The Knife Maker

Also, hand-made isn't fighting against capitalism, it's fighting against mass-production, sweat-shops and machine-people jobs like the ones portrayed on Chaplin's City Lights or even Discovery Channel's How It's Made.

Not liking it doesn't make you a Marxist but just somebody who happens not to like this kind of stuff.

Okay this may sound abstract.....when you buy an object which has been crafted to perfection by another artist....you dont just buy the object ....it feels like you almost bought some of that perfection...it feels like maybe it can breathe some perfection into your work!

On a cynical note maybe it makes it easier for you to justify the amount of hard work that you put in perfecting every infinitely minute detail in your work.

It is also comforting to know that there are people out there who value perfection and attention to detail like you.....and when you show them your work they'll see all the hard work you have put into it.

Sure there are trends clothing, knife brands, and almost every other good comes in and out fashion, but isn't that the nature of competition and capitalism? Is this because the wealthy don't want to be seen as using the same thing as the unwashed masses?

In some ways I want to believe you, but I find it unfathomable.

I suppose the easy way to buy from him and not feel like an asshole is to appreciate the passion and love that goes into the work he does.

Especially the way it's portrayed by the video, and especially with knives, there's this "this is a Hattori Hanzo sword" feeling attached to it.

If you're in the business of fighting other people with swords, a Hattori Hanzo is likely a good thing to have.

If you are a professional chef or butcher, or a passionate hobby cook, owning one of these knives may provide you with more value than a regular knife. Which side of your opposite judgements someone falls on, to me depends very much on what they use the knife for.

I haven't actually used this guy's knives. But I've used cheap knives and I've cut myself on cheap, dull knives that don't hold their edge. And I've used moderately expensive knives. It's night and day. Cheap knives just aren't functionally equivalent.

The same can be said about coffee, chocolate and other fair trade stuff. Ground Maxwell coffee that comes in a can might be functionally equivalent to Intelligentsia beans at the task of "deliver caffeine in a hot liquid form", but that doesn't mean the Intelligentsia is more expensive just because rich people want to feel superior to people who drink Maxwell. It's in part because the Intelligentsia is less efficiently produced that it tastes better. And as far as I understand it, the Maxwell coffee is being produced in such a way that the true cost (to the workers, to the land) is not actually incorporated.

Nah, I think you're extrapolating to far. It's just a connoisseur mentality -- the same as for wine, scotch, guns, etc. It can be annoying, it's often untrue, but it taps into the same desire to be self-righteous that's buried in your post, and many of our day-to-day actions.

Please don't interpret the previous sentence / paragraph to mean "you're self righteous!" in the usual insulting conversational sense. I think it's a widespread human desire. I.e. I often bristle at someone's behaviour and am about to school them before I thoroughly understand the situation.

Actually guns are an outlier -- many arms manufacturers use the language of authenticity, but then mass-produce their products.

There may be a little touch of unconscious racism re: China, but that's a society-wide thing, not some defect / choice of these craftspeople. I.e. there was a time when goods manufactured in China were crap. Now they're not, but the bias remains.

Don't be too down on him: there are many niches where mass production dares not tread (you know this well enough) or the mass produced products are clearly inferior to the handmade ones. Cottage industries have always existed, all that seems to have changed is that they're getting more positive press these days and are now a "Movement."

In this case however, I think buying expensive hand-made knives is a pretty clear case of conspicuous consumption. They're not markedly better in any way over mass-manufactured knives that anyone can afford.

TL;DR: I buy handmade saws because they are demonstrably superior.

Time was you could not buy a quality Western saw new for love or money[1]. And by "time was" I mean "as recently as six to ten years ago". Independence Tools were the first people since the 40s, probably earlier, to make a dovetail saw worth using and that was in 1996 or so; if you wanted a full sized hand saw pretty much only the Lynx/Pax brands existed and as an owner of three of those let me tell you they do not come ready to use (think re-setting, resharpening, and making the handle comfortable to use).

Most people working in the western tradition used their grandfather's factory made saws, which despite being factory made required extensive hand work to e.g. get the taper grind right. Relatively recently it has become possible to buy a very good mass produced dovetail/small carcasse saw from Lee Valley. But those saws aren't very old, and nearly everyone else in the industry (and it is an industry now, albeit a small one; I can't even remember all the small-factory superb saws made now. At least a dozen different marques) does it basically the way Disston and its competitors used to; skilled artisans.

It would not surprise me in the least to learn that cheap factory made knives have bad handles, bad balance, bad steel and a bad grind, and any one of those things can screw up a knife you are using all day every day.

I love handcrafted goods. I purchase them when I can. I know smiths who make things by hand.

