====THIS FILE IS ARCHIVAL. See 'Diary' for newest entries
Sep-29-2007: ContentClix.com/newscook "'Iran Oil Bourse Doesn't Aim To Compete With Dollar Based Instruments'" >>Firstly, Oil is not priced in Dollars: Dollars are priced in Oil.
Sep-29-2007: Thinking about the words and implications of {delegate, proxy, represent, vote...}
AmericasQuarterly.org >>THE POLICY JOURNAL FOR OUR HEMISPHERE
David Rockefeller: "'This new journal, I believe, will give that community [in the Americas] a strong voice.'"
George H. W. Bush: "'Americas Quarterly is coming along at a critically important time for the U.S. and our hemispheric friends.'"
Americas-Society.org and CouncilOfTheAmericas.org (AS/COA) >>Uniting opinion leaders to exchange ideas and create solutions to the challenges of the Americas today.
Wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Competitiveness_Council >>The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) is an official tri-national working group of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
Wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Americas >>The Council of the Americas is an American business organization whose stated goal is promoting free trade, democracy and open markets throughout the Americas... It was founded in 1965 by David Rockefeller and a group of like-minded business people and is the US section of the North American Business Committee, founded in 1948. Since that time, membership has grown to over two-hundred corporations, including some of the largest US blue-chip companies...
Sep-29-2007: Thinking again about the Stag Hunt and how to model the importance of cooperation in an EcoComics entry.
Sep-29-2007: Trying to read more of Linas.org/theory/freetrade.html when I notice:
[Editorial correction from Richard M. Stallman
There is a partial similarity between free software and globalization, but also a major difference.
The advocates of "free" trade, and neoliberalism in general, argue that it creates wealth. That is true--but it also concentrates wealth. The result is that only the rich benefit. The poor gain little; they may even they lose, as has happened in the US.
Free software is different, because it works against the concentration of wealth. (Copyright is a major factor for concentration.) So when free software creates more wealth, the benefits are general.
This is how free software can be beneficial, while global "free" trade is harmful.
I put the "free" in "free trade" in scare quotes because it is a misnomer. Trade is still restricted, but now it is restricted by copyrights and patents rather than specific laws. These treaties do not eliminate control over trade; rather, they transfer it from governments, which sometimes respond to the well-being of their citizens, to corporations (usually foreign), which don't recognize a concern for the public.]
I want to respond directly to RMS in an email that will try to communicate how traditional collective holdings using either private property law or representative government do not allocate physical sources in any manner whatsoever, so concentration cannot be avoided without an extra 'constraint' similar to the copyleft requirements of the GNU GPL.
Sep-28-2007: Maybe people would consider me more serious if I wrote in a more pre-defined and therefore more socially accepted format such as a popular blog spot.
Sep-28-2007: Reading up on the CDDL licensed ZFS file system: OpenSolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/zfs_last.pdf
Sep-28-2007: Posted to AGNUcius.GooglePages.com:
Hello there. My new name is Lord AGNUcius.
I am on a quest to reveal what I have uncovered about the troubles we see in our social operating system as indicated by our dangerous addiction to scarcity for the purpose of protecting prices from reaching cost, and the insane notion that employment is a need in itself instead of a burden we would want to minimize.
There is a flaw in the allocation routines of our OS that inefficiently centralize control of collective holdings instead of causing that control to be distributed according to the amount each user invests as measured by what is usually called profit. Profit is calculated as the difference between price and cost, and should be interpreted as an investment by the user that just paid it. This maximizes competition and drives price toward costs and therefore profit (consumer investment) toward zero while continuously distributing control as real ownership in physical sources.
Whether the physical sources (means of production) are being managed as a public utility under a representative government or as private property in a corporate setting, the consumers of the objects (products) of those sources do not currently gain or lose control in the dynamic manner needed to insure control flows according to the will to invest as measured by the payment of price above cost.
