Related: diary
May-31-2008:
OpenCapitalist.org >>The goal of Open Capitalist is to provide a framework for the creation of socially responsible companies. Furthermore, we want to provide a place where individuals can contribute to projects they believe in and earn a profit doing what they enjoy.
Doug.PBWiki.com/GardenWorld >>We have discovered our interdependence on nature, but don’t have a view of what to do with it. GardenWold replaces that vacuum with a promise. Whether the world falls apart, or hangs together, GardenWorld would be helpful. It is, as the futurists say, robust across scenarios. We need an image of what we are trying to accomplish and how we want to live. Welfare choices are easier in the garden world context. If a person is facing a deteriorating social and physical environment their choices will not be the ones that are trying to align personal well being with the environment. In GardenWorld, because alignment is possible and people are more or less the same a convergence of desires and actions is more likely.
LocalGovernance.org
May-31-2008: Listening to http://www.archive.org/details/AgroinnovationsPodcastOpenFarmTechWithMarciJakubowski >>In this interview with Marcin Jakubowski of www.openfarmtech.org, we revisit the issue of Open Source Appropriate Technology. Like many of the OSAT visionaries, Marcin has a technological vision that will shatter the current order and bring us greater freedom, autonomy and independence. Have a listen to learn more about what he is doing to bring this about.
May-30-2008: Email reply
I probably shouldn't have dredged all this 911 muck up. It seems so old and boring anymore. I reacted emotionally to the idea that "we are on the right track and for the right reasons."
Epistemology is a fancy word for "knowledge study". It is about the differences between truth and belief. It involves asking questions such as "does that chair exist" and then trying to determine how such a claim can be proven.
It may seem to be a frivolous, academic exercise to ponder such things, but it is really at the core of the discussion here.
How do any of us know what happened that day? I have seen text, pictures and video that appear to be showing:
1. A missle leaving one of the planes at the last second before it hit WTC 1 or 2 (I don't remember which).
2. An interview with firefighters talking about a series of detonations "BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM" as 1 and 2 fell.
3. An interview with firefighters describing so much molten steel running that it "looked like a foundry".
4. Many clips showing all three buildings falling in perfect semmetry toward the earth at free-fall speed.
5. Pictures of a small hole in the ground in Pennsylvania where one of the planes supposedly crashed, but with the debris spread over miles.
6. A lack of films from the security cameras of businesses near the pentagon that were seized by the FBI.
7. Written accounts of several of the Suadi Arabians that were supposedly on those planes, but are still alive.
8. Pictures of the construction of WTC 1 and 2 showing the central 'spire' of steel that comprises the internals of those towers with "I" and "box" beams having wall thicknesses of 5".
But I don't really have any way to know if any of this is true. I did not observe any of this directly with my own senses. I am relying upon information that was allowed to flow to me. All of it may have been doctored or fabricated for purposes I may never know.
So now all we have is belief.
We can fight among ourselves about what each of us believe, but that will only separate us.
When beliefs do not coincide, the offender is labeled "wrong". Atheists and adherents both consider all religions are "wrong" except their own. The only difference is that atheists don't happen to have one of their own.
This information (whether true or false) will probably be made popular by the off-shore owners of this nation when they decide we should be convinced our leaders need to be replaced by UN troops and foreign control.
PS: A "steel building" contains no structural concrete. It is not the same as a concrete bridge reinforced with cable or rebar. I couldn't find any pictures of that bridge, but will guess it was composed of pre-stressed slabs containing cables near the bottom side. When those cables were heated, they stretched (didn't melt), causing the sections to lose their tensile strength and the structure to bow downward. The melting described in the article was the burning *asphalt* which will melt even just from the heat of the SUN on very hot days.
PSS: Obviously someone conspired (met in secret), the question is "who was involved?".
May-29-2008: Posted to GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A541
<i>detailed from the outset, broken down to explain how equipment is acquired, how staff are paid, how prices are set, how food is acquired to be cooked, and how any money left over at the end of the year is handled.</i>
May-28-2008: Posted to GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A541
Vinay,
Yes, some "open design" hardware is being manufactured, but what I'm am talking about is creating a situation where the physical <b>manufacturing</b> of that design is also 'open'.
The land and capital needed to 'express' a design can be collectively owned in a analogously 'open' manner.
It is not enough for a design to be open. The people in need of Hexayurt housing can only use the blueprints if they have access to the tools and materials needed to manufacture one.
I'm trying to describe a different Mode of Production where the product consumers are also the owners of the "physical sources" or 'Means' of that production even if they do not have the skills required to operate those machines.
It may seem to have no application in the case of a Hexayurt - where the consumers being stranded after a disaster are likely to have no property at all - but there is a way to make a production facility that is a true "public utility". We can pay the workers better than ever while keeping the price lower than ever and while giving the consumer advanced control over that manufacturing.
Do you understand the difference I am trying to clarify?
I am talking about "open manufacturing" - where factories and farms are owned by the consumers intending to use those products EVEN when those specific consumers don't have the skills to operate those physical sources.
Does this seem like a worthy goal, or would you say there is no point, or am I still not making sense? ;)
May-28-2008: Posted to GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A541
The design of a Free as in Freedom thing is important, but what about creating/expressing/manufacturing <b>instances</b> of such a thing?
Whenever people talk about Free Hardware they seem to only be interested in the 'virtual' portion of it. But what about the 'physical' part?
I would like to talk about how we can free the <b>instantiation</b> of such designs, but hear so little talk of it, I wonder if nobody else cares.
Am I misunderstanding something? Free Software (Open Source) and Free Hardware are both about making the 'virtual' portion of something free, but why is there so little (if any) talk about how we will free the '<i>physical</i>' sources needed for the manufacturing of such products?
Would there be interest here at GlobalSwadeshi.net for a discussion of how a group can get together to purchase, store, operate, maintain, insure, etc. the physical sources needed to manufacture something such as a car in a manner akin to what public utilies should have been?
Maybe we could sell "pre-production bonds" to pontential customers to fund the operation. They would each be buying a vehicle that was not yet manufactured in that they would become the collective owners of the capital needed for that construction. We would want to make the manufacturing facility as multi-purpose as possible so that other, similar products could be created there (similar to Marcin's notion of modular connectivity for his farm implements).
Since those consumers would be investing for product instead of profit, we would have leeway in where any profit might go when we begin selling to non-owning customers (during the 2nd or 3rd round of production).
If we treat all profit as an investment from and for the consumer who paid it (the consumer might be a worker who paid with labor), all participants would become co-owners in the production the need for Swaraj in a Swadeshi Society.
May-26-2008: Fresh Farm News
Looking for a way to harvest some of the wild grain from my (the bank's) 3 acres I found http://ScytheConnection.com and a demonstration video at http://YouTube.com/watch?v=ugSO54WKm8I
....
Trying to begin comprehension of the newest Farm Bill H.R.2419 "To provide for the continuation of agricultural programs through fiscal year 2012, and for other purposes." at http://Thomas.LOC.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.02419:
And "Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008" at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:6:./temp/~c110wiaLnn::
http://Agriculture.House.gov/inside/2007FarmBill.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-hunger21mar21,0,3937956.story >>As the very poor struggle just to eat, the farm bill before Congress boosts corporate welfare.
http://WashingtonPost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/20/AR2008052001581.html >>A major new program in the recently enacted farm bill could increase taxpayer-financed payments to farmers by billions of dollars if high commodity prices decline to more typical levels
....
Reading http://FEE.org/Publications/the-Freeman/article.asp?aid=85 "Free-Market Farming" 1956 By W. M. Curtiss >>The current farm problem is said to be a matter of surpluses—some seven billion dollars worth of farm commodities which the government either owns or holds under loan. As a result of the careless use of the term "surplus," we are expected to believe that the farm problem exists because there are "too many farmers" or "farmers produce more than we need."
....
Reading http://Books.Google.com/books?id=oWNMAAAAIAAJ "The Third Power: Farmers to the Front" 1907 By James Andrew Everitt >>Note — Any attempt to control prices through a large fund as recently proposed by several companies will fail because it will encourage producers to increase production and to hold their crops, which will result in an unwieldy surplus. If the fund is actually used to buy and hold the crops, it will certainly result like the Leiter deal — in an inability to find buyers, who will take them at a still higher price, when they must be disposed of. Neither individual, corporate, nor national aid along this line can be effective, unless the surplus that is bound to result will be destroyed.
....
Watching http://Video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=2084570389918679725 >>GlobalSwadeshi.net Global Swadeshi dialogue between Marcin Jakubowski of Open Source Ecology (OpenFarmTech.org) and Vinay Gupta of the Hexayurt Project (HexaYurt.com) discussing Marcin's work on developing autonomous farming, building and power systems.
