Related: diary
May-19-2011: WorldEconomicsAssociation.org
May-19-2011: The collection of Taxes against Land Value
I understand and 'believe' in the theoretical concept of taxing the
excessive holding of finite resources such as land, water-rights,
mineral deposits, radio spectrum, etc.
But exactly how to implement such a weight against those who intend to
harm the rest of humanity is not clear to me.
Some Georgists/Geoists claim we only need to tax the landowners who
rent to others.
The piece at http://WealthAndWant.com/HG/why_the_landowner_cannot_shift.html
defends this approach, and says it could only be the landowner who
ultimately pays that tax...
But what would happen in the case where *ALL* citizens had sufficient
ownership and nobody was renting from anyone else?
May-19-2011:
Miles Fidelman wrote:
> we certainly have enough cooperatives and municipal
> utilities to point to, as well as various forms of
> joint ventures, partnerships, and so forth - all of
> which are examples of user-owned businesses.
Those organizational forms do not comply with:
2.) Treat Product as reward for those investments.
3.) Treat Profit against latecomers as Payer investment.
> it is illegal for a local government
> to go into the telecom business;
Yet another reason to incorporate in a GNU way instead
of handing it over to a poorly structured city government
that will overcharge for access and never deliver what we
really need since it will once again be 'us' against
'them' - for we, as citizens, do not have real ownership
of the cities even though we pay taxes into slush-funds
that are then doled out by well intentioned tyrants of
the majority.
> competing with an entrenched monopoly is hard and costly,
> and they can afford to operate at a loss to drive you out
of business --- it's pretty hard to generate a critical mass
> of users when the entrenched competition is giving away service
I agree this will be a problem, but I think we can address this
issue by beginning small and growing slowly.
Of course no business cannot operate at a loss indefinitely.
We will have another advantage in that we will be able to operate
at "at cost" indefinitely - since we will not be trying to
perpetuate Profit, but will instead be paying investors with the
Product itself - and so will only need to collect the Costs of
operation instead of continually trying to charge ourselves
more than it really Costs to sustain that network.
> by all rights, government should be imposing anti-trust
> restrictions as a counterbalance to these kinds of things,
So you want a government corrupted by corporations to turn
against those corporations?
How do you propose we do that?
I doubt you have enough money to purchase such legislation,
and even if you could, it would only be a brief win in a
small skirmish that would soon be washed away by all the
other corporate pressure to work against we, the Users.
May-19-2011:
Miles Fidelman wrote:
> That doesn't really help a lot when faced with entrenched monopolies, backed
> by government regulations and enforcement that help them stay entrenched.
Are you saying it is impossible to start new businesses that:
1.) Are funded and Owned by the Users.
2.) Treat Product as reward for those investments.
3.) Treat Profit against latecomers as Payer investment.
Are you saying the governments won't allow such an
organizational form?
Maybe you are right, and we should prepare for that
resistance. I wonder what machinations they will try...
May-19-2011:
> Patrick Anderson wrote:
>> Colin, why does government currently not act in our interest?
Miles Fidelman wrote:
>
> You're kidding, right?
My hope was to have Colin answer "Because corporations control governments".
Then the question becomes "Why do corporations not act in our interest?"
The answer to that is "Because shareholders (currently) require Profit as payment."
Then the question becomes "What if we could pay shareholders with Product instead?"
The answer to that is "We can only treat Product as reward if shareholders are Users, and hold exactly as much ownership as they intend to use of the Product."
Then the question becomes "How do we insure ownership is distributed to the new Users who come on board as the org grows?"
The answer to that is "We can treat the Profit those new Users pay as though it were an investment from those Payers."
May-19-2011:
Colin Hawkett wrote:
> Patrick Anderson wrote:
>> Governments cannot act in our (the Users') interest
>> because they are controlled by corporations.
>
> That is the point - our end game should be to change this.
I'm just saying, if we change the corporations (one corporation
at a time - by creating new corps that do the right thing), then
we don't need to separate the goals of gov from corp.