Because of this, initial investors and organizers of governments and corporations (even when non-profit) retain too much vote weight which becomes a sort of power over newcomers and generally over those that do not otherwise organize for themselves. Another effect is excessively coarse granularity in decision making and general loss of freedom that stymies realistic divisibility and direct democracy.
This truth could not have been invented by me or by anyone else, it is only so. While the core ideas are sublimely simple, there are many fine points in need of examination to determine how they should most efficiently play out. It will probably require a fundamental change in your world view to understand and accept, so might be revealed as a flash of insight (as it was with me) instead of as a slow, determined construction of facts.
See EcoComics.org and SourceFreedom.BlogSpot.com for more.
Sep-27-2007:
"'If I could wave a wand and say, 'What would the best thing in the world be,' yeah, I would say that it would have been better if ASP clauses had been in open source licenses forever.'" -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/30/open_source_mark_radcliffe/page2.html
Sep-26-2007: Some newer weather control legislation:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s1807:
>>S. 1807: Weather Mitigation Research and Development Policy Authorization Act of 2007 A bill to establish the Weather Mitigation Advisory and Research Board, and for other purposes.
www.License.State.TX.us/weather/weatherlaw.htm >>WEATHER MODIFICATION Texas Agriculture Code, Chapters 301 and 302 Administered by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (Effective September 1, 2003)
And some more theorizing about conspirators:
WeatherWars.BlogSpot.com
ChemTrails.ch
Sep-25-2007: Song of the day: Frontalot.com/media.php/321/MC_Frontalot_-_05_-_This_Old_Man.ogg
Sep-24-2007: Heard about "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain" movies.
Sep-24-2007: OrwellToday.com >>Comparing the world George Orwell described in "1984" with the world we are living in today
Sep-24-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/new-book-on-the-expansion-of-peer-production-in-the-physical-economy/2007/09/21
Hello Christian,
I was very excited to read your paper, as I have been working on the same or a very similar thing since the late part of 1999.
In it you say "'A new mode of production has emerged in the areas of software and content production during the last decades. This mode, which is based on sharing and cooperation, has spawned whole mature operating systems such as GNU/Linux ...'"
Which seems to imply the importance of the GNU General Public License.
Later you say "'Peer production thus fulfills the old Marxist postulate that "control over the means of production should be in the hands of the producers".'"
But the GNU GPL is very clear in it's goal to insure the virtual Means of Production (source code) should be in the hands of the CONSUMERS.
When RMS speaks of freedom it is always about the User (consumer), not developer, author, producer, worker or owner.
For instance, http://GNU.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html says "'Proprietary software is an exercise of power. Copyright law today grants software developers that power, so they and only they choose the rules to impose on everyone else—a relatively few people make the basic software decisions for everyone, typically by denying their freedom. When users lack the freedoms that define Free Software, they can't tell what the software is doing, can't check for back doors, can't monitor possible viruses and worms, can't find out what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even if they do find out). If it breaks, they can't fix it; they have to wait for the developer to exercise its power to do so. If it simply isn't quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can't help each other improve it.'"
And the recent interview "Three Minutes with Richard Stallman" at http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137098-c,freeware/article.html says "'With free software, the users are in control. Most of the time, users want interoperability, and when the software is free, they get what they want. With non-free software, the developer controls the users. The developer permits interoperability when that suits the developer; what the users want is beside the point.'"
If a "Mode of Production" is defined by who controls the "Means of Production", then the GNU Mode of Production is one in which the Consumers and NOT the Producers are at the helm.
What say ye to such a monkey wrench? I am continuing with this interesting read and plan to post more at a later time.
Thanks,
Patrick Anderson
Sep-24-2007: Posted to: Progress.org/2007/cpower.htm
Creating corporations that serve the public good will not work if they are owned by employees, as they will still be striving to maximize profit instead of production.
It is true that workers will always require a wage (calculated as a cost) for work they would otherwise be disinterested in, but the Means of Production must be in the hands of the Consumers if we are ever to have the freedom to do the right thing instead of destroying nature to keep price above cost.