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Reading about the upcoming AnimalID (NAIS) law: http://NoNAIS.org, http://StopAnimalID.org, http://NoAnimalID.com, http://NICFA.org, http://FarmToConsumerFoundation.org
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Some of my recent 'theoretical' work with agricultural slant:
http://www.GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A301 "Will a Swadeshi Society Use Scarcity to Protect Price?"
http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
....
Not farm related but fascinating: http://Books.Google.com/books?id=wqCxE4CN3GsC "The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries" 1875 Charles William Heckethorn
May-25-2008: Reading Mises.org/books/failureofneweconomics.pdf
May-25-2008: Pondering:
All effort is spent reporting the trouble
We do not act; solutions seem impossible
We must protect workers from the consuming side
Labor needs "use value", not continuous trade
Our goals should not be profit and employment
Let us invest for selfish, local enjoyment
May-24-2008: Reading PoliceStatePlanning.com/id19.htm
May-23-2008: Posted to DefectiveByDesign.org/blog/zuneral
Why not organize and begin building (not just designing) our OWN electronics.
Sure it is expensive, but obviously it is not impossible. Apple and Microsoft are already doing it, and we pay for it in the end anyway - while also paying the externality of profit.
If we (the people, the users) could believe enough in ourselves to invest in the means of production for the sole purpose of "use value" instead of creating artificial barriers for "exchange value", then we would not need to beg those that hold us at bay.
RMS did not beg the software industry to do the left thing. He did not buy proprietary software and then bury it in concrete.
He began investing in Free (as in Freedom) production, not frivolous destruction.
Can the 'we' do this for the physical realm as well? Can we cover the costs? We already pay those costs! We pay the costs AND we pay Profit AND we are on a leash held by those that create this proprietary hardware.
Let us organize and begin an evolution of physical freedom!
Sincerely,
Patrick Anderson
May-23-2008:
Solitary humans invest (pay or work) for "use value" alone.
Let "exchange value" be the payer's (or worker's) investment.
May-22-2008: Posted to OpenFarmTech.org/weblog/?p=221
Congratulations in your agricultural success which has more "use value" potential than results from the $300-billion Farm Bill I've been reading about.
"'If we were all trained as such, wouldn’t the general public, let alone professionals, notice if something wasn’t right in the airport or subway?'"
In my opinion the "general public" would be more attentive and reactive if they had real property ownership in the facilities they visit.
Ownership is so often derided, and certainly there are big problems that associated with the CONCENTRATION of ownership, but if or when that ownership could be somehow distributed (not as a handout, but as a result of a different approach to organization), I believe the individuals comprising that organization would be far more physically and spiritually aware out of there own self-interests.
But as it is, we walk through so-called 'public' areas without any real say or control of what is around us. We are foreigners in all places except our own private, personal areas because we refuse to organize and cooperate for our own "use value" purposes, but instead wait for those that will organize for the purpose of "exchange value" - and "exchange value" requires the consumers/users NOT have real ownership - for that would give them access to "at cost" product.
Sorry to sound so preachy; I was trying to ask your opinion about my claim. Any thoughts?
Patrick
May-22-2008: Posted to Smari.Yaxic.org/blag/2008/05/18/will-a-swadeshi-society-use-scarcity-to-protect-price
It is common to claim there would be no incentive for investment and production if price can’t be held above cost, but what about the lone islander?
If you are stranded on an island isn’t there incentive for you to invest some of your labor and capital (planting some of your wheat seeds instead of grinding them)?
Would that incentive be lost if I were to arrive on the island with you?
When or where do our goals switch from product to profit?
May-22-2008: If price above cost (profit) is the only incentive for production, then why does the lone islander produce? Why does he invest (work)?
May-20-2008: Reading Books.Google.com/books?id=wqCxE4CN3GsC "The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries" 1875 Charles William Heckethorn
May-20-2008: Posted to GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A301
Thanks for these good points, Birita. Let me know if I am not understanding them correctly.
"'If you strive for a consumer-owned society, it will be difficult to maintain services to the standard at which they are today.'"
I both agree and I think it doesn't matter. While wanting any production or service to scale to whatever size is most appropriate, I find it helpful to keep in mind the very small cases of just a few people.
For instance, a group of people (say a group of college students) might buy and own a bus together. They are then a "travel company" for themselves with standards which they set as they please. There is no reason to answer to anyone else about those standards which may be very high, or very low depending upon what they choose.
Every person in that group must pay the collective others for the recurring costs of owning the vehicle - including things like initial price (and interest if there was a loan), insurance, maintenance, storage, etc., and all wages needed to accomplish those goals. This is part of the 'rent' or 'tax' that is required to recover the real costs of physical sources.
Furthermore, each person that wants to use the bus for some time-slot must also pay for the extra wear he inflicts, including gasoline, oil changes, tire wear, engine longevity, etc. We will call this, along with the recurring costs already mentioned, the "rent-floor".
The rent-floor is sufficient to recover all operational costs, but when one or more other users are vying for the same time-slot, they can bid against each other until there is a winner. The winner will pay a "price above cost", and that extra payment will be used as HIS investment in more sources. This shows the balancing effect of treating profit as investment - as paying more than cost has proven that the current pool of physical sources (the single bus) is insufficient to meet peak demand, and the overpayment will be used to fund the purchase of another bus.
"'If a person runs a travel company, he produces no actual product, and the service is difficult to quantify in exchange for apples or steak.'"
I don't understand what you mean by "the service is difficult to quantify". Any group offering the use of a bus, train, airplane, etc. will be able to determine the total operational costs and the rent-floor for each consumer - won't they? Businesses do it now, and report the excess as 'profit', so I assume it is possible.
"'exchange for apples or steak.'"
I'm not proposing barter. I assume people will use the problematic central-bank issued monetary system of whatever country you are in until we can create a community currency to replace it. I have some ideas about such a currency, but will delay them for now to avoid the extra complexity.
"'In a community where everyone is an at-cost consumer, won't services suddenly become much harder to regulate?'"
What do you mean by "regulate"? I envision a society where there is no 'state' beyond private 'estates'. Any group of owners may offer services (such as a bus ride) at any quality they like, and spend as much or as little on operational costs to achieve that quality as they like. If the quality is high, you may be pay more, if the quality is low you may pay less, but it is not guaranteed. Some people make poor decisions and spend money carelessly, while others are very clever and thrifty. I don't want some overarching mother-government quality control committee to constrain those choices. The consumers will choose what they like, and ignore what they don't.
"'No one is the sole user of a service unless that service is intended only for himself. If the service is intended only for himself it is inefficient and the solution is not desirable. Do you have a solution for this dilemma?'"
I'm not sure I understand, but will try to answer anyway.
The sole owner of a service - say a car, is of course, very common, and is mostly not an important case for our study except as a "base case" to compare our findings against.
So {group, joint, collective, cooperative, corporate, public, shared, together} ownership is the difficult case that a contract for a consumer-owned business must address.
I don't think I answered your question. Would you please ask it again, in a different way?
"'Part of the reason why scarcity is unreal today is because we've all become more efficient at what we do. If specialization were to drop, we lose the main benefit of trade which is the ability to minimize circumstantial costs.'"
I consider specialization extremely important, and one of the primary reasons to even consider group ownership. I am talking about the consumers have property rights over the sources of production neccessary for the products they need while not neccessarily being the workers that operate or care for those sources.
The workers that operate and maintain those sources also need ownership, but they need ownership only in the sources of that which THEY consume. That is a difficult thing to for me to write clearly. If you understand me, could you please restate it in your own terms?
Thanks,
Patrick
May-20-2008: Some econ terms:
supply-side, trickle-down, Reaganomics, Laffer Curve, Mellonomics
Keynesian
NeoLiberal, Free Market, free trade, economic freedom, laissez-faire, "let do", libertarian, Austrian
perfect competition
monopoly
command economy
supply and demand
spontaneous order, invisible hand
"intends only his own gain is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the [common] good." (Wealth of Nations)
externality
May-20-2008: Posted to GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A301
The original post alludes to a solution for this dilemma with:
"'Notice if those investors had been the consumers themselves, they could be paid with product instead.'"
This is only one of the surprising effects that occur when product consumers own the sources of that product. Another is "at cost" product. Consumer-ownership is a special economic case that we have somehow overlooked.
The most simple example occurs when a <b>single</b> owner of productive sources is the full consumer of all that is produced. For instance, the owner of a small apple tree that uses all of the apples from that tree doesn't care if an external entity (nation) were to 'dump' apples on his shore at a low price (or even free) because he is not intending to sell the apples. He has no reason to keep his neighbors from cheap apples. It would actually be better for him if they received 'dumped' apples, since they then won't be trying to steal his.
He also pays exactly "at cost" for those apples, even if he hired someone to care for the tree, harvest and store the fruit, etc. because 'wages' are considered a cost of production. He couldn't have paid "price above cost" (profit) unless he were to pay it to himself. You might also think of any payment above cost for this season's production as his investment toward future production.