> I think the key is to crowd-source government
If we have crowd-owned corps, we will have crowd-controlled gov.
>> I wish that were true, but Governments are composed of humans
>> that respond to the power consolidated into the hands of the
>> owners of the Corporations.
>
> Again, this is the point - I agree with you it is not true - this is the
> problem statement. This is what needs fixing.
We can change the corporation's goal of keeping Price above Cost by
attracting Consumers to Invest for the purpose of receiving at-cost
Product. At that point, we will be free to redirect the special value
called Profit (which is defined as Price above Cost) to be treated as
though the Payer of that special value had just made an investment
and is the real owner of that growth. This auto-distributes control
into the hands of those willing to pay for growth and removes the
unnatural and dangerous drive toward scarcity and destruction that
treating Profit as reward tends to cause.
>> Capitalism is broken because we have mistaken Profit as a reward
>> instead of understanding it as a measure of the Payer's dependence
>> upon those current Owners.
>
> I'm don't think you're describing capitalism there. Surely redefining profit
> as investment changes the system to something else? Can you point me
> to any widely accepted definition of capitalism in these terms?
I'm not describing the currently operating Capitalism that is raping our
planet, I am describing why Capitalism is broken, and how it must change
if we are to continue to exist as a species.
Yes, redefining Profit as Payer Investment changes the system dynamics,
and that is a good thing because the current system is extremely wrong.
May-19-2011:
Colin Hawkett wrote:
> with a government that we trust and acts in our interests,
Colin, why does government currently not act in our interest?
May-19-2011:
Colin Hawkett wrote:
> with a government that we trust and acts in our interests,
Governments cannot act in our (the Users') interest because they are
controlled by corporations.
Corporations cannot act in our interest because they are controlled by
investors that expect Profit as reward.
Treating Profit as reward causes conflict with Users because Profit
only occurs when Users lack control.
Profit is *undefined* when Users own and control the Sources of
Production because the Product is not sold - since it is already in
the hands of those who need it!
> the people are the shareholders in government,
I wish that were true, but Governments are composed of humans that
respond to the power consolidated into the hands of the owners of the
Corporations.
> capitalism isn't actually broken
Capitalism is broken because we have mistaken Profit as a reward
instead of understanding it as a measure of the Payer's dependence
upon those current Owners.
When we finally realize what Profit really is, we will treat it as an
investment from the Consumer who paid it - causing a negative feedback
loop that will cause Profit to safely approach zero as each
User/Consumer slowly gains the ownership they need to finally stop
paying tribute to another.
May-19-2011:
Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Umm... they're called:
> ...
> - cooperatives
A conusmer cooperative is very different from what I propose in a few
ways, but maybe the most important is the way the Consumer/Owners
*buy* the Products back from the group instead of being the owners
already.
This means the cooperative actually charges Price above Cost (Profit)
against those Consumer/Owners, and then tries to get rid of that
hot-potato in a variety of ways, but most usually end up causing the
cooperative to suffer from consolidation of control into the hands of
the originators who gain ownership of all the growth caused by those
overpayments.
The User Ownership model I propose is more like what would happen in
the smallest of scenarios.
For example, imagine you and your neighbor run a network wire between
your houses. Obviously you must collectively pay the Costs of
purchasing the equipment and the Costs of the labor to install it, and
the Costs of supplying the electricity, but you would not and COULD
not pay Profit because you are not each buying the Product back from
the collective two of you -- that would be nonsense, though that is
exactly what we will face if we give control to a municipality, and
cooperative, an association, and probably nearly any other
organizational form currently in existence...
May-18-2011:
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/items/free_games
May-18-2011: CRM, BPM, CM, Social Content Management,
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3914336_2/50-Open-Source-Apps-You-Can-Use-in-the-Cloud.htm
sf.net/projects/processmaker
OSQA.net
http://Alfresco.com
sf.net/projects/dekiwiki >>MindTouch is an enterprise wiki and collaborative portal
May-18-2011: Diaspora, Twitter, and Social Networking Architecture
Colin Hawkett wrote:
> From the corporate perspective, I'm not even
> sure it is legal for them to do anything but act
> in the interests of their shareholders.
