Just as one can very cheaply acquire large displacement American luxury automobiles of a few years vintage because the intrinsic value of the car is transportation, and transportation requires fuel but does not require a faux-opulent, planned obsolete personal vehicle, the financial system is now foreclosing and holding title to large quantities of the shelter equivalent of an American gas guzzling rolling boat. Detached houses offer the illusion of the life of a potentate: swimming pools and vast grounds tended by servants, tens of thousands of square feet of air conditioned and heated rooms to house just a few people, and ample storage for mountains of Chinese consumer goods, machinery, sports equipment, multimedia rooms, and multiple trucks, cars, motorcycles, and other fuel intensive, and depreciating machinery bought on credit. The very model of a consuming liability rather than a productive asset--a nod to Robert Kayosaki here--once the arc of its speculative appreciation peaks. (As a former remodeler, as an aside, I have replaced many a sound, tradesman-crafted kitchen or bath with its Home Depot Chinese factory equivalent over the years and called it "improvement".)

A look in Trade Express is all that is necessary to understand the value of an Oldsmobile in a world in which Prius is the desired vehicle.  When downsizing of space and energy use for shelter is the priority, the same phenomenon of drastic devaluation applies to these bloated, "gas guzzling" American houses.

Election Commentary by Caroll Quigly

How strong an equivalence exists between historic Eurasian states and the US in terms of the cost-benefit of national identification? No Eurasian state has so ambiguous a cultural coherence or short shared identity. No state has so polarized its economic classes. No G7 state is spending a vast percent of it's citizens' wealth and blood on obsolete, bloated arms programs and arrogant bullying of others, making its citizens involuntary pariahs in much of the world. No state has private foreign-owned contractors spying on its own citizens' every breath, even from space. And now we are to become paupers at the hands of the scions of this same state? Surely the assumption of automatic loyalty of diverse, relatively recent members of this vast continental aggregation, as the Palins clearly illustrate, at some point has to fray. At what exactly does our state excel? Education? Health care? Industrial success? Transportation? Housing? Employment security? Cultural harmony? Leisure time? Or just making a few clever sociopaths incredibly rich? Where is the beef?

What I taught at Arcosanti is as simple and obvious it is a wonder it even needed to be stated: we have within us the summation of evolution and the task of life is to appropriate this legacy and to apply it. Unfortunately, the inertial momentum of past ages represented around us is an overwhelming distraction. Thus, the isolation technique employed, a monastic society of a week's duration. At Paolo's birthday, George expressed to me as a kindness that he wished his son might have access to the kind of ritual re--creation of evolution we staged for work shoppers in the 70s. Although this sentiment is appreciated, the truth is, any serious person gains this awareness gradually by sincere self-knowledge. How is it that we did not find a simpler method than the idiosyncratic and ambiguous Village on the Mesa? Perhaps not coincidentally, the Mesa is the name of my current residence perched at another edge of history overlooking the Pacific. The view from here is the one I will share from now on on this blog.

The Image of Humanity?

First, the important things a planned preliminary trip that I could not make might have enabled me to say on alumni night:

Alumni night was a particulary emotional and wrenching confrontation with the past. Russell Adams seemed to be in the same rugged health as the day we dug that ditch. A similarly arrogant defiance of mother nature--an hour's discussion in the midday sun, humbled and exhausted me--or perhaps that happened 30 years ago. I thought on seeing his slides: those of our era were intimate with bedrock, the literal foundation of the city. Bob Williams, Roger Tomalty, Bob Walker, Chris Blackwell, and other Project leaders of the first buildings dug holes in some very tough ground. My fondest memory of the late Skip Sagar was looking up at him with a beatific smile from a 15 foot hole excavated for the footing of the souteast cornrer of the second vault. He expressed his wish to trade places with me, this wise and patient couselor to a small town hick and benefactor from the Jewish community of New York City. Of such moments of poiniant spontanaity was the project begun. The dust and hardness abrasive . the dynamite of Mr. Bennett, so fascinating to us intellectuals and art students, of 90 pound air hammers drilling into mother earth, the vibrations locked in my genetic memory forever, for anchoting those heavy buildings on fractured basalt poured out molten in prehistory. I have tears now writing this. That I could have summoned these words, completely spent from travel and sleeplessness on alumni night. The rock there broke the blades of the largest conventional bulldozers in the world, the Caterpillar D-9, and Paolo's beloved Komatsu, and the site weldor would be summoned to repair and reinforce them.

Does everyone have those personal epiphanies and sensual impressions? How does one evoke reading a poem from from a workshop lover, complete with artwork that nailed the highest view of oneself to which one could possibly aspire in this world in a few lines: "He tries to build a heaven here on earth...dear friend with the clear white light..."I would not trade my remaining copy of that page for anything on earth.  How does one communicate the meaning of one day under the restaurant, in front of one of the largest workshops, gathered to hear Paolo in our weekly encounter, having him ask me to "warm up" the group? The greatest honor of my life, of any life lived in our age, offered for the first time to anyone.

Hearing oneself broadcast for an uninterrupted hour in the great city which first inspired me to seek the city as the highest design form, and Paolo as its central figure? What mattered are the poems of children given to me after a class with catholic schoolchildren, in the same Octagon where Roger hurled a full can of Moosehead at me teaching an experimental Friday Night class. Ah, there are stories to tell...of workshop loves upon which the world seemed to depend, and those urequited...to stand in celebrated nakedness.

I welded mostly without a shirt, wearing shorts, and let the white hot sparks of molten slag, and the radiation of the 7000(?) degree arc burn my sun browned nordic skin. One time, arc welding the old batch plant with only googles, all the skin peeled off my face the next day.