When profit is treated as an investment from the Consumer that just paid it, ownership in the physical resources needed for an economy built for production will be in the hands of those that can safely maximize abundance and attempt to eliminate employment instead of relying upon the dangerous insanity of artificial scarcity and the myth of employment as a 'need'.
It is Consumption we must guarantee, not the perpetuation of work!
Self governance means each individual controls their own destiny without needing to beg those that invested early or who happen to have those skills to "do the right thing". Consumers will choose to do the right thing out of self interest when they ARE the owners. In that special case profit doesn't even have meaning except as more investment.
I'm sure you will ignore me and will instead continue to beg and wonder why we allow profit to inverts our goals.
Sep-23-2007: I was thinking to write "Profit is the Problem" as a catchphrase, but the more I thought, I realized (or maybe remembered) that profit is really just an *indication* of the problem. The problem is closer to being a lack of competition caused by our failure to have a system of dynamic property allocation that would cause profit to approach zero as consumers gained source ownership according to the amount they invest as measured by the amount they are willing to pay above cost.
It is not immediatly clear that humans would need such a continuous distribution of physical sources. Similar to how the purposes and effects of GNU General Public License are so difficult to explain, I am more and more convinced that communicating this message will only come through implementation, as I can't seem to get the words stacked in a digestible order.
On the other hand, the GNU General Public Law must most closely approach that goal of definition, so I will try to focus on that over the next while.
Sep-22-2007: Peerconomy.org/text/peer-economy.pdf "Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World" also mistakenly claims the GNU Mode of Production “thus fulfills the old Marxist postulate that "'control over the means of production should be in the hands of the producers'"” while the GNU GPL is actually designed to insure control of sources flows to the hands of all object CONSUMERS.
Sep-21-2007: Trying to rewrite ./.code/etym.el to utilize synonyms and eliminate false positives.
Sep-21-2007: Trying to write a better definition of property.
Sep-21-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/how-peer-production-transcends-capitalism-entrepreneurs-vs-capitalists-for-benefit-vs-for-profit/2007/09/20
Profit is not a societal 'need' in itself, it is a measure of ownership centralization, or in other words, of partial monopoly. As proof of this, in the special case when consumers are the owners of the physical sources of production, the payment of price above cost has no meaning except as investment in yet more sources.
Profit is calculated as the difference between the price a consumer pays and the costs the owners of physical sources paid for that round of production. Wages are a one of those costs, and are paid to workers as compensation for the skill and time applied to goals they may otherwise have no interest in.
Perfectly decentralized production (only achievable for brief periods of time because of the dynamic nature of collectives) would have ownership continuously distributed to the consumers by treating any amount they pay above cost as their own investment so that competition is perfected (though never quite perfect) at a rate that is higher at first when the consumers have little control, and tapering toward zero as each user becomes a partial collective owner.
Wages are a valid cost that will always need to be paid in some form when we are trading labor for the purpose of specialization, but profit can be minimized and nearly eliminated in an indirect fashion when object users become physical source owners according to the amount they are willing to invest as measured by what is traditionally called profit.
Sep-20-2007: "Three Minutes with Richard Stallman" http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137098-c,freeware/article.html
>>With free software, the users are in control. Most of the time, users want interoperability, and when the software is free, they get what they want. With non-free software, the developer controls the users. The developer permits interoperability when that suits the developer; what the users want is beside the point.
Sep-19-2007: Attempting to respond to an email
Patrick Godeau writes:
>> I've come to think that the economy of copyleft should not be managed only by producers, but also by consumers.
Dmytri Kleiner writes:
> all that which to employ the common stock must be free to do so, that is the very essence of a commons.
> it's production that must have it's costs accounted for, else there is no common stock
Patrick Anderson writes:
Are you saying workers must receive more than wage? If so, it will require the workers refuse the consumers from accessing the physical sources, otherwise the consumers can hire someone else that WILL work for wage only.
> Consumers must have rights to access the common stock, however consumption is not itself a contribution to production.
Consumption is not a contribution, but it is (should be) the only reason for production.