Ah, but what if the Users *were* the shareholders?
And what if the ROI for those owners was the Product itself?
And, for those who are not yet part of that organization,
what if the Profit charged against them was treated as
though they were making a late investment?
A corporation structured in this way would not have the
traditional conflict between shareholders and users because
those two groups would be one and the same!
We can start by organizing Users to pre-pay for the
Product (internet access in this case), but treat those
funds as investment and real co-ownership in that corp.
We, the Users, *already* pay all the Costs of operation
anyway, we are just paying them late, and are therefore
also required to pay Profit.
When a corporation is User Owned, and the return for
those investments is the Product itself, then those
owners do not buy the Product because they own it
already as a side-effect of their co-owing the Sources.
Those Owners must still pay all the Costs, but cannot
pay Profit, for who would they pay it to?
May-14-2011: Time Warner vs North Carolina municipal broadband
Aaron Huslage wrote:
> There is a way to build a citizen-owned fiber
> network that reaches into homes, businesses
> and community institutions, but I'm not able
> to see how to make it happen.
Most of this anti-municipal legislation disallows
a traditional *government* (usually a city) from
holding ownership of those Physical Sources.
This might be avoided by ignoring the city itself
and just organizing the citizens as Consumers
who pre-pay for those startup costs, and then
continue to pre-pay each month to cover the
real costs of operation.
These Consumer/Investors would be the real and
absolute co-owners of the Physical Sources, and
their return would be Product instead of Profit.
Any latecomers could pay a 'normal' Price (which
would probably include some Profit), but that
special value should be treated as that Payer's
investment - so the network would grow according
to the willingness of people to overpay, but would
remain decentralized in ownership and control
because Profit would be reflected back to the
Payer as a negative-feedback loop.
May-12-2011: [OpenSourceParty] Profit as Payer Investment
Devin Balkind wrote:
> How about 'participants?'
Any term is fine as long as we keep track of
who pays.
> the more 'profit' you produce, the
> more you can gift to the commons
This is a bit misleading, because profit is not
produced by the current owners, but measures
the payer's dependence upon those owners.
Profit disappears (is undefined) when all users
have sufficient ownership, for at that point, there
is no longer any reason to sell the product since
it will already be the property of those who use it.
> .... I've been working on a 'commons-backed'
> currency plan in which the more 'excess' you
> produce the more currency you can mint. Could
> this be consistent with your vision?
Probably. I have worked on a system myself, and
will try to post about that soon, though I wonder
if the admins feel such discussion is outside the
scope of this list?
>> Profit can be thought of as a measure of the Payer's
>> dependence upon the current Owners.
>>
>> Profit must be treated as that Payer's Investment
>> because that will incrementally increase that Payer's
>> Source ownership - causing Profit, on the whole, to
>> safely and naturally approach zero, as it should.
>>
>
> So the people who give more surplus
> control more of the Product?
No, the people who have surplus do not *give*
it to anyone, they *sell* it to those who do not
yet have enough.
The PAYER is the one causing the collective
to grow, and is also the one who receives
ownership of that new growth.
I'll give an example which might help clarify:
Let's say Mr. A is an established member of the
collective, and has ownership in a little bit more
Olive trees than he can use for himself.
If he sells any of that fruit or even the oil, he is
required (according to the Terms of Operation of
the collective) to treat any Price above Cost (any
Profit) as Payer investment.
Since he doesn't want to deal with trying to sell
the Olives directly, he just registers them at the
storehouse, where all users come to buy that
which they need, or to collect what is theirs
according to the amount of ownership they have.
Now, Ms. B comes along as a visitor to the area.
