Related: diary
Dec-21-2009: Another title idea: A Basic Outcome
Dec-20-2009: Created P2PFoundation.net/Barriers_to_entry and P2PFoundation.net/Zero-profit_condition
Dec-14-2009: Noticed GiftHub.org
Dec-12-2009: Posted to ListCultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 6:02 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > people cannot consume what we can make
>>
>> That is because ownership is being used for profit instead of product.
>>
>> We will use ownership to gain the control we need.
>>
>> And we will use profit to help latecomers gain the ownership they need.
>>
>
> State your estimate of the probability that capitalism ends as now for every
> 5 year period going forward. Combine that with the probability that this
> end will be peaceful and easy. That is the likelihood, in a given period,
> you think your outcome will occur.
Capitalism doesn't need to *end* for us to begin organizing in new ways.
The change I propose can be implemented as a corporation with a
special Terms of Operation to enforce the one constraint [profit is
payer investment].
>>
>> When you say 'capital' I assume you mean Capitalism.
>>
>
> Capital is mostly money now. If by capitalism, you mean a credit driven
> economy of markets, then, yes, I mean capitalism. If you mean it as Marx
> did, then no, I don't mean capitalism.
We will always need markets because we will always want to trade skills.
Trading goods will be minimized within "User Owned" corporations
because when you co-own part of a dairy cow, you own the milk as a
'side-effect'. Owning consumers do not need to buy the goods when
they own the sources - they must only pay for the costs of that
production and then they own the goods by virtue of their owning the
sources. They will then occasionally come to 'claim' (picking up
their portion of raw milk according to the % of their ownership in the
diary) their property.
Marx was very wrong about at least one thing: the terrible error that
leads us to cling to the short-sighted notion that ownership in the
Means of Production should be in the hands of those who happen to
possess the skills needed to 'operate' those sources.
The consumers must learn to co-own the Physical Sources of Production
before User Freedom can enter the physical realm.
>>
>> Capitalism requires scarcity because profit is being misunderstood and
>> causes us to not realize the fatal requirements of traditional
>> investors who demand price never reach cost.
>>
>
> Capitalism doesn't require scarcity.
What is the paper
http://P2PFoundation.net/Crisis_of_Value_and_the_Ethical_Economy
about?
If profit doesn't require scarcity, then why do governments -
including the US - pay farmers to *NOT* grow food on land that must be
proved to be arable?
Why were dairy owners pouring milk on the road during the Great Depression?
>> Treating profit as a reward for current owner incents scarcity and
>> destruction.
>
> Profit is a form of reward for risk. Risk is taken because someone has
> superior information, abilities to plan, or out of sheer gambling. Want it
> incents is greater risk-taking so long as it doesn't fail.
Yes, that is how most all corporations treat it now.
But we are not *required* to do so.
When we finally understand where profit comes from, and when we can
design a funding model that includes some % of investors who are
potential consumers that will accept "at cost" product as their
return, then we can begin to handle that "price above cost" as a
solution to that payer's dependence upon the current owners.
Until then we will continue to be confused about why abundance destroys profit.
Patrick Anderson
Social Sufficiency Coalition
http://SourceFreedom.BlogSpot.com
Dec-11-2009: Posted to ListCultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 6:02 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963@gmail.com> wrote:
> people cannot consume what we can make
That is because ownership is being used for profit instead of product.
We will use ownership to gain the control we need.
And we will use profit to help latecomers gain the ownership they need.
Funding can come from consumer groups pre-paying for a product in that
the money or work is invested on their behalf in the material Means of
Production that they then have real ownership in.
Those investing consumers will then own their own portion of Physical
Sources, and by consequence would also own the product of those means.
Pre-paying for things such as cell-phone service is already
commonplace, but the consumer never gains real property ownership in
the portion of the network he helped fund as he paid "price above
cost", but is instead kept always away from the sources of production
because of the prohibitive costs of singular ownership on the one
hand, and because of the complexity of co-ownership on the other -
especially when combined with our ignorance as to the origin and
'proper' destination of profit.
> It is, I believe, why we have invented the super-rich again. Their
> capacity to consume and waste is simply necessary for capital to work.
When you say 'capital' I assume you mean Capitalism.
Capitalism requires scarcity because profit is being misunderstood and
causes us to not realize the fatal requirements of traditional
investors who demand price never reach cost.
Of course we need 'capital' in that we need the material Means of
Production. But the form of our organization and the demands of our
investors (whether "at cost" product is sufficient) will determine
whether we seek abundance.
Treating profit as a reward for current owner incents scarcity and destruction.
Treating profit as a payer's investment causes growth to be
automatically decentralized and even self-leveling. It is a governor
in the same way as a centrifugal steam valve [
http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor ]. It creates a
negative-feedback loop [ http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback
].