>> However the most important thing is not who owns, but who decides, and the license already states that decisions about the work belong to all who contribute to this work.
If by 'own' you are speaking of information as though it were rivalrous property, then you will be outperformed by those that understand this to not be the case (those utilizing copyleft for example).
>> Also, the material work is not the creative work, and I don't see why for example the printing press operator should have a say in the story of the book, except if s-he is admitted in the creative project. But I agree that this operator should have a say in the economic project.
In the material sphere it is owners and ONLY owner who control. Many people find this objectionable, but there is no reason to change that relationship if we simply insure ownership 'flows' to the consumers by treating any profit they pay as their own investment in more physical sources; then we can leave it up to private property law and the whims of those collective owners to decide how to treat those physical sources as all costs will be internalized.
> The story of the book would be free for the press operator or anyone else to employ, modify, etc, in peer production in any way they want, and unfree for anyone to employ in capitalist production based on private property and wage labour.
>
> "decide" only makes since in the economic context, where the distribution of captured value must be distributed.
>> My view is that exchange value should not be captured at all, by no one, not even by work contributors.
Then where will the difference between price and cost go? Maybe you are saying that price will be held at cost so profit is zero?
Holding price at cost may seem like a good idea on the surface, but as Dmytri mentions below, profit is an inverse measure of competition, so it would be better to allow the consumer to pay it as his own investment so the collective ownership can grow at a rate that will slow as those consumers become physical source owners themselves.
Competition can be perfected (though rarely perfect) by treating the amount a consumer pays above cost as that consumer's investment in more physical sources. When an object consumer is also the source owner, profit happens to be 'undefined' since the payment of such would only be to pay himself.
>> I think that the market, which values competition and profit, is by nature opposed to copyleft, which values cooperation and giving.
> This is also confused, competition and profit are opposites, where you have perfect competition there is no profit, price is cost, and where you have perfect profit you have no competition (monopoly) and price is marginal utility.
Yes, but perfect competition would require the consumers (users) have control, not the workers. That control can be delivered as real controlling shares of collective private ownership in those productive physical sources (or toward the purchase of similar sources when there are no shares of the current factory or farm "up for sale").
>> I think that a big problem with the economy in general is that consumers have no control on it. Multinational companies rule the roost and reign over customers. For example, Stallman was motivated to create the GNU project because a printer manufacturer refused to give the source code of a driver. 25 years later, free drivers may exist for some printers, but the situation has not really improved, free software developers are often obliged to reverse-engineer printer protocols, and customers are forced to buy printers that break down just after the guarantee and can't be repaired, ink cartridges more expensive than the printer, etc.
> As I said, consumers and producers are not two separate classes, producers are property owners are.
RMS and Eben Moglen speak of "User Freedom" - worrying only about the consumer, never about the worker, developer, producer or owner.
For instance: "Three Minutes with Richard Stallman" http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137098-c,freeware/article.html
"'With free software, the users are in control. Most of the time, users want interoperability, and when the software is free, they get what they want. With non-free software, the developer controls the users. The developer permits interoperability when that suits the developer; what the users want is beside the point.'"
>> Suppose for example that the patent system is abolished and all pharmaceutical companies are under workers' control. What would happen? Since we're in a market economy, these compagnies will probably continue to invest in the most profitable medicine at the expense of billions of people having unprofitable diseases, will continue to spend twice more on advertising than on research, etc.
> Right, which is why my focus on on material property relations and not intellectual property in isolation.
So which is it? Shall the drug factory be owned by workers seeking profit or by consumers seeking product?
Consumers as owners would cause price to approach cost and all labor could be safely automated out of existence as it should.
Workers as owners would continue to use artificial scarcity in ways similar to what we already see, and profit would continue to take precedence over product.
Sep-19-2007: Trying to create CommunityWiki.org/en/UserOwner
The owners of physical sources are also the owners of the objects of those sources.
Some objects and are easily separated from their sources. For instance: an apple from the tree supplying that product.
Other objects are only meaningful as the direct use of their sources. For instance: a car ride from the car supplying that objective.