She has no ownership in Olive trees, she just wants
some spaghetti that happens to include olives.
She buys the meal from the collective and pays
Price above Cost (pays Profit), a total of $5.
She doesn't do this for charitable reasons, she does
this because this is how Capitalism always treats
here - the market always charges more than Cost -
for that is the purported *purpose* of production!
She is given a receipt that shows the $3 she paid
covers the Costs of delivering that meal, while the
extra $2 are to be treated as her investment - and
which will vest to her as real co-ownership at some
time in the future.
> What would happened if "Payers" just chose to sell...?
Well, that means they would not be gaining
ownership in the growth of the collective, and so
would remain at the mercy of (dependent upon) those
who *do* have ownership.
>
> Where do you live?
Utah.
> Use cases are scenarios. If I used your system
> to acquire milk from a cow, how would it work?
> What is each step?
Roughly:
A group of potential consumers pre-pay for raw milk.
Those funds are used to buy the cattle and equipment
and to pay the worker wages - though it is even more
effective if some of the users are qualified and willing
to do the work, for then we do not have to pay income
taxes.
The consumer-investors do not buy the milk back from
the collective others, but own it already - as a result
of their co-ownership in the Sources of that production.
This means we do not have to pay sales tax, because
the product is not being sold.
Later, as the collective grows in size and efficiency,
some of the members may have surplus milk they cannot
use for themselves. They can do anything with this milk
that they want *except*: if they sell the milk,they must
treat Profit as though it were an Investment from the
User who paid it.
May-12-2011: Koans
Investment is User PrePayment.
Product is Investor Return.
Profit is Payer Investment.
May-12-2011: [OpenSourceParty] Profit as Payer Investment
Devin Balkind wrote:
> I'm involved with FLO Farm, a 200 acre landscape in PA.
> We're looking for cooperative ownership models that
> respect the work of everyone who participates. Maybe
> you'll be able to help us.
> I think 'consumers' is a problematic word. "Users?"
Yes, I understand. Sometimes I call them "Payers" to
avoid the negative associations and to highlight the fact
that growth is coming from the workers overpaying on the
'input' side of their struggle.
>> 1.) The ROI is product itself
> Is this similar to a share where people who own shares
> are entitled to the production via dividend?
If by 'dividend' you mean Product, then yes.
If by 'dividend' you mean Profit, then no.
Product is the natural and original ROI.
Profit only occurs when the Product is sold, and the
Product will only be sold when there is surplus.
In that case, the Product will be sold to Users who
do not yet have the sufficient Source ownership, and
the only reason they are paying Profit is because
they have no way to pay Costs alone because they have
no control over the Production itself.
Profit can be thought of as a measure of the Payer's
dependence upon the current Owners.
Profit must be treated as that Payer's Investment
because that will incrementally increase that Payer's
Source ownership - causing Profit, on the whole, to
safely and naturally approach zero, as it should.
In "systems theory" terms this is called a negative-
feedback loop.
If you (co-)own a milk cow, you will need to pay all
the Costs of that production (including any Wages),
but you wouldn't buy milk each week since you own that
Product *already* as a side-effect of your owning the
Sources of that product.
>> 2.) There is no need to ever sell the Product unless
>> any individual decides he has a surplus. In that case,
>> the individual can offer his surplus for sale, and can
>> charge Price above Cost (Profit) against those late-
>> comers, but all Profit must be treated as though it
>> were an investment from the consumer who paid it.
>>
>
> So does profit go to the owner of the product or to the
> community as a reinvestment?
This is something that is not yet perfectly clear to me.
I think the Profit needs to be collected by the Seller
(or by the community if he is leaving it in the
storehouse to be sold for him...), and I think the Seller
or community needs to remain in control of that value
for some amount of time or until some conditions are met,
but I don't know what they are.
What I mean is: Profit must be invested in the Sources of
the Product from which it was derived (for example, if we
were to sell a hamburger to a non-owner, the Profit would
be invested in Beef cattle, Tomato plants, Wheat fields,
Chickens (for mayo), spice plants, salt mines, and all the
land and water rights needed to support that production).