If the tree-owner ever has 'extra' apples, there is a good chance he could sell them for a "price above cost" to his neighbors if they do not already have "at cost" access to apples. If he keeps that profit as a reward, it becomes an incentive for him to vote for scarcity creating laws as were already mentioned.
But treating that profit as an investment from the consumer who paid it causes that economy to "self balance" since that consumer slowly gains the source ownership he needs to also have "at cost" product (apples).
A lengthy discussion about this is ongoing at:
http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:BlogPost:4357
http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:BlogPost:4761
I'm surprised Sepp doesn't see it as a solution to this problem.
A consumer-owned enterprise solves the conundrum of destruction by insuring each consumer gains source property as he pays "price above cost" until he finally has sufficient to also be an "at cost" consumer.
A consumer-owned society doesn't need scarcity. Product dumping cannot hurt them because they strive only for "use value" while treating "exchange value" as an imbalance in source ownership to be corrected by investing that profit for the consumer who paid it until we all win.
May-19-2008: BelieveNothing.tv AmericanDeception.com FarmToConsumerFoundation.org NoNAIS.org, StopAnimalID.org, NoAnimalID.com
NICFA.org >>National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association is a coalition of Independent Consumer and Farmer groups united in a common mission and purpose : •To promote and preserve unregulated direct farmer-to-consumer trade that fosters availability of locally grown or home-produced food products. •To oppose any government funded or managed National Animal Identification System. NICFA is Pro-Consumer ~ Pro-Farmer ~ Pro-Freedom ~ Anti-NAIS.
May-19-2008: Email response
If thermtie and small nuclear devices were used to bring down Boaz and Jachin, then why did we attack Afghanistan? Maybe to help the CIA increase opium production to the highest it has ever been?
If not, were the massive steel cores of these towers melted into the ground by furniture fires? If the fires were so hot, how was this person [ http://www.thewebfairy.com/911/edna/liberty.htm ] able to withstand the heat? If the towers fell in a "pancake effect", then again, what about the enormous steel cores? Where did they go? Where did all the heat come from? http://WhatReallyHappened.com/thermite.html
Where was Cheney? Stopping NORAD from scrambling jets? How were the bumbling hijackers able to fly around for almost 2 hours without interception?
Where was Bush? Reading a book?
Even if we pretend the remote-controlled planes were occupied by the Saudi Arabian hijackers (though many of them are alive and well), why not attack Saudi Arabia?
But EVEN then, why must the people of a country be bombed for the actions of a few or for the actions of the leaders? If another country didn't like what the Florida judge appointed Bush was doing, should they warn him in advance and then start bombing NYC and LA?
Why murder the citizens by pummeling the cities, water purification facilities, chicken farms, electric production, etc.? Maybe the military industrial complex needed to spend some of what had been building up - for that would give reason for even more funding? The cleanup is also an economic win for the corporations that puppeteer our pitiful government.
It is of no consequence what anyone may "wish for", the only way to change the course of government is with Federal Reserve Notes which we first buy and then rent(*) from a clan of international banksters that are at the root of almost every war or "pig action" that has occurred over the last 200 years.
(*) These usurists buy bonds backed largely by our national forests with FRNs they issue out of thin air - thereby gaining ownership of our country. But even after exchanging our land for something we could have issued ourselves, we still don't own the bills, for we also pay rent for every note in circulation.
Sincerely,
Lord (owner and bread guard) AGNUcius
May-19-2008:
"'If you don't like to call the reward for the success of an entrepreneur a profit, call it a bonus, but the fact remains that it is intimately connected with the performance (and perhaps even with a bit of good luck) of the enterprising individual.'"
I don't care about the name; I'm concerned WHERE the value comes from - or in other words, HOW that pool is increased.
I'm willing to accept your analysis if it 'works' for the construction of an alternate economy, but I am not sure it will always make sense.
For instance you say:
"'But whether you call it a wage, a bonus or a profit, the money has to come out of a "pool", which is money that isn't eaten up by costs. So a pricing "above cost" will be necessary to create the pool of money the entrepreneur can take his/her bonus from. There is really no way around this.'"
But the way I envision a consumer-owned company, there are points in time where each consumer has "just enough" source ownership that no selling of product ever need occur. In those fleeting (since consumer choices change and the productivity of sources change) instances, there will be no "price above cost" because the consumers would have already paid for all of the costs of production before production occurred, and the product itself is not sold - as it is already the property of those intending to consume it.
So when a group of honey eaters have "just enough" ownership in beehives to supply them with the honey they desire, and one of them is an entrepreneur that deserves bonuses, then why would it be a problem to pay that bonus as a cost - a sort of extended wage? There would be no "price above cost" to draw from because when the consumers are the owners in sufficient amount, there is no selling of product (honey)...
Ah, but maybe you want to draw the bonus payments from "price above cost" because you are saying the entrepreneur deserves the bonus ONLY when he is able to produce more than the owners paid for the amount they intended to consume for themselves. In that case the extra product could be sold to non-owning consumers at "price above cost" ... (actually, if the honey was really 'extra', and the current owners had already paid all costs, then ANY price would be above cost since this 'extra' product would itself be 'bonus') ...
I'll have to think more about this. I always assumed the "price above cost" meant the consumer was pleading for growth, and so should be treated as his investment (he paid it) in more sources. But I do see that it might also make sense to reward an entrepreneur/manager's efficiency by causing part of that consumer's payment to be treated as a bonus. But what about the manual-laborers? Shouldn't we also 'bonus' them?
Hmm... Thanks for the interaction, I think we are making progress and even beginning to address the resistance I always receive about protecting workers even though there is another way consumer-ownership protects workers that is much more powerful based on the fact that every worker is also a consumer (of something), so must have ownership in the sources of THAT production to be safe.
Anyway, I am still trying to find a way to make that presentation.
May-18-2008: Posted to http://P2PFoundation.Ning./profiles/blog/show?id=2003008:BlogPost:4357&page=2#comment-2003008:Comment:4863
HB311 makes me so angry I am seething.
Why are the lowly "we" allowed to own any capital whatsoever?
Why don't the feudalists disallow apple trees? How can they possibly let us raise vegetables? Why are chickens not long since ill-eagle?
These pigish, putrid, immoral, usurist parasites will only tighten their grip as long as we continue to fund ConAgra, Monsanto, Nestle, etc. when we buy their products and pay the profit that they then use to purchase yet more legislation to subjugate we the consuming and working people.
Consumers are workers and workers are consumers. We are being taken advantage of, and boxes are being built around us with the intention of making us more literal slaves.
Here is a film showing Monsanto's attempt to patent DNA sequences that appear naturally. Notice in the last clip the farmer talking about GMO corn causing his cattle to become sterile. Sterility will increase the profit of those that caused it by enabling them to sell newborns each year. This is along the same lines as Monsanto's terminator technology and some of the other tampering with wheat and rice genetics for the purpose of increasing profit through dependence.
Patently Piggish:
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=4-ouf_gmA5o
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=MtkKLcpxTWc
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=TZBWVJZ9YWM
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=1WNMWcj_-4U
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=iJg6TlC1kNo
May-18-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
This is fantastic. When the consumers are the literal owners of the sources of production (cows), then they are the owners of the outputs (milk) even before it is produced, so there is no 'sale' because the product is already the property of the person who will consume it.
I've wondered if we could use this same tactic to avoid the Codex Alimentarius and that new Canadian legislation that makes many healthy things illegal.
Unfortunately the "they" are already ahead of us here in Utah and have explicitly made cow sharing illegal.
http://le.utah.gov/~2007/bills/hbillint/hb0311.htm reads in part:
"'
prohibits cow-share programs
...
"Cow-share program" means a program in which a person acquires undivided interest in a milk producing hoofed mammal through an agreement with a producer that includes:
(a) a bill of sale for an interest in the mammal;
(b) a boarding arrangement under which the person boards the mammal with the
producer for the care and milking of the mammal; and
(c) an arrangement under which the person receives raw milk for personal consumption.
'"
See also http://senatesite.com/blog/2007/02/raw-milk-regulations.html
Terrorists (usurists) hate freedom because it is bad for their market.
I wonder if it is illegal for me to own an entire cow for myself. If I cannot share the output - not even with my children, and cannot divide a cow into shares, then I would need an individual cow for each child - but that is just far too much milk. Usurists hate sharing.
Can anyone in the universe explain the reasoning for this restriction beyond the obvious benefit to the dairy board in keeping us <b>dependent</b> upon them?
Owner profit requires consumer dependence. Perpetuated profit is usury.
May-18-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
I agree it is important to compensate anyone for work - even if 'just' the mental work of ideas. But payment for work is called <b>wages</b>, not <b>profit</b>.
I have developed a very unconventional interpretation for the meaning of profit, and do not have any formal training in economics, so maybe I am missing something.
