diary-jul-2007

====THIS FILE IS ARCHIVAL. See 'Diary' for newest entries

Jul-29-2007: Humans who install barren foliage starve without petrol.

FAO.org/newsroom/en/news/2007/1000620

Jul-29-2007: Trying to generate an answer for somewhere at blog.P2PFoundation.net:

To 'create' requires capital which implies investors and owners who pay the real costs to buy, install, manage, operate, maintain and protect that property.

Single owners or small groups may do much or all of that work themselves without explicit notions of 'pay' beyond accomplishing the objective.

Larger groups of owners usually pay worker wages as a cost then sell the product (the 'done') to consumers for a price above cost, keeping that profit as something earned.

Some owners rent capital to consumers or workers at a rate above that needed to cover costs, and keep that profit as reward.

Consumers already pay production costs and profit.

Owners may also be consumers of the products of that capital.

As consumers become owners, governance becomes immediate.

Democracy is direct and inclusive as individuals gain control through real corporate ownership under contract that insures power doesn't collect at the top. This is accomplished when 'profit' is interpreted as consumer investment.

'Doing' and 'power-to-do' can happen when we buy some Physical Sources of Production and place them under the GNU General Public Law (GPLv4).

Change the world by distributing power <em>at each trade</em> so locally sustained preservation and sovereign growth become a military stance against those that might at any time cripple us by cutting a vein.

Remix of Libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway:
. Only owners can change the state node.
. Hoarding the 'done' or "Means of Doing" breaks social flow.
. Everyone desires able-to-do, capacity-to-do, power-to-do
. Force is power-over, power-to-stop, ownership beyond freedom.
. Owners of the consumable input sources are also owners of the completed product (the 'done').
. Money and value are the negation of doing.
. Take the Power to Change the World - Public Webcast -- http://IIRE.org/content/view/105/1/lang,en

Behold a Pale Horse 4 hr 40 min - May 14, 2006 Video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=-729985813912005672

====Created FreeHard.BlogSpot.com:
: Statement of intent
> Free hard is about freedom hardware and will solve the dilemma each prisoner faces in this world where the physical sources of production are kept artificially scarce for the maximization of profit.

>This is accomplished when groups of owners choose to place some physical sources of production under a contract which constrains trade by requiring all profit made from selling or renting Objects be handled as an investment for that same consumer.

Jul-10-2007: Edited post to Progress.org/cgi/webbbs/config.pl
====Consumer control and "at cost" products

I am not talking about 'confiscation' because what I am suggesting is a voluntary contract that some business owners would choose to keep in place on their own accord for the community building benefits it would bestow to them.

Think of these corporations as self-declared public utilities.

Wouldn't you be happy to be part owner in a farm that you had direct vote control over whether the crops were Genetically Modified or not? And the price you would pay for the products of that farm would be (approach) exactly cost.

So, after paying managerial wages (assuming you hired someone to manage the farm), worker wages, payments on equipment, water and fuel and maintenance - in other words, all the things a farmer pays - you would have the product in the store(house), and YOU (the consumer) would already OWN that product.

And wouldn't it be nice to own a tiny % of a processing factory, so that some of the organic, heirloom grains that you voted (between the other owners of that small farm) to grow on YOUR farm could be turned into breakfast cereals, breads and crackers without suffering the externality of profit? Do we really need to pay $4 a box for cereal when the US federal government is using our tax dollars to pay those same farmers to NOT grow?

When people choose to not apply the contract then they could do as you say, but those businesses will soon be 'outperformed' by the groups that choose to apply the contract, since those consumer/owners will be getting a far better deal.

The typical Capitalist Mode of Production will become unimportant after this contract is finally written and is applied to Objects and the physical Sources of those Objects.

I don't plan to implement strict Georgism, nor as a tax, but will try to answer this as though I would:

It is the incorrect structure of typical taxes that allows speculators to keep their excessive holdings.

For instance, why does property tax punish improvements while ignoring the empty and underdeveloped lots near the middle of large cities?

If property tax were structured as HG would have it, then cities would not sprawl as they do, but would be extraordinarily dense because every square foot would be exponentially more expensive to hold as you neared the center.

There may not appear to be "excessive holdings", but look closely at the strips of idle land behind stores and scattered throughout a city. All of that would be under intense use if weren't so easy (if tax were weighted against) holding it.

Jul-07-2007: Noticed ZeitgeistMovie.com "'They must find it difficult... Those that have taken authority as truth instead of truth as authority.'" -- Gerald Massey

Jul-07-2007: Direct Democracy through Private Property. Collective Ownership under a self-inflicted contract that insures growth 'flows' according to the amount any consumer pays above cost. What is usually called profit should become an investment for that same consumer since profit is an accurate measure of consumer dependence.

Jul-07-2007: Response to "'Where Does Your Food Come From?'" Progress.org/2007/food08.htm

What if some consumers could organize enough to collectively purchase some farmland, water rights and tools?

In most cases they would not be the workers, but would hire skilled labor just as is done now.

But this way *we* could be in control.

This is not the same as CSA, since in that case a 'Farmer' is the Owner who must try to 'profit' against the consumers.

Jul-07-2007:
Archive.org/details/EbenMoglenLectureEdinburghJune2007text >>The fundamental improvement being reached here is an improvement in the technology of self-government. An improvement in the technology of human freedom through the substitution of words and ideas for force. An improvement of the substitution of community values for the single minded pursuit of individual or aggregate profit at the expense of any other competitor that might get in the way.

Jul-06-2007: Posted to Progress.org/cgi/webbbs/config.pl
====Subject: Profit protection

Hello all.