But I don't think we can immediately vest that ownership
to the Payer, because I am worried most Payers will choose
to just sell those shares and thereby relinquish control
they would otherwise gain for their future benefit...
Then again, maybe disallowing immediate vestment is being
too invasive and "nanny-state". What are your thoughts?
> What would this organization do?
I want to focus on fundamental needs such as food and
shelter, but finally be a replacement for any and all
Products had through the 'regular' economy. One vision
is to start a hotel/restaurant/grocery that would look
mostly normal from the outside, but would have a strange
kind of receipt that itemized the Payer's contribution -
showing what % was used to cover the Costs of that
purchase, and also showing the estimated Profit which
would appear as a tiny share of co-ownership in the new
Sources that will be purchased and built using those
funds, and which will eventually vest to that Payer.
> Have you written out use cases?
I think maybe I have, but could you give me an example
of what you mean so I can be sure I am answering?
Thanks,
Patrick Anderson
http://SocialSufficiencyCoalition.BlogSpot.com
May-11-2011: [OpenSourceParty] Profit as Payer Investment
Devin Balkind wrote:
> what are the two terms you discovered?
First some clarification:
These terms would be voluntarily applied by a group
of co-owners, and are not a moral call to change any
thing or any person outside of that scope.
This can be thought of as a GNU GPL for the physical
realm. just as Copyleft is enforced through Copyright,
this is PropertyLeft enforced through Property Rights.
0.) Attract Consumers to pre-pay for products, and use
those funds to purchase and build the Physical Sources
required for that production.
1.) The ROI is product itself, which is not paid from
the group to individual owners, but is the property of
those individuals already, as a side-effect of their
having ownership in the Sources of that production.
2.) There is no need to ever sell the Product unless
any individual decides he has a surplus. In that case,
the individual can offer his surplus for sale, and can
charge Price above Cost (Profit) against those late-
comers, but all Profit must be treated as though it
were an investment from the consumer who paid it.
> Do you intend to start an organization?
I've been trying to understand how I would do that,
but am still too cowardly to go through with it, as I
am very much not a PR kind of person.
I have $50k saved-up which I am willing to commit
toward such an endeavor, and want to begin as soon
as possible, but need first to be able to convey this
simple but for some very reason slippery concept.
May-11-2011: [OpenSourceParty]: Wiki
Devin Balkind wrote:
> James, I think we should make it a point to use open source tools whenever
> possible.
>
> MediaWiki is the 'industry standard' for open source projects. I think we
> should use that.
I always assumed Wikia was using http://MediaWiki.org code,
but now see they have forked to http://dev.Wikia.com
Both these projects use the GNU GPL, though the GNU AGPL would be
a strategically better choice...
I wish I could find a group interested in reconsidering how we
should *host* such software, for addressing the difficulty in
sharing the costs of physical sources is a link missing toward
our finalizing a plan for complete User Freedom.
May-10-2011: Thinking about economic similarities between Co-Working and Cloud Computing
May-10-2011: Feeding America
Vicki Escarra, President & CEO of FeedingAmerica.org wrote:
> For most kids, summer vacation means going to camp, spending
> time with friends and maybe even taking a trip to a theme park.
Let's help these children learn about localized agriculture so they
can slowly wean themselves off the corporate food chain.
Being active in planting, tending, harvesting and processing their
own food will bring joy and immediate value to those who need it
most while lowering our dependence upon industrialized food.
Please consider watching http://FoodIncMovie.com (trailer at
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0 ) for part of an
explanation about what is wrong.
> But for millions of kids, summer vacation also means three months
> without the subsidized school lunches and breakfasts they need.
> Because for too many kids, these are the only stable meals they get.
We are endangering ourselves by remaining reliant upon federal
sources of corporate handouts to massive entities with the only
goal of keeping price above cost.