Dec-06-2009: Posted to ListCultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 06, 2009 at 10:43:54AM -0500, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
>
>> This may reflect a deeper shift in our society. For most people, the Google
>> corporation is now effectively the de-facto government that structures
>> their lives online. So, how can we make Google a good government? :-)
>
> You can't. Neither a corporate nor a government entity can be trusted.
Hmm. That's true for nearly all current corporations and the
governments they control.
But then who is this group called "we" that they are against? Is it
not the end users?
And why are they against us? It is because profit requires scarcity,
and so seeking to perpetuate profit incents artificial scarcity and
withholding solutions.
We don't yet have "User Freedom" in the physical realm because we
haven't yet discovered how to incorporate for our own purposes.
...
Here is my rough plan to solve this issue:
1. We, the users, get together to fund organizations and even
corporations that operate for our own benefit - where the 'return' for
those investments would be "at cost" goods and services which are
under *our* (limited to the co-owners of those physical resources)
full control.
This is good and sufficient for the 'static' case - where the number
of initial investors is equal to the number of current users.
But if an organization is to grow, it must become 'dynamic' - and must
consider the case of the 'new' user that has not yet paid for his
share of physical ownership required for the "at cost" access the
others enjoy.
This lack of ownership causes the new user to be at a disadvantage.
He is at the mercy of the current owners who will most likely charge
him a price above cost (they will collect profit).
The organization cannot grow unless more than costs are paid, since
"at cost" access only covers current operational expenses. So the
collection of profit is somewhat beneficial, for there could be no
growth without it, but that value is usually 'mistreated' as a reward
for those current owners instead of being considered an investment
from the user who paid it. Even so-called "non-profit" corporations
keep this value while pretending it is not profit as they pad their
own wages, or they re-invest it into the organization but just like
the for-profits, those new investments become the property of the
*current* owners instead of becoming the real property of the person
who paid it.
2. The 'fix' for the dynamic case is to write a sort of Contract or
Terms of Operation very similar in purpose to the GNU GPL but enforced
by property rights instead of copyright. The primary (and as far as I
can tell maybe even the only) constraint of this contract is that all
price above cost (all profit) be invested in more physical sources
needed for the growth of that entity, but those new investments are
owned by the user who paid that profit.
Sincerely,
Patrick Anderson
Social Sufficiency Coalition
http://patware.FreeShell.org
Dec-04-2009: Unsent
Eugen Leitl wrote:
> Running your own caching DNS resolver is a) trivial
That is true for those of you that know how or are comfortable enough with computing to be able to learn and implement that solution.
But what about 99.99% of the other people on earth?
Will the P2P economy not promote specialization?
I must be able to compensate individuals who are skilled where I am not or what is the point of connecting at all?
I cannot write or perform music, yet I could enjoy it if I could help the artisan meet his basic needs.
I could sow while someone else cooked and others were washing dishes and making beds etc.
I cannot be my own chiropractor.
I cannot perform heart surgery on myself (or on anyone).
I cannot repair my car's automatic transmission.
Sure I would like to learn those things. But maybe I just can't. Or maybe I don't have time because I am trying to add to society in ways I excell where other struggle.
We will need shared ownership of physical components needed for things such as DNS, search engines, video hosting, software hosting, etc.
DIY is seen as 'rugged', "self determined" and even freeing - for you then must rely on nobody.
But if humans are solitary creatures, then why do we tend to cluster? Why are we not spread evenly across the surface of the planet?
Nobody can be an expert in *every* field unless we abandon our higher achievements to return to a subsitence-level existence where all of our waking hours would be spent dealing with the daily trouble of keeping bread in our guts and shelter over our heads.
Is specialization really that bad? Will we all become (or stay) insects if we are able to trade work?
I often hear the cry for DIY, but if we each must do everything without help from others, then shouldn't "P2P" be just "P"?
The new economy is not about Self-Sufficiency.
The GNU economy is about Social-Sufficiency.
It's the EconoWe
Dec-04-2009: Posted to Lists.OKFN.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
I wonder why so many licenses disallow commerce.
Maybe part of it is the continued confusion between the FSF's concepts of 'commercial' and 'proprietary'.
Another part might be the Copyright holder's (I'm also imagining individual artisans who chose CC-NC) somewhat justified but otherwise ham-handed attempt to recover some of their operating costs.
Could we (the users) ever learn how to organize and 'host' the basic physical needs of people that try to do this good work?
Developers of "Open Knowledge" have basic necessities such as food, shelter, simple clothing, etc. that they are unable to meet when they receive no compensation for their valuable results.