Would it be just as well if the group of investing consumers were to pay the entrepreneur a <b>wage</b> (with some or all of those wages possibly being 'product') in the same amount you suspect he should be receiving from the pool called <b>profit</b>, or do you see a logistical reason for drawing some of his pay from profit?
You probably understand the following better than I, but I would like to try to write it out attempting to communicate my reasoning about what I think 'profit' (price above cost) really is.
When a business is owned by just one person, that owner's wages are "mixed with", and therefore arbitrarily divided from profit. In such a small situation the difference between wages and profit is a matter of bookkeeping. The owner might say he is (1) collecting all wage and no profit, (2) no wage and all profit, or (3) somewhere in between.
If that single-owner entrepreneur hires a worker, the wages paid to that worker are a pure cost, and are not at all 'mixed' with profit. But the owner still has the ability to label any amount of his own income as either wage or profit.
But when the entrepreneur has other investors with "vote weight" ... or in other words, if the business has multiple joint owners, then any wages paid to any of those owners (assuming some owners are working or claiming to work) become more and more clearly divided from profit as the other collective owners will require all wages be 'competitive'. When any one worker/owner attempts to claim too much wage for the work he performs, the others will say something like "I know someone that can do that job better, and at a lower wage".
So it appears that profit becomes more clearly divided from wages as the number of owners increases because those owners will demand all wages paid for each position of employment to be 'competitive'.
Now, when workers are being compensated through wages alone, and wages are strictly a "cost of production", we can see concept of profit is actually the same as "price above cost".
So why would a consumer ever choose to pay "price above cost"? Why are we not able to pay just the costs (including any wages) of something like a meal at a restaurant or the repairs to a car? Even after paying the costs of wages to "idea people", managers, supervisors, accountants, and all other forms of labor, the owners of business report something called 'profit'. The owners are able to collect more from the consumers than the actual costs of production EVEN when those costs include the wages for entrepreneurial, managerial, etc. work.
It appears to me that profit is actually a measure of a consumer's dependence upon the current owners. Profit decreases as consumers gain access to the sources of production, yet wages are not effected (though I would argue consumer/owners would likely increase wages since they were already accustomed to paying the externality called profit).
For instance, imagine a large group of consumers collectively purchase a restaurant or a car repair shop. They would have to pay all the costs of a normal business, including "idea people" and managers, but they wouldn't (even couldn't) pay profit - for who would they pay it to? On the other hand, if a non-owning consumer wanted a meal or a car repair, the collective owners COULD charge "price above cost" against him - as he has no alternative.
Sorry for the rambling, I must go and didn't have time to shorten this.
I'll just repeat my question here:
Would it be just as well if the group of investing consumers were to pay the entrepreneur a <b>wage</b> (with some or all of those wages possibly being 'product') in the same amount you suspect he should be receiving from the pool called <b>profit</b>, or do you see a logistical reason for drawing some of his pay from profit?
May-17-2008: Posted to www.GlobalSwadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A301 "Will a Swadeshi Society Use Scarcity to Protect Price?"
Reading Books.Google.com/books?id=oWNMAAAAIAAJ "The Third Power: Farmers to the Front" 1907 By James Andrew Everitt
Near the very end of the book, on page 244 we read "'Neither individual, corporate, nor national aid along this line can be effective, unless the surplus that is bound to result will be <b>destroyed</b>.'"
What a sad path to consider with so much hunger in the world, and yet it is all too common when the purpose of business becomes profit instead of product. I remember as a kid on my dad's farm how he talked about some of the neighbors being paid to hold land out of production. They were being paid to NOT grow. This is still true and was reiterated in the 2007 farm bill. It's no wonder there is a grain shortage when it is 'dangerous' toward profit for us to ever have enough. Plenty destroys profit. But profit is not a societal requirement. Work is paid as wages and is calculated as a 'cost' of production, so if profit were to somehow be eliminated it wouldn't hurt the workers or the consumers, it would only hurt those that had invested with the intention of collecting "price above cost". Notice if those investors had been the consumers themselves, they could be paid with product instead. Their return on investment would be bread instead of 'bread'.
Some of my extended family and I intend to begin a sort of 'commune' for ourselves as the economy seems more and more bleak. Since we will be producing for product alone, overproduction can never be a 'problem' for us. We could give it away to our neighbors if nothing else.
But an agriculture system intending to keep price above cost cannot do this - as it would ruin the market to 'dump' product in such a way. This is so blatant that 'dumping' is one of the main subjects within international trade agreements (*FTAs for instance).
Can we avoid the need for destruction and artificial scarcity in a society striving for Swadeshi, or will keeping consumers on the edge of poverty always be a necessary element of any successful production?
May-17-2008: Produser Protection
There are "Worker Unions" and there are "Consumer Unions", but there are no "Owner Unions" because owners are already in control.
Once we see that ownership can be used to secure our goals, we must only decide what those goals are.
Some will say the primary goal of business is to protect prices from meeting costs; for if profit reaches zero, what is the purpose of production?
May-17-2008: Reading Books.Google.com/books?id=oWNMAAAAIAAJ "The Third Power: Farmers to the Front" 1907 By James Andrew Everitt
Page 244: "'
THE RESULTS OF FARMERS' COOPERATION BRIEFLY STATED.
It will increase the value of all farms from 25 to 100 per cent. It will make of the farmer a spender of much more money for improvements on the farm, for necessaries, luxuries and education. It means enormous benefits to all people engaged in agricultural pursuits, also to merchants, millers, grain dealers, manufacturers, professional men, etc. It means unprecedented and uninterrupted prosperity for America and the civilized world. Uncertainties about prices, over-production or unprofitable prices in any great enterprise like farming are constant menaces to the prosperity of a nation.
The success of this plan means steady, uninterrupted prosperity for farmers. It means that they can make many improvements that otherwise they can not. It means substantial buildings, with many comforts for the farmers' families and stock that may never be enjoyed under the old order of things. Having a certain profit from their products, they will spend it freely, and every industry in the country will be benefited, thus benefiting every man, woman and child. There can be no mistake about this prediction.
The success of this plan also means the control of the markets of the world by the farmers ; and they can be trusted to feed the world at fair prices. But should the fair prices be refused they can starve the world by withholding their produce.
More than this: Remove the uncertainties surrounding any business and you make better citizens of those people. They will be better morally, mentally and physically. Remove the uncertainties of prices for agricultural products and you will lessen sickness, poverty, crime and taxation. Our schools and colleges will fill up and our poorhouses, asylums, jails and penitentiaries will have fewer inmates. Give us equity and you will give us happiness. The success of this plan will cause the farmer to love his business, to care for his farm, to raise better crops and larger crops. He will be encouraged to irrigate and to do a thousand things that now he can not do.
The success of this plan, where equity rules, will obliterate that feeling, "Do him or he will do me." On the contrary, when you get your just reward, you can love your neighbor as yourself. The churches will be filled because humanity will have much to be thankful for, and the saloon will be empty because of no sorrows to drown. Uncertainty of price does not stimulate demand and consumption. Remove the uncertainty of prices of farm products, give the producer a fair profit and the middleman a fair margin and there will be a constant stream flowing to the consumer, causing greater consumption and benefiting every person.
The plan is simplicity itself, as already explained. Give us a fair proportion of the farmers willing to ask a fair price, based on production and consumption and the result will be accomplished. Give us unity in cooperation among the farmers, if that is possible, in the carrying out of this plan, and no trust ever dreamed of would represent such a power of capital as would be behind the American Society of Equity.
The farmers are strong enough and rich enough now to take this important step. Prompt action will prevent prices from slipping down to an unprofitable basis, with all the hardships attendant on a condition of poverty and bankruptcy that large crops and unprofitable prices will bring sooner or later. Profitable prices for good crops is what we must have, then the benefits will be evenly and generally distributed, and permanent national prosperity guaranteed.
Note — Any attempt to control prices through a large fund as recently proposed by several companies will fail because it will encourage producers to increase production and to hold their crops, which will result in an unwieldy surplus. If the fund is actually used to buy and hold the crops, it will certainly result like the Leiter deal — in an inability to find buyers, who will take them at a still higher price, when they must be disposed of. Neither individual, corporate, nor national aid along this line can be effective, unless the surplus that is bound to result will be destroyed.
'"
May-13-2008: A scramble of thoughts from some past emails
{{
Pre Production Bonds with maturity dates as Community Currency
Claim: Consumer ownership of productive sources is the most efficient arrangement when utilization/price is large enough.
When a person can make use of (utilize) a machine to a sufficient degree, it is more efficient to OWN instead of RENT.
But how could that be when the same costs must be paid either way?
A rental agency must pay for wages to management, the cost of the initial investments, the risks of those investments, upkeep/repair/maintenance/wear, insurance, protection/security, storage, taxes, and wages to all other workers needed to do any of those thing. A private owner must pay those same costs or must assume the role of those workers, so how could it possibly be cheaper to own outright instead of renting?