We must break this cycle by planting and caring for the sources
of our food at a local level.
We should be planting Walnut trees, Almond trees, Grape vines,
Blackberry canes, Blueberry bushes, and all the small plants that
give us spices and herbs such as Sage, Rosemary, Thyme.
Please consider changing the course of this organization to one
of production instead of blind consumption.
Sincerely,
Patrick Anderson
http://SocialSufficiencyCoalition.BlogSpot.com
May-05-2011: {CC-PMS} The Importance of Structure in Open Environments
Suresh Fernando wrote:
> Can all of you simply make the leap of faith that
> it might be a good idea to talk on a regular basis
> with the intention to figure out what to do?
>
> Not to worry, it is not my plan to participate...
Somehow I think this will not work.
As much as I would like to believe we need no leader, there is a psycho/social problem without a Captain.
I'm not saying Suresh is the one for this group, and I don't know how such a thing could be decided.
But for some reason we, as a species, seem to need a certain amount of Presidents, CEOs, Kings, Oligarchs as a kind of catalyst to action - and otherwise tend to remain dispersed and impotent...
May-04-2011: A Transaction-Reduced Market (was: Article : "Nuptial Economics")
> http://www.economist.com/node/18618443
> "In February the food minister estimated that close to 15% of all grains and
> vegetables in the country are wasted through "extravagant and luxurious
> social functions", such as lavish wedding banquets."
This is great for an economy that treats Profit as a reward for the current Owners because those bodies require there be a scarcity of the Product they intend to sell - for their only purpose for existence is to keep Price above Cost.
This is so obvious and understood and long-standing that governments routinely *pay* the owners of agricultural land to *NOT* grow for the sole purpose of reducing the supply of that Product. Look into the "Corn Laws" [ http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws ] for more on this.
When the Consumers own the Source of Production, they have no incentive to reduce the overall supply because, since the Product is already the property of those who need it, it will not even be sold. The final transaction is eliminated in this case!
The selling of Products can be thought of as a mis-allocation of Sources since, once a Consumer has sufficient Ownership in the Sources of Production, he will have sufficient ownership in all the potential Output of those Sources as a side-effect of his Source Ownership.
For example, if you co-own an Avocado tree, you must help cover all the Costs (including work) needed to insure that Source is cared for, and that the Product (Avocados) are harvested on time, and that they are stored and/or processed to preserve their value.
But you do not *buy* the Avocados back from the other co-owners because you own your percentage already. This also means you also cannot pay Profit, for who would you pay it to?
That solves the 'static' case where each Consumer has exactly as much ownership in Sources as he wants Product.
But I believe many such Consumers will want to own slightly more Source than they need Product to protect against seasons where output is low because of weather or whatever. This is a literal insurance.
This surplus can be sold to other Consumers who do not yet have sufficient Ownership, and we should even collect all the Profit that the market will bear during that transaction, but we must also do a very strange thing with that Price above Cost; we must treat it as an Investment from the Consumer who paid it.
Treating Profit as Payer Investment will allow these kinds of groups to scale in size and efficiency while avoiding the typical problem of overaccumulation and centralization of control that plagues nearly every other organizational form.
May-02-2011: Group Dynamics of Cost Sharing
Lucas Wimpheling wrote:
> Hosting has a cost, and someone has to pay.
> In legal terms who can represent the crowd?
Hmm... I don't understand why the crowd would need or want an external representative.
Of course a single person can always buy and own a server without needing alternate representation.
Two people can also buy and co-own a server for their own private reasons.
Three people can do the same.
I assume four people can also do such a thing.
At what point does this not work?
> I don't think any government is ready to give any
> responsability to a headless entity such as an
> autonomous crowd.
Sorry, but I don't see what you mean here either.
Why would we want some government giving us anything at all? I don't want government involvement in any way if I can avoid it.
How does your concern apply to a single owner of a server? How does it apply to groups of 2, 3, 4, etc?