A special case occurs when an object user owns the physical sources of that object.
Sep-17-2007: Posted as a MySpace.com/patware Bulletin and Blog
Subject: Vassals protect royalty to earn daily bread
We cannot approach from the top, as the feudalists pay our fellow hlaf cetas (bread eaters) to enforce the division.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CheY0jYXJjY
I had some very strong emotions against the knights in this video for suppressing knowledge and valid discourse, but we must remember the pigs are largely innocent because of their ignorance.
We must organize economically from the bottom because the rulers expect the opposite while holding the reigns of enforcement through property ownership.
The game is revving up. If we don't get serious about understanding how the chips are gained we will be begging to enter the FEMA camps for the chance to work for food - probably as cops hired to stop those who were able to begin decentralized production.
PRODUCTION IS RESISTANCE!
Sep-15-2007: Reading that the "Stag Hunt" GameTheory.net/Dictionary/Games/StagHunt.html is a better representation of source freedom than the "Prisoner's Dilemma".
Sep-14-2007:
We wouldn’t need external oversight, 3rd party ‘certification’ or a “Bill of Rights” beyond what the owners decide IF the users were always to become owners according to how much they invest as measured by what is usually titled profit because the consumers would simply be in control and treat the forest, marine environment, or social network correctly because of selfish desire to maximize their own production while preserving those sources that they own.
Profit (not wage) drives businesses to artificially increase scarcity because artificial scarcity further increases profit. Profit should more correctly be interpreted as a consumer’s plea for growth and understood to be an investment by the consumer that just paid it. In this way, the terribly backward incentive is eliminated and control flows to the hands of those who are requesting it.
SamRose replied:
>I also think that one of the driving forces that would accelerate the creation a tipping point for the EquityBasedLicense to take off, would be (ironically) for an organization structured like a traditional corporation to adopt this type of model, and popularize it through commercial success.
>
>This is exactly what I’m proposing what I am developing out of http://p2pventure.org
>
>To start a business as something like an LLC, but transition out ownership as the business grows.
>
>What I am thinking is, not only give the users/consumers control, but also invite a community to help shape the business model and business plan itself, and to invest in the start-up of the business.
>
>This requires good group knowledge pooling, communication and decision making systems, and good systems to help overcome social and informational pressures. And it requires fundamental ways for building trust and shared meaning.
>
>One of the first experiments we’ll try this on will be ExtinctionLevelEvent movie project.
>
>There are some other folks I am also in discussion with now, who are interested in following these processes, too. A sort of Community-negotiated building of business.
>
>One of the things that I think is worth thinking about is, once there are many “shares” floating around among users, how does one systematically stop the greedy from trying to hoard shares and gain power and control, and thus basically revert back to non-user ownership? Maybe EquityBasedLicense? concepts already address this somehow, adn I don’t realize it? This is kind of like “ShareAlike”, in the way that it guarantees the conditions that are part of the core values the License is attempting to address.
Sep-14-2007: Watching blip.tv/file/306082 >>How The Towers Fell - Richard Gage, AIA from AE911TRUTH.ORG
Sep-14-2007: Thinking through what a central bank such as the Federal Reserve does makes my head hurt.
It is clear to most anyone that understands this problem that a nation should issue it's own currency, but what about at the state, city, community or even individual level?
What is currency, and does personal issuance have any validity? My guess is that money serves 2 purposes:
1. Represent value (as a title of ownership) for physical sources.
2. Trade labor so workers can specialize according to skill.
I think (1) is needed only while physical source ownership is not yet distributed to object users. While this need could probably never be fully eliminated because of the dynamic nature of collectives, it can minimized through private legislation such as the GNU General Public Law.
Conversely, the need for currency to trade labor (2) would likely increase as source freedom perfects competition.
Sep-11-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/the-call-for-open-social-networks-is-getting-louder-and-louder/2007/09/07
Thanks for the feedback Simon. I've been trying to simplify, but am always lured into trying to paint too much of the picture.