The difference is called 'profit'. Profit is the difference between the costs an owner pays and the price a consumer is willing to pay. When the owner and consumer are the same person, there is no such thing as profit. That is the savings in ownership over rental.
But what about machines that are not "worth it" to own because that individual cannot sufficiently utilize them? It must be worth it for SOMEONE to own them, otherwise the rental agency wouldn't do so. The difference here is a matter of utilization.
How can a consumer increase utilization to the point of making ownership "worth it"? One way is to buy the machine with a group of other consumers. Organizing with your neighbors to buy a rug-doctor is cheaper if there are enough of you to keep that equipment busy, so why don't we (consumers) do this more often? Why do we leave that work of organizing up to a business that intends to charge us price above cost?
There is real work involved in the act of organization, but that cost (wages to management) must be paid either way. So what is keeping us (the consumers) from organizing and cooperatively owning machines, buildings, even land?
I think part of the problem is a long-standing belief that whoever possesses the skills to operate those machines should be the owners, but doesn't the above argument show that the consumers must be the owners for optimum efficiency?
I think another part of the problem is in figuring out how those resources should be shared among the owners. It is a difficult, sticky situation that most people would rather just avoid altogether because of the in-fighting they perceive would occur. It seems such a group could write some 'rules' about how to schedule access and how much each individual must compensate the others for any extra wear or exclusion they cause. I see such a contract, if 'properly' written, would be the only thing our society needs to begin down the road of peace and abundance, but will delay that discussion for now.
Cooperative consumer ownership is quite rare today, but there are a few cases where a group of friends wanting a private airplane make a "shared investment", and then rent the plane from the collective others whenever they want to use it. None of those people need the ability to fly themselves, they can just hire a pilot and pay that wage as a cost while still saving money by not paying profit.
Another example is shared ownership of a vacation house. The for-profit "Time Share" industry has grown around that desire, but I'm referring to the less common case when a private group of people buy a house that they share amongst themselves in whatever way they see fit.
Begin an enterprise using scheduling and allocatoin algorithms similar to what the kernel of a computer Operating System does for the cooperative sharing of physical resources.
A contract or "terms of operation" that groups of owners can choose to apply to any physical resources they wish, in a manner similar to how the GNU GPL is applied to 'virtual' resources.
A single machine can be shared among a finite number of people. As the number of consumers attempting to utilize the machine increases, at some point it will be impossible to fullfill those requests with a single machine. If the collective owners have the time-sharing of that machine setup so that anyone wanting to rent it are bidding against each other, then more time slots will be filled. People that want to rent close to 'cost', and are willing to lose some sleep will rent at 2am, while other people will be willing to "fight it out" for a slot at 12 noon in a bid war. As the deuling bidders raise their own price for that time slot, they are *proving* that the current number of machines cannot fill peak demand, and - since that "price above cost" will be invested for the winning bidder toward buying ANOTHER machine, the 'system' should be self-stablizing.
Cost: manage, store, maintain,
A rental-agency owner hires someone to fix things, and supplies the tools for that work to avoid the overcharging a tool-owning mechaninc would impose.
We need to be able to *work* in our community center; trading labor there should be one of the main purposes.
Access to space (land) and tools (capital).
Whenever one of us decides to organize we have a preconceived notion that control must be kept away from the consumers so that price can be held above cost
When a sub-group of owners wants to do something that conflicts with the rest of the group, the sub-group should be able to "divide off" or "seced" or "fork" if the physical resources in question are realistically divisible.
A small farm or business cannot take advantage of things a larger business can - such as owning the entire chain of production for the products. For instance, a larger operation could grow the alfalfa to feed the cattle, and could own a computerized milking machine to milk the cows, and could own equipment to make cheese, butter, ice-cream, soap, etc.
Reinventing and then producing - by hand - every link, recursively for the entire chain (actually tree) of production is something we should shoot for, but to start from that postition
Consumers who pay "price above cost" are incrementally funding the growth of the enterprise. Consumers only pay profit when they do not yet have sufficient ownership in the sources, so treating that payment as their investment balances the system.
This is a continuous stream of "unwitting investors" - for as long as we can draw new consumers to grow the business. The business stops growing naturally when there are no longer any dependent consumers in need of ownership.
Wages and profit separate in two cases:
1. When workers are hired: In this case those wages are clearly a cost.
2. When physical sources are in jointly owned: In this case the owners will want the positions of employment be made available to the lowest reverse-bidder on the open market.
When the number of owners is very small, Profit can be 'hidden' in excessive Wages that those owners will choose to pay themselves with so as to claim that "at cost" is being met.
When source investors are product consumers, they are satisfied with "at cost" product instead of profit.
The concept of selling product does not apply to the product that is already in the hands of the consumer who intends to consume it. The reason those investors will already own the product is because they chose to pre-pay for all the costs of that production - including wages.
This is different from a typical business where all the product (apples) is destined for sale, and the investors don't receive product directly, but instead receive only a portion of the "price above cost" that was collected after the product was sold to somebody else.
When ownership is determined by those who consume the outputs of that production, and who pay for the purchase or construction of the Sources of that production, then Wages are a cost to be minimized, and Profit becomes a measure of the need for ownership. Any consumer pays profit when they do not yet have sufficient ownership in the Sources needed for that production. This can be balanced by treating that payment as an investment from the consumer who paid it - to eventually vest to him as his real property so that he will eventually (when he finally has enough ownership of physical Sources) own all the outputs of production he needs even before they are produced.
To explain that last sentence, just imagine the owner of an apple tree. He owns the apples even before they are produced, and can only pay pure costs, since it would be impossible to pay profit unless he were to pay it to himself. To scale this all the way down, we can see that an individual actually might choose to pay "price above cost" to himself in a manner - in that he might be investing in future production by buying more trees or better tools or more land etc. This seems to prove that profit should be understood as a consumer's investment.
For instance, let's say I am in a large cruise ship that crashes, killing all but 7 people - including me - shipwrecked on an uncharted island. As I look around I notice the plants and animals seem oddly familiar. It suddenly dawns on me these are the same ornamental organisms that the people of 1st world countries have chosen to have running on the soil around their homes and througout all of their cities. There is green and flowering everywhere, but it is all a wasteland of worthless, and in some cases even poisonous fabricators. None of the mushrooms are useful for medicine or food. No chicken, cattle, turkey or geese - only dogs, cats and songbirds. No nut trees. No grape vines. No bees.
Luckily some sealed rations wash ashore, including some steel cans of wheat and few whole spices that we are able to sprout and begin growing.
We build simple bellows and construct a crude forge to melt the steel and aluminum scraps that also wash ashore. We also use the forge to make glass from some of the more pure beach sand.
After a couple years, you crash-land onto the same island in a much smaller boat. You have no food, no tools, no seed, and not even any land to stand on.
Let's say the 7 original islanders are not happy about your arrival, and treat you similarly to how "M. Fioretti" mentioned in his response to this thread:
Even if we 'let' you work for us, we could price the food we sell to you so high, and the land and tools so high that it may take you years to be able afford some land and fully own a house, in fact we could delay it forever - just as almost nobody in the US actually owns their house, they all OWE their house. You'd "owe your soul to the company store".
Wouldn't you agree there are barriers to entry even without a large state? I would say it is because the estate IS the state. When you pay a price higher than the cost (including wages) that it really took to grow the wheat and bake the slice of bread you ate, wouldn't it be nice if that 'extra' you paid (profit) became your investment in more fields, ovens, etc. even if you don't have any of those exact skills - so that you slowly become "set up" as you pay "price above cost"? Those are good reasons too. But are you also claiming it is possible for the owner of an apple tree to pay profit for the procurement of those apples? In other words, is consumer ownership is more operationally efficient than having the trees owned only by those that happen to possess the skills needed to plant, tend, harvest, etc.? Won't the workers overpay themselves if they are the owners?
If it is most efficient for the workers to own, and many small businesses are worker-owned, and if the concepts of efficiency in scale are overrated, then why is there a problem? Oh yes, you will say it is the privilege handed out by the state. I wholeheartedly agree that almost every government on earth is directly puppeteered by corporations that sometimes even write the very legislation that gives them even more privilege. Much of this is fully above-board (technically legal), again because the rules of interaction were and are written by those very same corporations. So enormously important policy decisions - such as whether or not to invade the nearly defenseless countries of Afghanistan and Iraq are influenced by the profits those policy makers receive because of their investments in offense contractors.
Sorry for that sidetrack. I am going to have to work on how to separate these issues before I can give a better analysis. That may be a good point. It is hard to envision how things will be when all industry is owned by the consumers that need that product, and have paid for that ownership when they paid "price above cost".
ATCoop.org.uk is a "workers cooperative", NOT consumer-owned.
Are you saying we all already know how to understand economics and how to treat profit? Maybe you should look at http://NextBillion.net and tell me if they understand.