The problem with factories in China is that if China loans our economy money and then becomes the low-cost supplier, all we end up doing is eventually destroying both economies.

I will never be a Marxist. It seems to me that trying to solve the issues which come from corporations being too powerful by concentrating that power still further in the state is a bad idea. The only way it can work is if workers individually are in control of the means of production, not through the national government. A few quasi-Marxists got this point (Wilhelm Reich, for example), but usually it's the domain of third way folks like Belloc who favor free markets and small businesses.

I'd point out also that if we weren't so productive, maybe the government wouldn't eat up 30% of our GDP.....

Even if the knife is not better than a mass produced one, as long as the consumer believes they are better off then the consumer gains from the transaction. Perhaps you, as a non-chef, are ignorant of the subtleties of knifes. I use a macbook, and there are sure to be people that wonder why I spend a big premium in price for computer with similar hardware. Why? well, I like quality tools.

It strikes me as attacking the very heart of capitalism by saying that its "an extravagantly wasteful alternative" to a mass produced knife - who are you to decide that? For one thing, this is competition, if mass produced knives are worse than hard crafted, let the market decide that and punish this (awesome) fella for his short production lines and 'inefficient' capital to knives ratio. The price for his knives will reflect how much better (or worse!) they are compared to the 'efficient' mass produced ones, and if he can't work fast enough to make a living, then he moves onto something else. It's sad, but life is about risks.

However, apologies if I have mistaken your point, though you claim that you're in Marxist mode so I'll counter it by being positively capitalistic.

That is, when mass produced items are cheap and ubiquitous, unique, authentic, custom, hand-made, etc items, even though they may not be objectively better, will still be more valuable. Their narrative is what imparts the value, since the actual object will have none above the mass-produced version.

It's obviously not purely a function of utility. When I watch a professional artist at work, be it a musician or a painter or even a knife maker, it's an inspiring thing. I can't help but support them in whatever it is they're doing. For a brief moment, I remember that I could make literally anything of my life, and I'm inspired. It makes my work more meaningful, that I can use the fruits of my labor to support this other person's passion. The artifacts of that support, be it CDs, chalk drawings, or knives are memories of that inspiration. They are interesting stories.

The appeal for some will be the ability to signal to others that they are wealthy and powerful enough to convince another human to spend hours creating something for them. Perhaps you see this as a demonstration of "social superiority". When this transaction occurs in a voluntary, equal-information context, however, the result is purely virtuous capitalism. Bob can get fulfillment and riches by owning the machinery that mass-produces a good which makes the lives of the general population better. And then he can get additional good feelings by paying Alice 50x more than the cost of his goods for her to spend 20 hours of her time making that same good by hand. No one loses here. The world is 51 knives richer and society continues marching on.

It's easy to get tunnel vision and focus on things from our own world view. You've done amazing things with optimization and I appreciate everything you've given back to the community in the process. But the general goal of humanity is not to maximize efficiency. It is not an injustice when something is less efficient than it could be, in spite of everything our programming career has taught us. The truth is that there is no general goal. Kurt Vonnegut said it best when he said, ‎"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different." I'll end this post with his thoughts:

[When Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

Happiness and liberty, for Marx, are about deliberately creating our material world. That is, every man is equally free to shape the conditions in which he lives (so far, presumably, as he is physically able). Capitalism, for Marx, undermines this by alienating the labourer from his product (the product is owned not by him, but by his employer) and through the continual growth of capital. To gloss over some important details to get to the point, this means: labourers are really and truly enslaved to their labour, which precludes the free use of that labour to shape their world, while the capitalists are enslaved to profit and so can only shape the world (or cause it to be shaped by their labourers) in so far as it grows their capital.

As a complementary result, Marx's ideal of communism has this desirable peculiarity about the relationship of labourer and labour: the product of labour becomes the true, free expression of the labourer's self.

I'd say Mr. Bukiewicz is doing his best, under the capitalist mode of production, to make his work an expression of himself: he even calls his knives art.

Read the about section of Made by Hand (http://thisismadebyhand.com/about/) and you'll see that they aim precisely to expose instances of production where the relationship between producer and product, and consumer and product, is personal and social—just like Marx always wanted.

(Attentive readers may note that the existence of purely creative work as a legitimate means of subsistence today, and the fact that Joel is able to make overpriced knives for a living, may seem to obviate this impetus for communism. I've heard it suggested that this change in society may be the very reason worldwide communism hasn't yet developed. Look elsewhere for that commentary, I haven't researched it yet. Interesting though, right?)