Ok, to reorient ourselves I will respond to a quote from the original article:
"'firms face an inherent conflict between value creation and value capture.'"
My central concern is that we have accepted this conflict as a tautology of human interaction with no alternative.
But there is a special case in social systems that occurs when the Consumers of a good or service are the very Owners of the capital necessary for that production.
That case, which is traditionally called a Wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_cooperative removes that conflict to leave the participants to resolve other issues.
My vision of this is not "one member/one vote" as described on the Wikipedia page, but is instead to have votes weighted by ownership percentages. This is safe because of the way that ownership would be dynamically reallocated across time to remain in the hands of those using those goods or services, which is why I talk about "profit as user investment".
Sep-10-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/the-call-for-open-social-networks-is-getting-louder-and-louder/2007/09/07
Users (consumers) pay both Costs AND Profit at each transaction. This is a choice they make, and there is no force, but the system is far less effective for the community as a whole than it could be.
This appears to me to be the same pattern described by the Nash Equilibrium or the Prisoner’s Dilemma - where an individual may choose a payoff that is not the best for the group, but is better than the worst for himself; maybe out of fear or because there wasn’t a prior arrangement that could have ensured the other party would also be bound to choose the best alternative.
The GNU General Public License is just such an agreement that utilizes Copyright to enforce the Pareto Optimal (I hope I’m using this term correctly) choice in a non-coercive manner. Owners of physical property could choose to apply an analogous treaty as a contract or private law to some joint holdings they intend to make ‘public’ in this GNU way.
> It sounds as if you are saying that the capital resource earned by industry should be distributed among those that produce the goods, and not accrued by those that initiate and develop the industry.
No, sorry, that is not what I am saying. It is not those that produce that must become the owners of physical sources, it is the those that consume that must become the owners of physical sources.
When users (consumers) pay a PRICE for some good or service, they are paying for the COSTS of production that the capital Owners incurred for that round of production, and those users usually also pay an amount above COSTS which is (in a simplified manner) generally calculated as PROFIT.
PROFIT is therefore the difference between Consumer_Price and Owner_Costs, and is a rough measure of incomplete monopoly. In other words, profit is an inverse measure of competition, and is ‘balanced’ or even eliminated when it becomes an investment for the User that just paid it.
I will quote myself to fix a typo and to begin an example as Michel suggested to try to prove that it is the Consumers and NOT the Workers that must be the Owners of physical sources for us to approach a perfected economy:
"Owning expensive capital with a group of other users is valuable even when none of you can operate it because you can always hire that work done - and would treat those wages as a cost of operation, but could never pay profit unless you were to pay it to yourselves."
Let’s say a worker comes to your door asking to aerate your lawn. Aerators are generally too expensive to own for just one lawn, but you need the job done, so you agree to pay the PRICE of $30.
The PRICE includes the COSTS of:
Investment: If the Owner has not yet recovered the price he paid for the machine.
Maintenance: Wear, Oil, Fuel
Wages: Whatever the worker and owner negotiate.
The PRICE also includes PROFIT for the Owner that instantly increases the moment the capital has been “paid off”.
Now, if you and a bunch of your neighbors got together to buy your OWN aerator, you would still have all the same COSTS as mentioned above which could be covered by each of you renting the machine from the collective others, but PROFIT would have no meaning, as PRICE and COSTS would be identical. Furthermore, when the machine was finally “paid off”, the rental PRICE would fall even further, as that COST would be eliminated.
> Tell me, does Open-Source eliminate the kinds of income based on ‘real’ scarcity? (as opposed to the artificial scarcity you mentioned above?)
The ‘real’ scarcity that will probably never be fully eliminated, even when all Sources are finally Free, is the FUTURE work that continues to be needed.
For instance, users of Free Software would pay workers to fix bugs or add features if we could only get them connected in such a manner - a sort of “promise to pay” pot that other users wanting the same changes could add to so developer would have incentive to work on stuff they may otherwise have no interest in.