Or consider the price of grains is increasing to the point of already causing food riots in some parts of the world. I'm saying consumer *price*, not owner *costs*.
The economy of every nation is structured after the faulty idea that price must be kept above cost to insure businesses have a reason to continue production. Can you tell me the special case when that is not true?
Businesses celebrate their ability to keep price above cost and to collect that difference called profit - calling it 'earnings' even though profit has nothing to do with work. Payment for Work is called Wages and is calculated as a Cost of production.
When the consumers are the owners, Profit (from new, non-owning users) and Wages are clearly separated. But when Workers are the Owners, there is not a clean separation because those owners will choose to inflate their own Wages while pretending there is no Profit. Beliefs are unimportant. The only thing that matters is truth.
I agree a person may contribute with either money or work or maybe in other ways depending on what the current owners of that organization allow. But that the worker PAYING the owners.
My (not careful enough) use of the term "Worker" has described a worker being PAID by the owners.
I have found it very difficult to communicate this, so will try to be more careful right now:
I have been using the term "Worker" to indicate someone (whether an owner or not) that is BEING PAID by an owner, but is not a consumer of that exact production.
Another valid use of the term "Worker" is a consumer who is PAYING his part of 'rent' or 'tax' to the other collective owners for one of the costs of production that he owes to that group.
The collecitve owners of a tractor must collect payments from each of the individual owners for the real, recurring costs of that ownership. One of those costs is, for instance, changing the oil and filters. If one of the individual owners PAYS that cost by performing that Work, then it is true that you might call him a "Worker", but more importantly he is a Consumer of the outputs of that Capital.
Would you want someone who is being PAID to work on the tractor (whether the person is already one of the collective owners or not) to gain ownership over that tractor?
What if you PAID someone to fix your plumbing, should they gain partial ownership of your house? Should a mechanic gain ownership of your car? Should your dentist gain ownership of your mouth? Worker owned cooperatives are essentially the same arrangement as any small business. They don't outperform Capitalism because they don't have enough efficiency of scale and miss out on most of the governmental handouts that Kevin Carson mentions.
A true consumer owned cooperative, where every new consumer incrementally gains Capital ownership according to the amount they pay above cost is EXTREMELY rare - almost non-existent. A consumer coop can easily outperform small businesses (including worker cooperatives), and even has a good chance against mega-corp Capitalism because it is not required to keep price above cost (which may be charged to new, non-owning consumers) since the current owners expect to be paid only in product, never in proft. Low profits just mean low growth, and would occur when all consumers already have sufficient ownership.
Furthermore, price actually EQUALS cost for all consumers that have gained sufficient ownership since they own the outputs of production for their percentage of Capital the own even before that production is complete. I am happy that something approaching consumer ownership exists.
I want to give another comparison of the two meanings of "Worker" for this example, and ask if you can see the difference.
If a resident is PAYING the collective owners for some of his rent through Work (say painting the building), then we might call him a Worker. But it is because he is a Consumer (because of his occupancy) that he should have ownership, not because he incidentally made his rent payments in that manner.
But when a person (maybe even a resident) is PAID by the collective owners to paint the building, do you think he should receive ownership and therefore vote weight over that building? If yes, then why? If no, then I agree.
That's nice I suppose, but it makes me think of my lack of control in city government. What if a resident didn't want their portion of that money to go to the "Carbon 60 project"? Do they have *DIVISIBLE* control? Since money is trivially divisible, shouldn't each of the residents be allowed to decide where the money goes? Maybe it is best the minority not be able to fork in that way? Thanks for the effort.
Your mention of 'linear' makes me think of "Economics and Language" by http://ArielRubinstein.tau.ac.il/el.html I noticed a week or so ago where one of the questions he asks is "Why do we tend to arrange things on a line and not in a circle?"
I have long ago given up on ever changing any current government.
Part of what I'm trying to explain is that collective private ownership can fulfill any function a government has ever ever claimed to be fulfilling. The estate becomes the state.
It is important, because it allows us to write our own constitution (adding private 'laws' for access to that property). We can't delete laws from the 'containing' government, but we will hopefully be able to overgrow them and make them unimportant. I think you misunderstood me. I am very much on your side. I wouldn't want to force anyone to do anything.
When I said "trading labor" I was saying there will probably be alot more specialization when the consumers have "at cost" access to the means of production.
To clarify further, keep the simplest case (the dumb rug-doctor for instance) in mind. If you and some neighbors purchased such a thing, none of those people would have the ability to force you to operate it for them.
I am only talking about collective ownership. There is no coercion. If the doctor had ownership in the rug-doctor, he could pay for the costs of maintenace in whatever way the other collective owners would accept. He might even be able to convince them to waive part or all of his recurring fees as a kind of medical insurance for them (within his skill limits of course). Most likely he would just pay that 'rent' with the standard currency of the nation they find themselves in, or later, hopefully with some sort community currency. No, no. No force. You can hire anyone advertising their skills for that work. But notice you would only need to pay their wages and whatever other real costs for your extra wear or consumption on the collective equipment.
For example, imagine going to the car shop to find a mechanic. The mechanics would be strangely independent while having "at cost" access to whatever expensive tools the collective consumers had purchased.
It should be easy to attract local mechanics (they wouldn't neccessarily need to be owners) because you could pay them higher wages than the local Capitalist shop while still paying less than you would have if you had gone to the Capitalist shop.
If you had some of the skills, or just wanted to learn, you also always have the option of using the tools yourself if the other collective owners agree that you 'qualify'.
I'm not trying to write any policy here, I'm just talking about how things already are for very small groups who choose to co-own some Capital.
Again, it is not different from what I am proposing. I am mostly only talking about what very small groups of co-owners *already* do.
For instance, if two people buy a house together, they will have fights about all kinds of things, but each of them always has choice about how the chores should be accomplished, and whether they want to interact, etc. It is THEIR business. No external body should be interfering to force anything upon them (even though the current, containing 'state' will continue to interfere until we can overgrow them...).
}}
May-12-2008: Posted to http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/group/hostingp2pinitiatives/forum/topic/show?id=2003008%3ATopic%3A3043
I also wanted to mention some of the strange economic effects of this "self-hosting".
In a 'normal' business the owners are working against the consumers in that they are attempting to keep the price of the goods above the costs of production. In other words, they are trying to "make profit".
Keep in mind that wages paid for work are calculated as a cost and are on the opposite side of the equation from profit.
But when the consumers of a product are the owners of the sources of those products (in just the right amount*) - in other words, when the business is "consumer owned" - there is no desire and indeed no possibility of keeping price above cost.
In this bizarro economy profit is 'undefined'. The product is available "at cost" and is not even 'sold' in the traditional sense because those that intend to use the product own it even before it is produced.
As an example, imagine a small group of nut-lovers own an almond tree. If they hire someone to care for the tree and to harvest and store the nuts they would pay those wages as a cost of production, but they can't pay profit unless they were to pay it to themselves. So they get the product "at cost" and they own it even before it is produced.
(*) A consumer has "Just the right amount" of source ownership when it is sufficient to produce exactly the amount of product he desires before the next round of production.
May-12-2008: Posted to http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/group/hostingp2pinitiatives/forum/topic/show?id=2003008%3ATopic%3A3043
Hi Maria,
I wish I could say I see more of this - especially in the agriculture sector considering the current world food crisis.
What I see instead is massive agribusiness owners consolidating ever more control while small farmers continue to struggle and finally succumb to the debt they attempt to hold by themselves.
If bunches of consumers (say about 1000 per bunch) could "get together" to buy small, organically diverse farms with the expected return being <b>product</b> instead of <b>profit</b> (notice only consumers would settle for product instead of profit), then those consumers would collectively hold that debt - and would have a very good chance of paying it off. In some cases they might just be able to fund it directly without even taking out a loan.
In doing this, the consumers would be their own 'hosts'. The people working on the farm would likely also be consumers from it, and could pay their costs as direct labor while also receiving a very good wage.
I would like to write more but am feeling scatterbrained right now. Let me know if what I am saying makes any sense to you, and steer me back to your discussion if it doesn't.
Thanks,
Patrick
May-12-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
"'What are the imagined situations we would wish a (model) contract to regulate?'"
My vision is for the contract to be applicable to <b>*any*</b> physical sources that any users choose to share. This universality is important for the higher goal of eventually using the coupons/titles as a form of currency across disciplines.
All production requires physical sources. Anytime someone uses a term such as "immaterial production" there is a chance someone (maybe even the author) is accidentally thinking physical sources are not needed or are a "marginal" in cost that needs no consideration. That thinking is faulty.
Here are some example applications and associated physical sources the contract could cover:
<b>A Social Networking Website</b>: The initial and recurring costs of the computer hardware, electricity, rent or cost plus tax of the land and building house the computers, cooling...
