Artisanal Goods v. Commodities

• James Scott shows in “State Simplification” how the need for low, transparent costs and standardized measures required by mass-manufactured commodities (with their  long supply chains and global markets) ultimately prevails against the local standards of measure and flexible pricing required by artesanal products.
• In the age of mass maufacturing, commodities are for the masses, and luxury items are for the 1%: Lamborghini’s, yachts and items auctioned at Sotheby’s.
• In the coming digital age, a broader luxury market is developing: fine German automotive engineering, portable computers and, at the everyday level, artesanal food products of all kinds (locally-grown, fair-trade, free-range, etc.), small splurges that the the emerging 10% of university-educated professionals can routinely afford.  Welcome to the post-industrial age!
• The time: Saturday, 7/29/2018, 3:30-5:00
• The place: Coral Gables Branch Library, 3443 Segovia St., Coral Gables
• Materials (photocopied text & guiding questions): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d6atcjw8d23i2q0/AABzqRLiOmnJCmQZvEekh2kma?dl=0

The Origin of Surnames in Europe

• Did you know that before the 14th Century surnames were not widespread in Europe?
  • They were mandated by the sovereigns of emerging nation-states, eager to have accurate head counts for taxing and conscripting.
  • In the 16th Century a Welshman from Moston identified himself before an English judge as Thomas, son of William, son of Thomas, son of Richard, son of Hoel, son of Evan Vaghn.  You are Thomas Moston, the judge corrected him.
• The text: James C. Scott’s “State Simplification”
• The time: Saturday, 7/29, 3:30-5:00
• The place: Coral Gables Branch Library, 3443 Segovia St., Coral Gables
• We’ll be in either the Auditorium or (sufferin’ succotash) the Children’s Area.
• Materials (photocopied text & guiding questions): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d6atcjw8d23i2q0/AABzqRLiOmnJCmQZvEekh2kma?dl=0

James C. Scott “State Simplification”

• Do the standardized assessments used by bureaucrats accurately portray what they administer, or do they impose the interests and agendas of centralizers on those over whom they seek an augmented authority?
• James Scott uses in-depth analysis of Prussian forest management and Napoleonic and Tsarist attempts to reconfigure rural land ownership to demonstrate the tendencies of the administrative bureaucracies under which we all now live.
• Text and Guiding Questions now available at Dropbox folder Peripatetics Share: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d6atcjw8d23i2q0/AABzqRLiOmnJCmQZvEekh2kma?dl=0
• Details under “Peripatetics Summer Seminars 2018” at cogitoergodunn.wordpress.com