I'm talkin' about you, or, the politics of socially responsible accumulation

["Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Youssef's brother Redouane visited us tonight, and I had a conversation with
him in the kitchen, in bad German, telling him about the financial
accounting for war costs in Iraq was developing (Redouane has worked for
Moroccan banks implementing digitalised financial management systems) by
appropriating new private assets in Iraq, establishing an Iraq futures
market, obtaining contributions from other countries, and shifting the
financial burden to Western and Iraqi taxpayers.
Redouane agreed, it was a bad business.
"You got a job yet ?", I asked.
"No", he said, "But I might go and sell cars in Paris, I will do something."
Youssef asked, "have you seen the photo's of Redouane's two daughters ?".
I said, "No, but I would be interested to see them."
Redouane went to fetch the photo's from Youssef's room, and show them to me,
two goodlooking, attractive, happy girls, and I said I was impressed. I
joked a little, by way of doubt, "well at least the photo's prove, anyway,
that they can look very beautiful if they want to".
Then I said, "But why are you not with them now, I mean, how could you not
want to be with them ?".
Redouane looked a bit sad, and indicated this wasn't possible. He had been
separated from his wife for some time now.
"We are living in false times", he said. "Es ist eine falschen Zeit."
"Why false ?", I asked. "Too many lies, perhaps ?".
"It is just the way the world is", said Redouane. "Egoism, too much egoism."
I asked him to explain further. Redouane shrugged. "Take for example Iraq,
they destroyed a museum with exhibits of the national heritage of the
country", he said.
I explained, that this did not matter so much to the bourgeoisie anyhow, in
the wider scheme of things, because exhibits in a museum by definition
cannot usually be traded, and therefore you cannot accumulate private
capital from them, except through charging for entry and perceptual access
to the exhibits in the museum, but profitability was not so high there (and
if the charges were too high, then people would not visit the museum). Only
if you could loot the museum, then you could accumulate private capital with
the exhibits perhaps. I knew, that Iraqi's themselves had also looted on
occasions.
But, I said, "Suppose now that, instead of exhibits in a museum, you could
exhibit a person, and charge people for perceptual access to a person, or a
meeting with a person, for example me, what would you have then ?".
Redouane was silent, and thought about it, but said nothing.
"Hollywood", I joked.
Redouane had to laugh too, "Yeah, Hollywood", he said.
On that note, we looked each other in the eye, shook hands.
Lateron I asked Youssef about Redouane's car business idea. "Ah, you should
talk to him about it, if you want", he said (because Redouane was staying
here tonight). So I went to Redouane in Youssef's room, to check out what
the story was.
"You know", he said, "working for peanuts is all very fine, but you and I
could start a business, we could buy a BMW in Germany and sell it in Paris.
Think about that."
I explained that this was legally prohibited by my father's will, but
promised I would think about his idea.

Jurriaan




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