Similarly, the group user/owners of the aerator would also need someone to operate and repair the machine if they couldn’t or didn’t want to do those jobs themselves.
Thank you both for your help.
Your peer,
Patrick Anderson
Sep-09-2007: Watching YouTube.com/watch?v=HqO9ispfP8Q "'P1 Currency and Banking Problems'" which is 7 minutes of Muppet(R) stills with a voiceover explaining the money system in terms of personal, uncashed checks.
Sep-09-2007: Created SourceFreedom.BlogSpot.com
Sep-07-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/the-call-for-open-social-networks-is-getting-louder-and-louder/2007/09/07
Simon, while it may seem unimportant to make the Sources of Production available to users that have no skill in that field, the reason it is important is that it eliminates the kinds of income based on artificial scarcity.
The unskilled user may always hire a skilled worker and pay those wages as a cost, but the traditional concept of profit through unnecessary restriction no longer applies.
The same is true for the physical world. Owning expensive capital with a group of other users is valuable even when none of you can operate it because you can always hire that work done - and would treat those wages as a cost of operation, but could never pay profit unless you were to pay it yourselves. This causes price to approach costs which is far less than the expense we currently pay (especially when we consider the lack of freedom those corporations impose upon us as an unneeded expense).
This applies to any industry. How much does it really COST (not the PRICE charged) to add another customer to a cell-phone network? What would be the result if the Users (consumers) of that network were the Owners of those physical sources in direct proportion to the amount they are willing to pay above costs?
But, since groups are not static, this 'requirement' would also need to be applied to every new user. Owners could choose to syndicate such an arrangement through a legally binding contract that they would impose upon themselves and upon all new users.
Does this make even a photon of sense, or should I just be quiet?
Sep-07-2007: Watched Video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=-7477852615698435519 Eben Moglen talk about the ecology of SaaS "'Thoughts on the World's Largest Possible Computer & What It Runs On'"
Sep-07-2007: Reading Radar.OREILLY.com/archives/2007/08/my_tonguelashin.html and trying to watch CacheFly.OREILLY.com/radar/oscon2007/OSCON_2007_Eben_Moglen.ogg
Sep-07-2007: Posted to Blog.P2PFoundation.net/we-need-a-revolution-that-does-not-demand-we-need-a-revolution-that-creates/2007/07/23
Your term "Continuous Revolution" combined with "Complete Distribution" gives us "Continuous Distribution" which I think captures the real viral quality of the GNU GPL.
Continuous Distribution is something a community needs if it is to "build upon the sand" because groups are dynamic in at least two ways: Users (consumers) come and go (even if just through birth and death), and each user's choices also changes over time.
This is in alignment with what I've been trying to formulate as "Perfected (not perfect) Competition" that occurs when the Sources of Production (whether virtual or material) are somehow made available to the user that just bought or received the Objects (whether virtual or material) of those Sources.
Perfected Competition through Continuous Distribution is now mostly 'solved' for the virtual realm by owners who apply the GNU GPL to the Objects they invested in (that investment being mostly labor - when they develop software for instance), but now we need an analogous solution for the material world.
The GNU GPL is a Free (as in Freedom) Trade Agreement. It is not an End User License Agreement (EULA), because it has no restrictions on "Use"; it only comes into effect when the Object (say a software executable) is traded (or shared/conveyed/propagated). At that time the current instance owner is required to make the Virtual Sources of that Object available to that user.
Similarly, investors in some material Means of Production (what I call Physical Sources) could choose to apply a contract to those things (such as land, water, tools, plants, animals, etc.) so that whenever the products (Objects) of those things are traded (most likely sold), that the new user would somehow gain access to the Physical Sources needed for more of that kind of production.
It is clear that Physical Sources cannot be just handed over in the same way that Virtual Sources (such as computer source code) are because they are rivalrous. So the contract mentioned above must do something that somehow increases real property holdings for the user that just bought that Object.
