Comments on: Market Free

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:23:07 +0000

Let me clarify here that I didn’t mean to suggest anything in this post was something Brian didn’t understand himself–he obviously does. I was just saying I thought a shift in emphasis might have made the point more palatable to Burner types.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:52:50 +0000

I’d add a further reason – sponsors of an event will alter that event. Large corporations represent concentrated money. They have the ability to pump large sums of money into an event. This has a warping potential on the event.

By: Brian Doherty

Brian Doherty — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:52:32 +0000

I agree, which is why I made no such “simplistic accusation” in my piece, tho everyone seems to be enjoying reacting to it as as such. Which is their right and pleasure.
For what it’s worth, were I a member of Burning Man’s board of deciders, I’d recommend a fuller and more precise removal of the event from markets and commerce, by eliminating coffee and ice sales and NOT doing this year’s pavilion, because I DO find, AS I SAID IN THE PIECE AND AS JULIAN QUOTES, that it’s valuable to have “an opportunity to create temporary zones without [commerce], for the entertainment value and for the (very real) additional (temporary) richness of social reality it creates” and that if you are serious about it, you could be more serious than BM had traditionally been.
I do think that the BMorg and BM community’s dominant language and thought about the role of markets and commerce is somewhat naive and strangely hostile enough that BM pretty much built in the certainty of a fair amount of audience hostility to its recent move. That’s what my piece is about.
And in terms of “what is a more important idea for the world of BM to understand,” I do think that more nuanced thought about the values and importance of markets is as or more vital than thinking about everything awful and corrupting about them.

By: Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:37:16 +0000

I loved this post – it’s nice to see a nuanced view, rather than simplistic accusations of hypocrisy.

By: shecky

shecky — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:23:13 +0000

Anyone who's been to BM and insists it's about eschewing commercialism in every aspect of life is kind of an idiot. The idea seems more to avoid commercial aspects at the event, which is what makes BM different from, say, a craft fair or flea market. Not that engaging in those activities is bad, but the motivations are different. BM is the place you go to show the world the things you like to do when you're not earning a living.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 04:57:07 +0000

Julian—My piece was making a pretty simple point, I admit, not a complicated and nuanced one; though it was a BIT more complicated and nuanced than some people reading and linking to the post seem to think, since I did acknowledge (tho only in a sentence) a point you seem to wish I had made more of. Still, in 1,800 words that have to introduce a strange world, establish a conflict in it, and try to make a polemical point, one has to be selective about how many aspects of the topic to explore, and with how much nuance.

But the intention of the piece was about how what I see as the offical BM world’s (both from the Org and many attendees) unnuanced and hostile and confused language and thought about the role of commerce and markets had set them up for the anger they are no receiving for their attempt to subtly readjust and reimagine the role of corporate products in an “official” capacity within that world.

In what may be a simple or a subtle point, my writing on BM is enmeshed in a long history both of discourse and enmeshment in a community that is of great emotional importance to me, and who in my (detailed and knowledgeable, if I may say so) perception need to pay some more attention to the simple point I was making, because they have gone a little too far with the nuanced and subtle one that I made quickly and you make at greater length.

By: AC

AC — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:18:24 +0000

Doherty’s right to drill home that idea, because so many Burner types ~don’t~ seem to understand the extent of their dependence on commerce, and ~should~. But your point is also well taken. The upshot is: we should be able to feel cozy about commercial-free zones only ~after~ we’ve thoroughly internalized Doherty’s point.