Re: <nettime> A Puff Piece on Wikipedia (Fwd)

[Benjamin Geer <ben@socialtools.net>]

Kermit Snelson wrote:
> Intellectuals and artists have always relied on
> patronage, patronage depends on plunder, and plunder depends on deceit
> and exploitation.  Who, after all, paid for Europe's cathedrals?  Who
> paid for Beethoven's sonatas?  Who pays for universities today?
 > [...] which side are we, as intellectuals and artists, really on?

Who pays for *any* activity?  No human occupation is divorced from the 
economic and political order in which it takes place.  Workers in a 
cooperative, if they're paid in money, go out and spend it in the 
capitalist economy, thus supporting that economy.

Everything is contaminated in this way.  How you personally manage to 
survive in a thoroughly contaminated economy matters less than the 
actions you take to help change the world order.  Theory is necessary, 
but practice has a much greater ethical value than theory.  It is your 
actions that determine which side you are really on.

Ben

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