<b>A Restaurant</b>: The rent or cost plus taxes for the land and building, electricity, gas, water, ingredients for the recipes...
<b>A Farm</b>: The rent or cost plus taxes for the land and buildings, cost of implements such as tractors and tools, fuel, seed, eggs, spores, housing for some of the animals & plants & mushrooms...
<b>A Clothing Production</b>: Land and buildings, tools such as a loom, spinning wheels, heavier sewing machines...
There is no situation needing co-ownership that is exempt. If you can think of one, let's talk about it and make sure.
"'I woudn't go into profits or shares for overpayment at all.'"
That might be ok to keep things simple for the initial brainstorming of what the contract should contain, but treating profit as user investment is absolutely essential to insuring the enterprise continues to remain in the hands of the users. If we do not specify the destination of profit (profit is the same as "price above cost"), the originators will retain control even as the number of users increases to slowly become well-meaning dictators. Democracy will cease to be direct and product will no longer be approaching "at cost" for all users.
If you are thinking of writing up one of these examples, choose the Restaurant - as Vinay Gupta is calling for that example over at GlobalSwadeshi.net
Thanks for continuing with this. Hopefully we can distill some of this and start another post that is not so long (I think most people coming to read this page will not have the patience to read so much).
May-11-2008: Studying the "Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007" http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1870 http://urbanwatersheds.typepad.com/urban_watersheds_perspect/2007/12/hr-2421---the-c.html
May-11-2008: Email to Family Farm group
If it were only up to Cindy and I there would be no deliberation at all.
Building an alternate economy requires cooperation and a diversity of skills from many people.
Whether the lack of community in our current society is accidental or if has somehow been constructed, that division helps those that profit against us because it insures we remain dependent upon them.
I know most of you find my mumbo-jumbo about profit being a consumer's investment tiresome and feel it is irrelevant to our goals, but I am working on a better way of describing it so we can use it as a tool of growth to stand against those that are organizing against our very existence.
If we are careful with the treatment of price above cost when selling products to 'outsiders' we will be able to grow a community of cooperation around ourselves that will enrich our lives with even more diversity of skill those people bring, and will also become a buffer - even a thick border and defense between us and those that continue to worship the dangerous and backward goals of usury through scarcity and destruction.
May-10-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
Sepp,
I agree a contract will need to be written. I've started writing one based on the "GNU General Public License" I call the "GNU General Public Law", but it is confusing and incomplete.
About the "constancy of intent" and the idea that someone "wants the money back": 'regular' corporations don't have this problem, so maybe it won't be an issue if the each group always 'incorporates' ... but I'd rather not require incorporation, so I think you are right, the contract should probably outline how shares can be sold.
I'm not sure I agree that the collective others must 'approve' of the new partial owner, but I see your point. Maybe the rule should be that the collective others must always have some kind of "priority to purchase" - so the selling shareholder puts his portion up for bid on the "open market" (anyone in the world can attempt to buy it), but all of the collective others must be informed of the intent to sell and have the option of paying the winning amount instead? Or maybe they just need to be informed and allowed to bid?
You say the 'vesting' would need to occur in a computer for efficiency. I agree it would help, but have also envisioned (and I think this is important for visualization and our early debugging) a system based on "time limited coupons/receipts".
Here is a rough idea of what I was thinking: Let's say a group of 1000 people get together to buy a small dairy so they have control of how the animals are treated and so they can have "at cost" milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, etc.
Now, if each person guesses just right, and invests just enough, they will each receive exactly as much product as they expected they would need. In this case, there would be no selling of product at all, since each consumer would already own the results of that which they had funded. They would only need to come to the dairy (or storehouse) each day to pickup their product.
But since predictions are usually imperfect, and since people change their minds, some owners will be selling some things, while others will be buying a few things. It is during those transactions that profit must be calculated.
What I think we could do is: make sure the buyer receives a receipt that displays the real costs of the product, the price paid, and the difference as profit. This receipt/coupon is actually also a title of ownership for the very small fraction of ownership the buyer has gained as a result of their overpayment.
So, if the buyer paid $6 for a gallon of milk but it only cost $4 to produce, then the title would indicate that he now owns (or will own) $2 worth of shares in the dairy at some future date.
Something like that. Damn. There is so much to write, and I'm running out of time.
The idea is very simple on the surface but teeming with complexity underneath.
I hope anyone with questions or suggestions will post them here - or maybe we should start another entry for some of these details?
Patrick
May-10-2008: Email reply to "Mike & Terri"
> Aloha Patrick,
Ahola Mike.
> I am married to Max's Aunt Terri, my name is Mike. This mail was forwarded
> to me.
> I agree completely with this email although I am not sure of the possibility
> this idea would work in totality.
I'm glad you took the time to consider this idea. I've been working on variations of it since late 1999, and have only recently been able to communicate it clearly.
> The greedy, aggressive and strong will
> slowly take control for their own desires and ego.
Yes, I think I understand this issue, and intend to address it through contract law. I've tried to write a legal document that the joint owners of Land and Capital can choose to apply to property they intend to treat in this special manner. The fundamental issue addressed in the contract is that profit must be treated as an investment from the consumer who paid it, but there are many details that need to be covered, and some of them are not yet written out.
I call the contract "The GNU General Public Law" and can be found through my homepage at http://EcoComics.org you should also read the 'Thesis' and 'FAQ' there to better understand this approach.
I've been writing about this the last few days at: http://P2PFoundation.Ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
The member there named 'Sepp' has reservations similar to yours. I give a pretty good overview and cover things I haven't mentioned here.
> It is true and even a law that corporations are responsible only to their
> "share holders" and their "share holders" are themselves.
If you are saying the "share holders" are the owners then I agree mostly, though the destination of the product for a typical business is fundamentally different from a group of consumers choosing to jointly own some capital for their own benefit.
As a small example, think of the difference between owning shares in a "for profit" orchard and owning a single apple tree with a few other guys. In the latter case, at the end of the season you receive the actual apples as your return for your investment. Product has replaced Profit as the motivation for production.
I will write about this in my reply to Sepp and copy you by email.
Patrick
May-09-2008:
I don't understand why people receive so much pleasure from complaining about something, and so little pleasure from attempting to solve it.
Maybe endorphins are released as responsibility is disclaimed with the notion "whadya gonna do?"
Similar to religions that allow us to blame imaginary beings instead of shouldering the responsibility ourselves.
...
A conspiracy is when people "Conspire".
The etymology of "Conspire" is c.1300, from O.Fr. conspirer, from L. conspirare "to agree, unite, plot," lit. "to breathe together," from com- "together" + spirare "to breathe".
Corporations conspire against us because it increases profits. They breathe together in secret to keep us subjugated - for if the consumers can ever organize, profits will drop to zero as they should.
Profit has nothing to do with work. It is on the opposite side of the equation!
Wages are paid for work. I will expect some sort of wage in a 'communal' or 'compound' setting - even just in the form of trading labor with someone.
But we don't need profit in a 'commons'. Profit is an inverse measure of a consumer's access to the sources of that which they consume. If you own an apple tree, you might pay someone to tend and harvest from it, but you cannot pay profit - it is undefined!
Will the communal kitchen charge profit when I eat there? I assume I will need to pay costs - including wages to workers, but I won't be paying profit will I?
If we can operate a kitchen "at cost" within a family setting, then why can we not begin a restaurant that really serves the patrons instead of working against them?
If we do not answer that question, we will continue to feed the beast and always wonder why our efforts have been turned against us in the form of immoral taxes and needless national debt through puppettered politicians.
May-08-2008: Sharing property
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 7:53 PM, Joel Pierre wrote:
> Here's a number for you. 6 Billion people on this planet getting fucked by a few thousand who
> "own" the whole thing.
Yes, ownership is the key.
That key can turn two ways, but almost every owner, even of the smallest organization tends to choose the direction of scarcity and destruction - for these increase profits.
How can we turn the key toward peace and abundance when our sights are set on the filthy goal of perpetual profit (usury)?
Profit requires scarcity and therefore poverty, yet libertarians such as Ron Paul pretend or believe the Free Market solves everything, and that perpetual profit (usury) is an important incentive. They want Nestle and Bechtel to own your water, because they think it is in your best interest.
In the Trailer of the film: "H2O up for sale" at http://YouTube.com/watch?v=kWWRCZePFkc someone says "These corporations aren't accountable to the communities they serve, they're accountable to their shareholders.".
What we have somehow missed is that this can be solved by founding a corporation that privatizes water (or any physical thing) while insuring the shareholders are the very community that will consume the products of that corporation. We need to build "user owned" corporations, not "worker owned" as Marx claimed.
But for some reason we cannot organize for the purpose of cooperating. Maybe it starts in our schools when we are told so early that helping each other is cheating. Aren't we in this together?
> Cannabis is God's gift to man. Start using it!