> How could a crowd sign a contract ? Who signs ?
I assumed each co-owner would sign the contract as what I call an Inter-Owner Trade Agreement.
But maybe I am putting too much faith in the idea that we do not need any type of leader. Open Source (Freedom Software) projects very often have a self- proclaimed benevolent dictator that guides the group and provides some sort of psychological cohesion that I would rather not admit...
Maybe each group could just make-up their own approach in their own way - though it might be a good idea to offer some suggestions about what they might want to strive for, and what to avoid.
> and in most countries, in order to have a bank account
> and pay the bills you need a person to be responsible.
In the US, corporations have legal personhood, so maybe groups can just become tiny corporations?
> It stops working when there is a conflict between the
> crowd/community and the legal owner, who is
> responsible for paying the bills.
I want the crowd/community to *BE* the legal owner so there is no conflict to consider at that level.
> The legal owner has so far no legal responsibility
> towards its community.
Yes, that is why the community must *BE* the legal owner.
> If the legal owner was linked to its community by contract,
> the crowd would be stronger than it is today, even if the
> owner is a person and not a firm.
It is not enough for a propertyless crowd to contract with some owning entity.
The crowd must co-own the Physical Sources directly or they will forever be begging the real owners to do the right thing and will never have the opportunity to just do the work themselves when they have those skills.
We, the People, must own or be owned.
> Even if you don't want it, to collectively own anything you need to
> constitute an association, a company, a religion... but you need to take a
> legal form otherwise you will not be recognized by courts, fiscal
> administration and may get in serious legal trouble.
Ok, so we can incorporate, right?
> State and fiscal administrations are not very
> tolerant when it comes to anonymous owning
> : ownership must be linked to a person.
Fine, then each group should incorporate as a multi-stakeholder form of some sort (though we cannot use 'co-op' as a type if we are to enact some of the requirements I have discovered).
> I think the "Consumers AS the Investor" would
> be hard to implement legally as the consumers
> would be required to supply lots of IDs
Only if they want to claim their property.
They can remain anonymous if they choose to ignore the receipt that also acts as a share-title.
This would be similar to "Mutual Funds" in the small amounts of ownership spread across many types of investments.
Isaac Wilder wrote:
> Just because someone is there at the beginning
> doesn't mean that they should have any more rights
> or privileges than those that come late to the party.
Yes, this is why we must treat Profit as Payer investment, so latecomers will gain their own co-ownership along with the rest of us.
> We can, and we have. Wanna be on the board?
I have problems with the idea of a 'board' because of how the government of the city where I live does nothing the way I want.
I have some ideas about how to solve this problem, but they are incomplete and need to be argued about to find out what we should really do...
> but generally as long as you're not trying to turn a profit
We don't need to "turn a profit" in a traditional sense, but we will actually need to collect Price above Cost (for whatever the market will bear) from those overpaying latecomers - for if we don't, someone will just buy everything at-cost and then resell it for a Profit without treating it in the special manner (as Payer Investment).
Treating Profit as Payer Investment will allow each group to grow while auto-distributing the ownership to those willing to pay for that growth.
May-02-2011: Freedom Hardware -- SocialSufficiencyCoalition.BlogSpot.com/2011/05/freedom-hardware.html
I wonder why we, as users, refuse to accept the mantle of ownership.
We don't need yet another layer; we need to collapse the role of Customer and Vendor into one, cohesive unit so the Owners and Users no longer fight, but are one and the same.
This can be done in new businesses we start by choosing potential Consumers AS the Investors. This is similar to crowd-sourcing or crowd-funded, but is actually Crowd-Owned.
When the Crowd (the Users, Consumers, Customers) choose to co-own the Physical Sources of Production this delimma will disappear.
But there is one more issue: we must also protect the late-comer who does not yet have enough co-ownership and is subject to the whims of those who are already established. If we do not solve this problem, then the business will move more and more toward the typical model of centralized control.
