Success

~ On misunderstanding of the Commercial Process

I have a Substack that is not doing well. Within the Substack framework one is expected to get more than twenty readers. I am not doing the same thing that others are doing. I am original; they aren't original except for maybe a few very minor details. This is also characteristic of a lot of the writing you find around today.

In any case, when I make this comparison it is clear that others are not doing things the same way that I am. In the end, they attain success and I do not, or they attain what we call "success" today. What sort of success is that? It is not the original meaning of the word "success."

The other writers seem to achieve this sort of "success" by copying, which means readers get a similar experience from any newsletter in a given category, e.g. "politics," or "philosophy." The ordinary reader (who is not actually reading at all) does not seem to care. But because I am not copying, my own efforts on Substack do not correspond to the accepted norms. Because it is not the standard thing, it does not feel the same to reader as do the other Substacks. This is considered a fault. I do not provide a predictable "reader experience." This means they would prefer it if they are having the same experience with every Substack article they read. This is the culture we live in. As a result, I do not get much of that which is considered a "success." A Substack post filled with nonsense is a success, but that is not what I call success.

Notice what Substack is saying about itself. The firm seems to consider itself something they call, on their "About" page, "a new economic engine." Now is a display of gibberish. There is nothing to this. "A new economic engine" shows they do not understand anything they are saying. I guess it sounds nice to them. I suppose so, but there is no use discussing this phrase. It doesn't mean anything.

And who is more successful than these guys -considered 'entrepreneurs' -who created the platform? They are not entrepreneurs, it is not a new economic engine. And they speak gibberish. Does speaking gibberish make a person a "success"? Well we could discuss that. I really don't want to discuss "new economic engine" but I would like to discuss "success." What does that mean in a commercial society? Within the commercial process, what would “success” be?

If we look at this word "success" I think we get a better understanding of the commercial world. We have lived in that world for some eight to ten generations now but there are profound changes that occur. Capitalism is progressive, meaning it undergoes some sort of change in some sort of direction. Historically, many would look up to a person who is a success in the world. In the city or region in which one lives, there are those individual who achieve success in the world. Implicitely, this is success in capitalism. So, some individuals are understood as having achieved success in the world or in the system that they live in. One example is the person who launches a commercial venture. He or she hopes for success. Another example is that of a person who gets a job and then gets promoted and begins to rise within the company achieves what is called success.

Adam Smith laid out success in the very simple terms without knowing what capitalism was going to turn into. His was a capitalism that was not even called "capitalism," as of that time. But anyway, one might start a venture (baker, brewer, manufacturer). If you can set everything up (these were called "manufactures" in Smiths day) and if you produce goods, at a price where they can be sold, that is the success. That is the success of the "the butcher, the baker, the brewer," as Smith rather famously terms it for us. This is a case of a person achieving success. It seems to often have involved an improved (or what is called "improved") manufacturing process or technique that allow for a greater quantity of item produced at lower cost. It is an improvement over what was previously possible. The textile industry in England is often cited as an example. So that person, who has used improved production techniques is arguably a success. It is generally helful for everyone. Smith wanted to help the whole nation. He rightly asserted this as a boon:"Wealth of Nations." There were certainly a lot of good things that came out of the early period of improved production. These were practical attaiments leading to a new sort of "capitalistic society," as I like to call it. Unfortuately, the condition of the workers was not so great. In most cases the savings were only passed onto buyers, but not workers. This is an important point. This glitch lead to "socialism" and this resulted in a great and popular and principled socieal movement. They simply wanted better pay. This shows not inherent problems of capitalism but rather that employers were gratuitously cruel, something accentuated in the writings of Robert Owen. He claimed this practice of abusing workers we unnecessary. So we are not discussing that now. This is matter of the condition of the workers in England, covered very nicely by Engels around 1844.

A valid success in making something that persons need is one thing: Smith seems to feel that it will improve the wealth of a nation, and that is a valid success. But capitalism changes over time, and our consideration of what “success" is deteriorates. Success, so-called, becomes simply getting one’s hands on money. Nothing really gets better for the nation. That is not the same kind of success. The more practical or uplifting kinds of success have become increasingly rare in our time. Making money is positively not anymore tied to practical concerns such as living, eating, or having three pants to wear for a period of a year, instead of only one.

So, after two hundred years of rapid development, the result exemplified by Substack is that while there are good writers here lots more people are making money by writing some sort of gibberish or using something like circular, or idiotic, reasoning. You may go ahead and evaluate that for yourself. You can find this kind of stuff. It is there. Look for yourself, which is to say if you are honest, and then you have to admit that this is what you are looking at. (It isn't called "reading" - nothing there to "read.")

Thank you for reading. You are so lucky. You foks have my fantastic article about capitalism. Give it a "like" — I will make another article saying exactly the same thing but change a few words so that I can get paid double. No, I would never do that!

After all, that is not what I term a success.

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