After much study, it appears to me that 'profit' (the difference between consumer price and owner costs) could be treated as an investment for that same user. In this way, as bread is purchased, the plea for growth (which is one thing profit measures) would be used by those owners to buy more Physical Sources (land, seed, tools, etc.) needed to make more bread, and that those investments would become the REAL PROPERTY of that very same user (though I don't think it should be instantaneous, and don't know when the handoff should occur) so that Competition is Perfected as Physical Sources are Continuously Distributed.
This plan hinges on some initial investors willing to forgo profit, but those investments can be smaller if the number of investors is higher. Users are already willing to invest (that is what profit should always be understood to be) while expecting only product, so we really only need get this 'booted' for it to grow exponentially.
Please let me know what you see as sticking points, or how it seems implausible.
Let's perpetuate freedom by insuring user ownership.
Your Peer,
Patrick Anderson
Sep-06-2007: Home.GNA.org/clive won't download http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531 "'FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution'"
Sep-05-2007: Pondering on how to prove user ownership is maximally efficient.
Sep-05-2007: WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com gave me a good laugh. I moved to a GNU OS to avoid the title, yet am again named thief.
Sep-05-2007: Trying to complete my reading of "'Consumers' Co-Operative Societies'" by Charles Gide at Fax.libs.UGA.edu/HD3271xG453/1f
Sep-04-2007: MySpace.com/grnxnm posts to MySpace.com/patware
> Y'know, I agree with that previous comment. A while back you sent me an email with a list of questions and thought-provoking statements. You asked for me to consider then and respond. The first sentence of the email was so loaded that I was considering how I would even respond to it (much of the response to that single statment was going to be a bunch of questions because I wasn't really sure what you were trying to say) and ended up not responding at all because I just didn't have the time.
Sep-04-2007: Changed the name of GPLv4 to GNU Generative Property Legislation, but then decided it was just too clumsy, so am back to GNU General Public Law.
Sep-03-2007: Email to NB:
Just found MoneyAsDebt.net (Full film at http://Video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 ) described as "'Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created.'"
I wonder if we could write a simple computer program/game to show how this works, but am having trouble envisioning what it would look like.
Any ideas?
Sep-02-2007: ./.code/etym.el is just not cutting it anymore. I must make this interactive so others can help.
I've nearly given up on ever communicating the message of "profit as user investment" through words. There seems to be some sort of impenetrable psychological wall to these concepts. Stallman's GNU GPL didn't win through persuasion as much as it did by his personal investments that attracted users - some of whom also became investors (mostly of labor).
It seem most humans have little or no interest in economics because they do not already know the solution. Trying to talk the subject through incites a mixture of anger and boredom that has them demanding "'What do you expect me to do about it?'" before we can even laydown a groundwork to base our logic on. It is as though they are claiming such a discussion is a waste of their valuable time because they are already convinced it is destined to lead nowhere. What a strange approach this is. In what other field of study do people expect the answer to be given before the quest has taken place?
On the other hand are many eager to explore the subject yet so set with preconceived notions that a careful step-by-step analysis is also out of the question unless we start with what they believe to be absolute truths (such as the idea that workers should be the owners of the means of production).
Sep-01-2007: Watching MoneyAsDebt.net >>Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. (Full film at Video.Google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279)
This video was fun and informative, but the 9:1 ratio and $1,111.12 initial deposit was more complicated than necessary which caused me to get lost even though I already understand the process from "'Money; A Mirror Image Of The Economy'" by Dr. J.W. Smith at IED.info/books/money
Sep-01-2007: Listening to "'Richard Stallman on GPLv3 in Brussels, Belgium; 1st of April 2007'" FSFEurope.org/projects/gplv3/brussels-rms-transcript.en.html with audio at Ciaran.compsoc.com/TEMPORARY-URL-rms-gplv3-20070401.vorbis.ogg
>>So we can't prevent a patent holder from killing the program, but we can hope to save the program from a fate worse than death, which is, to be made non-free - to be turned into an instrument of subjugation. Better that our software should cease to exist (at least for 20 years, (the duration of a patent)) than that it become an instrument for subjugation.
Older entries: diary-aug-2007