This causes many of them to lead a double life - where they must care of their bodily needs through proprietary means (or in this example - where they must disallow commerce) even while trying to lead a life of "moral purity" [as Saint IGNUcius would say].
Patrick
Dec-01-2009: MeatShare.org >>The Bay Area Meat CSA is a network of Bay Area residents who cooperate to buy meat directly from local ranchers. It's the most cost-effective way to buy good, healthy, local meat and it's an opportunity to connect with the ranchers and processors whose work feeds us.
Of course they want you to buy meat instead of buying cattle. Meat is an output of production, whereas cattle are the (primary) physical sources of production.
Profit goes missing when the consumers own the physical sources. But workers don't want to be paid wage alone, they want to be owners so consumers pay all costs AND also pay profit.
Sharing meat is far weaker than sharing cattle! We must buy and own the sources, not just the outputs of production or there is no difference from raw Capitalism at all. Boring.
Dec-01-2009: Updated P2PFoundation.net/Profit with:
User Owned theory describes Profit as Price Above Cost.
Profit = Price - Cost
But profit is confusingly often equated with the word Value as though it should be a goal of production.
Profit is the difference between Consumer price and Owner costs - where Wages are one of those costs. It describes a consumer's dependence on those current owners.
Profit is not needed by society. It only appears to be needed for development because we ignorantly leave Funding to a group of investors that expect to be paid from that pool.
But if consumers would group together to buy the material Means of Production with Product being their reward instead (you could think of it as a pre payment plan where they become full legal co-owners), then we would finally be in full control and would also receive those goods and services at a price equal to cost since profit is undefined when the end users have sufficient* ownership in the Means of Production.
Profit is an inverse measure of consumer development and can be balanced (to solidify an economy) by treating it as an investment from the consumer who paid it toward more Physical Sources needed for future production as outlined in the GNU General Public Law.
(*) "Sufficient ownership" means the consumer owns enough of (for example) Cow-Shares that purchasing milk is not needed - for they would own the milk as a 'side effect' of their ownership in the cattle. In that case the consumer must pay for the daily operations of the dairy, but does not buy milk from anyone since it is already their property.
All consumers lacking "Sufficient ownership" would need to buy milk, and at that point they would be subject to the current owners possibly charging a Price Above Cost.
A User Owned dairy would allow current owners to sell any extra milk they may have to new consumers with the Terms of Operation enforced stipulation that all Price Above Cost be treated as that payer's investment in more cattle and supporting sources (barns, water rights, tools, feed, etc.). The investment would become (after a vesting period) the real property of that new consumer so that, incrementally and in a self-correcting manner, the organization would continue to be User Owned even as it grows to cover the earth with the abundance that those adherents would have no reason to fight against.
Dec-01-2009: Created page P2PFoundation.net/Cow-Share
A Cow-Share program is an example of Demand Side investment into the material Means of Production for the purpose of receiving at-cost dairy products under full consumer control.
This User Owned form of organization was made illegal in Utah, U.S. with the passage of HB311 by Margaret Dayton Utah State Senator, District 15.
Text of the bill can be read at: http://www.le.state.ut.us/~2007/htmdoc/hbillhtm/HB0311.htm
It is easy to see why the Corporate-run governments pass such laws: The largest problem Cow-Sharing causes for 'regular' (for-profit) organizations is the ability for the end-user to receive the product without ever paying profit. Since the consumers own the cattle, barn, tools, etc. - they would pay only the costs of that production (including wages), but profit is undefined. This model undercuts all other ownership arrangements because the goal is finally for Use value alone. For-profit corporations probably claim some sort of "unfair competition" since their only purpose for existence is to keep Price Above Cost.
See http://SenateSite.com/blog/2007/02/raw-milk-regulations.html for (lack of) justifications.
Dec-01-2009: Where is "User Freedom" when Workers Own?
Dec-01-2009: GEO.coop "'Grassroots Economic Organizing'" probably has good intentions, but cannot stop beating the "Worker Owned" horse. Their "Consumer Cooperatives" section is confined to "'Member-owned and democratically-controlled associations though which consumers collectively purchase and distribute goods/services.'". Why can we not consider the more powerful case where the consumers own the material Means of Production? Why are consumers always taken out of the possible role of ownership?
Dec-01-2009: Reading I-R-I-E.net/inhalt/011/011-full.pdf contains this gem >>It is the profit-motive, it seems, that keeps us away from abundance, not infinite human wants
Robert Verzola's entry mentions "demand side" (as compared to "supply side").
Thinking about these terms just the other day I noticed the negative connotations of 'demand' while 'supply' seems incontrovertibly positive ... even *saving*. Promoting a Payer Owned society will require better terminology.