The solution for the dynamic case is to write a Terms of Operation that we, as co-owning Users can choose to apply to our Physical Sources in the same way software developers choose to apply the GNU GPL to their Virtual Sources.
This Terms of Operation will state that all Profit gathered from late-comers will be invested on behalf of that payer and must become that payer's co-property (after some vesting period or after some conditions are met that are not yet clear to me).
By doing this - by treating Profit as Payer investment - the User-Owned collective can grow in size while avoiding the usual problem of power concentration that occurs when Profit is treated as the property of those who are already established (the current owners usually treat it as their own reward).
Gmail, Facebook, Amazon, etc. hold our data and do things we do not want them to do, but we are mostly defenseless because - even though Freedom Software exists to replace those services, there is not yet a fully realized vision of Freedom Hardware.
When I say Freedom Hardware, I am not talking about the design of hardware, but am talking about real, physical instances of material assets such as land, water, buildings, computers, wires, and all the energy needed to power any of that production.
We, the Users need to gather together to co-own the Material Means of Production (the Physical Sources) required to *host* the production for which we need the outputs.
We, the Customers can co-own the Datacenters, the Hotels, the Farms, the Factories. We already pay all the costs of those establishments anyway, and we also pay Profit because of our lack of ownership!
May-01-2011: We must reorganize our production to regain control of the planet -- SocialSufficiencyCoalition.BlogSpot.com/2011/05/we-must-reorganize-our-production-to.html
Once we realize property ownership can be used for our own good, we can stop using it against ourselves.
But this will also require us to reconsider our errant view of Profit so this new form of organization can grow without yet again consolidating power into the hands of those originators.
Profit is the difference between the Price a Consumer pays, and all the Costs the Owners paid (including Wages) for that production.
But when the Consumers truly co-own the Means of Production, their reward will be the Product itself, and there will be no need to sell any commodities except in the case where late-comers do not yet have sufficient ownership.
In that case, where surplus is sold, we should still collect Profit from those payers, but we must then treat that special value as a Negative-Feedback loop by investing it for that payer - with the real property co-ownership finally vesting to that payer as his new assets.
Doing this will cause late-comers to slowly grow the collective in exactly the manner in which they *prove* it needed to grow.
For example, if someone paid $5 for a hamburger that only cost us $2.75 (including all wages) to deliver, then we would invest $2.25 toward purchasing or raising more cattle, tomatoes, eggs (for mayonaise), herbs, salt-mines, etc. and all the land and water-rights needed to insure that production continues.
As we grow in this way we will begin to be able to ignore the corporations that we currently support, and in doing so we will regain political control at the most local level.
Eventually the City, State, Nation and World governments will be reduced to their true purpose of our meeting for our collective reasoning of how to guide the planet.
May-01-2011: Why Users need the Sources of Production -- SourceFreedom.BlogSpot.com/2011/05/why-users-need-sources-of-production.html
Many people believe if you can't program, there is no reason to have access to the Source Code because you would not be able to understand how to use it anyway.
In an economic sense, allowing Users access to the Sources is absolutely *crucial* because of how this allows them to hire anyone with those skills to work on, or fix or improve those Sources.
When Users are allowed at-cost access to the Virtual Sources of Production (such as computer source code), competition between potential workers is maximized because nobody can stop those users from hiring anyone they like to create the solutions they want.
This creates a strange situation where wages drop to nearly and often even completely to zero!
This is also true of Physical Sources (such as land, manufacturing plants, buildings, tools, etc.).
For example, when a group of passengers decide to buy and co-own a car or bus or plane or ship, they must pay all the costs, including any wages for work they don't do themselves, but when one of those passengers knows how to operate those Sources, he will likely do it for free if he wants to arrive at the same destination (if he is scratching his own itch).
But it is not just wages that fall. When Users co-own the Physical Sources of Production, again - they must pay all costs, but since they are treating the product itself as the return for that investment (the product is not even sold), they do not and even cannot pay profit, for who would they pay it to?