The first rule of selling knives is: You have to convince people not to make do with the knives they already have. This person is performing that service not just for himself, and not just for his own customers, but indirectly for all knifemakers in the world and their customers.

There are always going to be a handful of folks whose tastes are so particular, or whose fashion is so keen, or who are sufficiently friendly with the owner of the local forge, that they insist on buying knives that are hand-made by local artisans that they've actually met. But all of those customers will show their knives to other people, and praise their awesome qualities. (Some of them will buy the knives to show them to other people.) Even more people, like me, will read about the knives in the media. And most of the people who hear about the awesome-quality knives won't be able to afford the local artisan. So they'll go shopping for not-quite-so-artisinal but still-kinda-awesome knives, and they'll find some at the local upscale kitchen store, perhaps with tasteful German names and a nearly invisible "made in China" sticker on the back. ;)

(Others of us will go to the restaurant supply store because we are "knowledgeable insiders" who hunt for "bargains", and will find somewhat cheaper high-quality knives with the "made in China" sticker on the front. And yet those probably have a decent profit margin, too. My lesson from briefly traveling in China and listening to my Chinese friends laugh at my hilarious bargaining skills is: I have no idea how big the margins are on the stuff I buy in the US.)

Sad as it is to recognize that so much of a Chinese factory's business – not to mention my own tastes – is driven by the convection caused by the movement of rich people who are rushing upscale to demonstrate their distinctive taste, that is the engine by which a lot of consumer marketing works, and I suspect that the Chinese manufacturers themselves know the nature of that game better than anyone.

Edit: it looks like he is using expression engine for the site.

http://scna.softwarecraftsmanship.org/

The guy in the Distiller doesn't seem to have the same passion as the knife maker. I got the impression that he wanted to do something and thought he could make money as a gin distiller because they didn't exist anymore in his area.

The knife maker, on the other hand, obviously enjoys his craft. I think he will be making knives forever, even if they don't sell as well as they do now.

This is definitely the case for high performance knives. The choice of steel and the geometry of the edge, bevels and belly can be easily customized to fit the specific purpose of the knife. The first couple of knives I have made don't look that great, but since I nailed the heat treat and grind they are the best cutting implements I've ever owned.

Yes a mass produced watch (Rolex/Omega/etc) are "better" in the sense that there's no imperfections. And more expensive watches (PP/Lange/etc) than I can afford are also handmade but have no imperfections. At all. They are also massively expensive.

I love handmade stuff and the fact that it's not perfect. You know that there's a human being that with hard work and a lot of talent has produced a work of art.

Now s/watches/knives/ but I don't collect knives.

What's inspiring about this guy is that he's succeeding by serving a vibrant professional market. The chefs who drop a grand on a couple of his knives are using them in the kitchen to make money. They want the best tools for the job, and everyone wins. It's product/market fit.

So kudos to him.

But don't get so inspired you drop everything to build the most beautiful product in the world believing people will buy it _because_ of how hard you worked on it or how awesome it is.

This. I live in a 3rd world country (Brazil) and see a lot of truth in what you say. This film talks about art, not about consistent production of quality.

Take a man with passion, resources, intelligence and immense dedication and he will produce a work of high quality; doesn't matter if it is shoes, painting, engineering, suits or knives.

But it just doesn't scale. You won't find many more people with the same skills. You won't be able to produce as much as 15 robots in Germany. And you also need an extremely up-scale market for your product (NY food scene, in this case). And you also need very efficient marketing (in this case a photographer to introduce him to the chefs community).

Bottom line: this guy is like a panda living in a extremely rare and delicate niche environment. Once the NY food scene vanishes he is toast. Find someone in India or China willing to do the same for 1/10 th of the price and he is toast. Have smarter knife making robots in Germany and he is toast. Any tiny little perturbation can get him out of the market.

There's a reason why industrial revolution succeeded. There's a reason why families of hundreds of years of pottery makers in India are going extinct (lighter, cheaper and uglier plastic bowls). There's a reason why my wife's father gave up on beautiful handmade carpentry. The reason is that ugly but cheap and good enough is what almost everyone wants.

While creating a piece of software - a functional machine out of pure thought - is somehow just grunt work?

Yes that used to be the dominant form of production & employment up until ~ 200 years ago. You could bring it back. You might not get enough stuff though.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/on-luck-success-a...

Just for a reality check, let's say a top-quality, handmade, 8" chef's knife runs about $500. Most people consider an $80 mass-produced piece from Henckel or Wusthof to be rather extravagant...

Note: Youtube has been improving with respect to the first two.

Also, does it really lock up your whole system?

Even with bushcraft you start with a knife and axe which are likely manufactured, not handmade.