[TheForge] TheForge Digest, Vol 98, Issue 13

[Andrew Vida]

On 3/21/2012 5:59 PM, Fred Zickrick wrote:
> Markets are made by people.  Without people there are no markets.

Your point is well taken.

> Hence, all your response is really doing is arguing
> semantics.

Given that semantics == "meaning", they are always important.  I suppose 
I have been too subtle.  Markets, which is to say the term as commonly 
used, remains pretty poorly understood by most folks, so far as I can 
judge by the things they say.  In a similar way that people generally 
fail to understand terms such as "government" and "the state", they fail 
to grasp the reality of "the market".  To confuse a concept with the 
reality is similar to confusing the map with the terrain, which is a 
common error.  My point was that markets as commonly taken do not fail 
because they do not exist as such.  As you point out, without the people 
there are no markets.  Yet people view markets as entities unto 
themselves with minds of their own, etc. and thereby speak and think of 
them in those terms.  The precise same occurs with concepts such as 
"government" and "the people", neither of which possess the 
characteristics tacitly attributed them not only in conversation, but in 
the actions.  This is big time error.

Discounting the significance of semantics is one of the most profoundly 
destructive habits in which people engage.  Language forms nearly 
everything you, I, and the rest of the world understands.  It shapes 
your perceptions, feelings, opinions, desires, loves, hates, and so 
forth.  Without language the only things you would be able to do is pee, 
shit, eat, breathe, screw, sleep, go toward shiny stuff, and run away 
from scary stuff.  Add to that the basic reflexes like pulling your 
finger away from a hot ember and that would be the great bulk of the 
world of humanity without language.  Without semantics, there is no 
language and when semantics are brought to ruin, so it language and 
thereby the ability of human beings to think on any level above that of 
brute reflex.

Imagine trying to forge your something as simple as a hammer without 
language.  Never happen.