That plant solves far too many problems is far too easy to grow for the profiteers that puppeteer the governments to allow us to have access without collecting their cut and filling the "for profit" prisons with those that partake. It is also a benefit to Big Pharma who sell the dangerous replacements in the void that it creates (scarcity==profit).
All such issues of abundance being eliminated (the list is endless, but for example, GM removing the streetcars in SanFran) cannot be addressed until we begin addressing the issue of usury by organizing in a cooperative manner.
"We the people" need to own the factories and farms. Whenever you think or say "they", replace it with "we" and see if the outcome might be different.
Patrick
May-08-2008: We must learn how to share physical property
May-08-2008: At TED.com/talks/view/id/247 "'Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics'" Donald Mitchell – April 19 2008 writes >>Collective action by a motely crew of amateurs is a romantic appealing notion -- especially when we are talking about replacing _someone else's_ job with it.
May-08-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
Sepp,
Thanks for the feedback.
It is easy to lose track of things as an organization scales in size. I'm working on a way to describe this graphically, but am not yet done with it.
For instance, you say a train network is too large, but what if we scaled the situation down to a group in need of a single bus? Or what about an even smaller group purchasing a car together?
Is it ever ok to co-own capital? At what point does the situation become a 'problem'?
If you see the trouble occuring somewhere between a car and a bus, then try to imagine something between those - such as a large van.
Is it the number of people, or is it the initial expense of the capital, or maybe it has to do with 'real' employment for those operating and maintaining the capital - as opposed to 'assumed' employment and maintenance?
"'for my part, I see a problem with large organizations such as a train network... you'd still need a very similar distribution of jobs'"
Are you saying the problem you see is a "'distribution of jobs'"?
Would you say <b>specialization</b> in general is dangerous or bad?
What would happen if a group owning a van were to pay someone to drive it? Would the driver need to be one of that group? What if none of the others had the skills to drive? This may sound weird, but is similar to groups that co-own light aircraft and hire a pilot because of the savings and control they gain.
Let's say everyone in the group could drive the van, and they took turns. Would that be ok?
What if two of the members secretly decided to trade something (say a cooked meal) in exchange for the other person taking their place at the wheel? Is trading labor a problem?
"'In reality, there would not be a great difference...'"
I see two big differences:
1. The consumers have full control, and by treating profit as an investment from the payer, that control remains in the correct hands. If the trouble John noted of a "'sardine-packed train'" were something a majority of the passengers with ownership disliked, they could easily fix it by limiting the maximum occupancy <b>without pleading to an absentee landlord</b>.
I think it is also important to let the minority secede whenever realistic. For instance, if 75% of the vote-weight (remember votes are not 1-per-person, but are determined by the percentage of ownership each person holds) was toward a reduction in maximum occupancy, and there was sufficient divisibility (say 4 separate train-cars), then the minority (the remaining 25%) should have the option of continuing to treat 1 of those cars as high-occupancy, while the other 3 are reduced by the chosen amount.
2. The users have "at cost"(*) access to the objectives of that capital since profit would tend toward zero. The <b>floor</b> price of a ticket would simply be a summation of all the costs needed to maintain the operation. Users would only pay more than cost during times of growth, and since those payments would be treated as investment from the payer, ownership would be continuously distributed as those investments 'vested' to the payer. I'm still unsure about when or what conditions should cause the vesting to occur.
(*) Consumer price would always be approaching cost, but would usually only stablize temporarily since the demands of the current consumers is always changing, and the set of current consumers is also in flux because of births, deaths, migration, etc.
May-06-2008: Can't figure out how to make the proprietary fglrx drivers work on Hardy Heron for my ATI Express 200 integrated video card. Now I'm stuck at 1280x768 which stretches everything vertically besides having slow and broken software rendering.
May-04-2008: IHT.com/articles/2008/04/16/opinion/edpfaff.php >>Speculators and soaring food prices
"'The food crisis is a real one, with rice - basic to the diet in much of Asia - rising in price by 75 percent in two months, and the rise in wheat, equally important to most Western countries, rising by 120 percent over the year. This risks famine in vulnerable countries.
Already, 100 million additional people are considered by the World Bank to have been forced into extreme poverty, and there have been food riots in Egypt, Haiti and elsewhere. Hence, the urgency in proposals for new funds to support food aid programs.
The conventional explanations for the flare in prices are population growth, diversion of corn and soybeans to biofuel production, rising Asian and Middle Eastern demand for high-value foods, higher transport costs and crop failures. Oddly little has been said about the role of speculation in the rise in commodity prices generally and specifically in food.
...
Speculative purchases have no other purpose than to make money for the speculators, who hold their contracts to drive up current prices with the intention not of selling the commodities on the real future market, but of unloading their holdings onto an artificially inflated market, at the expense of the ultimate consumer. Even the general public can now play the speculative game; most banks offer investment funds specializing in metals, oil and, more recently, food products.'"
May-04-2008: Ideas for "'Produsers Invest For Product, Not Profit'" or "'Produser Funded Production'"
Use Value is sufficient return on investment when the funding is provided by the potential users. Product is the payoff. Output is the Objective.
Work is one type of investment.
Currency could be a promise or bond toward future goods or services. Money would be a contract against future production.
icon = upturned pyramid/peace-sign (a tree)
Socialize
Innovate to Instantiate
Share
Free
Costs
Profit
Rent/tax
May-03-2008: "'Protecting The Worker's Ability to Consume'"
May-03-2008: Watching YouTube.com/watch?v=0H5g9VS0ENM >>Phun 2D physics sandbox
May-03-2008: Posted to P2PFoundation.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4357
Hello John,
I wonder if you might consider a hypothetical situation to frame your question - one that I think has a chance of solving the problem, but I need some feedback in case I've missed something in my thinking:
What would happen to the quality of experience if the very community intending to utilize the product/service/institution could somehow get together and fund it for themselves?
For instance, what would happen if all the potential passengers of a train were organized enough to invest toward building the tracks and purchasing the train, and were therefore collective legal property owners of that entire transportation system - with nobody else to answer to?
Any passengers that had paid more would have more "vote weight", and those that cared less about control had paid less, but all the initial costs had been 100% funded by potential consumers/customers.
The 'recurring' operational costs could be gathered as ticket fees similar to what occurs now with one difference: whenever a passenger (whether he is currently a partial owner or not) paid a price above cost for a ticket (such as when in a bidding war against other potential passengers), then that amount (what is generally called 'profit') would be treated as an investment from and for that very same passenger. Every little bit of profit becomes a sort of incremental funding that eventually 'vests' to the very same user that paid it.
This has an interesting effect that seems to self-balance the amount of capital the community needs: when a popular time slot is 'saturated' with simultaneous requests, the ticket price increases to push those not willing to pay the higher price into another slot and the extra payments made by those that won the bid becomes their collective investment toward *another* train since their overpayment has "proven" that the current amount of capital is insufficient to meet peak demand.
I've written much more about this, but that's the kernel of it. What do you think? Would such an approach address the issue of low quality? What troubles do you see?
Thanks,
Patrick
May-03-2008: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/video-infrastructure-communities-and-corporations-is-there-a-middle-way-between-open-and-closed-at-e-comm-2008/2008/04/30
Michel says there is a "'crisis of value'" because "use value" is being created, but cannot be "captured" by the original investors.
But this analysis misses one case where the community itself can be organized to fund that production. In that case, the only expected return for that investment is product. Keeping price above cost through scarcity (profit) is then not a requirement, and in fact only has meaning for new users that are not yet part-owners in the physical sources of that venture.
This explains the one of the reasons Free Software developers choose to do work (a form of investment) without apparent pay. These produsers are being paid. They are being paid in product. They do it for "use value" alone. This has been called "scratching their own itch" by others (I think Eric Raymond said this once for instance).
So there is no crisis, we don’t need to keep production partially closed, and scarcity can be fully eliminated if the community of users are the investors and owners of the means of that production.
Now, making a small community that owns the capital is possible, but as that community grows by allowing new non-owning users to participate, there is a possibility for this special case to be disrupted if the originating owners do not somehow distribute the new property that is purchased during that growth. If the originators choose to retain ownership of that which was purchased as a result of the need for growth as indicated by new users attempting access, then they become standard capitalists who will seek profit through scarcity.
But it is possible for such a community to scale to any size (and to split whenever there is internal strife) by treating any amount a new user pays above cost (profit) as an investment from and for the very user that paid it. By doing this, the ownership is self-balancing while both profit and the drive for scarcity approach zero.
May-02-2008: How to syncretize the various electronic communication tools. Here are some of the popular ones sorted by immediacy:
* phone:
* chat: XMPP, IRC, SILC, IBC
* mail: IMAP, ESMTP, ODMR
* wiki:
* RSS:
* bugs: issue tracking, feature requests, funding
* VC (version control):
* blog: HTML/HTTP
May-01-2008: Consumers fund for product, not profit.
Older entries: diary-apr-2008