I have a question that is indirectly about HG's Single Tax (Community Rent) and directly about "Economic Justice".

I have been reading "Money; A Mirror Image Of The Economy" at http://IED.info/books/money (which can be freely downloaded) which extends HG's discovery as: "'Applying Henry George's philosophy across the economic spectrum transposes monopoly rent values into equally-shared use-values.'".

The question is about the concept of "Mode of Production" as originally defined by Marx (see http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_of_production ).

What I am noticing is that there is a special, almost magical case when a product consumer (of apples for instance) happen to be the owner of the means of that production (the land, trees, tools and water rights).

When that is the case (Object Consumer == Source Owner), then the typical schizophrenia of economics (think "Falacy of the Broken Window", "Candlemakers Petition", "Crisis of Value", "Creative Destruction", etc.) no longer apply.

This is similar to thinking of a stranded islander, but is more general. When the Owners of the Means of Production happen to also be the only Consumers of the Output, the following seems to be true:

. Employment is no longer a goal, but a hurdle to overcome.
. Keeping price above cost (profit) is meaningless, unless you were to pay yourself.
. Wages may be paid to any worker you hire, but that is a cost, not profit.
. Scarcity is not needed to insure success, as production is the only goal.
. 'Dumping' by foreign entities is not a problem as abundance is only a problem for profit.

This is a volatile state when there are more than one consumer, but before we discuss that I would like to make sure these claims are not faulty.

Thanks for your consideration and thought in answering.

Jul-05-2007: Posted to Worknets.org/wiki.cgi?PatrickAnderson
* Type = Human, reality hacker, software developer.

* Location = Utah, EcoComics.org, MySpace.com/patware

* KeyConcept = Interpret price above cost as Object Consumer plea for growth.
** Traditional treatment of profit as a prize for Source Owners causes pressure to increase artificial scarcity through destruction, deletion, pollution, even war and is a direct attack on our original goals of abundance and permanence.
** The Mode of Production defined as "Object Consumers == Source Owners" has interesting side effects:
*** Employment is a Cost to be eliminated in our goal of leisure.
*** Profit is meaningless except as Object Consumer growth.

* Endeavor = Write a Trade Agreement that small-time investors can voluntary apply to some physical Sources of Production and the Objects of those Sources with the goal of creating a permanent culture.
** The spirit of this social contract is the same as the GNU General Public License - to insure Consumers remain in direct control of their lives by causing real Ownership to flow according to their willingness to sustain (pay costs) and invest (pay above cost).
** When demand is above supply, what was usually considered profit becomes an investment for that User in more physical Sources needed for future production of that same kind.

* Endeavor2 = Design an associated 'deposit' currency backed by those same physical Sources of Production which also happens to act as literal insurance for the future Objects of those Sources.

* InvestigatoryQuestion = What are the psychological barriers to a full investigation of this sensitive subject?

Jul-05-2007: Posted to MySpace.com/loanfunder
Ben, in a private message (after much goading from me) you ask "'What do you propose can be done? Where do we start and what are the milestones?'".

I'm working on a simplified reply that can finally make sense, but for now I will say that we must recognize:

Government is driven by corporations.
Corporations are driven by profit.
Profit is driven by artificial scarcity.
Artificial scarcity is the deletion and destruction of nature and knowledge.
Profit is an unnecessary burden that is overcome whenever Object Consumers are Source Owners.
Employment is not a need in itself, but a hurdle to overcome when Object Consumers are Source Owners.
We need to write a trade agreement - a kind of social contract that can be applied to physical Sources and their Objects that will cause profit to be treated as an investment for that Consumer at each transaction
Profit is Consumer_Price above Owner_Costs |where| Worker_Wage is one of those Owner_Costs.
Profit is an inverse measure of Consumer development, and is balanced by treating it as a cry for growth by investing it in more physical Sources that will insure future production of that same kind of Object.

Jul-02-2007: Posted to MySpace.com/grnxnm
Subject: Homesteading

Nate, you probably know I have (had) similar ideas, though I don't remember what I've told you, and my viewpoint has been changing over time.

I'm deeply concerned about how the economy is structured to work against consumers through artificial scarcity. We tend to accept this as an inevitable part of society - as though it would be impossible to trade amongst ourselves without suffering price above cost.

This almost universal preconception is now sending more and more people out of the cities as they sense the imminent collapse of our economy.

Assuming some of these communities 'succeed', could anything (such as a social contract nudge, nudge) keep them from eventually failing in the same way?

Is human society inescapably unstable, or is there a problem with resource allocation that could be addressed so we might work toward permaculture?

Jul-02-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/on-the-contradiction-between-openness-and-profits/2007/07/02
Business 'bills' are a Cost, so are BY DEFINITION not paid through Profit, since Owner_Profit = Consumer_Price - Owner_Costs. This is even more obvious for a Non-Profit corporation.

But if you are thinking of the 'bills' of the individual (what can a Worker take home to feed his family), then you are talking about Wage, which is ALSO calculated as a Cost.

So Profit never need be collected by Owners, but should only be treated as Consumer Growth by investing it as shares of Ownership in that same corporation for that very same Consumer. In this way the business becomes a public utility Owned by every Consumer in direct proportion to the amount each is willing to pay above Cost.

The separate question of how a Worker can collect a Wage from Consumers willing to pay for new work is mostly a matter of contracting with those Consumers _before_ performing the work. The solution to how programmers can "make money" from Free Software is to discover what the Consumers want that is not already accomplished, and then to have those consumers somehow 'commit' to payment for delivery of those change before the Worker performs the act (or at least before he releases his private modifications).

Older entries: diary-jun-2007