The End of Work or the Renaissance of Slavery?
Edward Miller
http://www.korotonomedya.net/otonomi/caffentzis.html
I don't know if I agree or not. I do know that our social structures
are at minimum delaying the onset of the End of Work.
As we all know, our hyper-consumerist culture encourages us to get the
latest and greatest stuff. We follow a sequence of fads specialized to
our exact niche market (hipster, redneck, emo, rock, punk, goth,
anime, whatever). We indulge in enormous quantities of unsustainable,
non-renewable, and disposable products. Even more discouragingly, many
companies use engineered obsolescence to artificially increase output
at the expense of the environment.
There are lots of good documentaries on this such as Douglas
Rushkoff's The Persuaders. There is also a cutesy video on this
subject called the <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.com">Story of
Stuff</a> which I think effectively spreads this meme.
Now, what I am wondering is if this stuff can delay the End of Work
indefinitely. This seemed to be implied by the thesis of that article.
The main point was a defense of the labor theory of value. He argues
that capitalists will do anything they can prop up profit margins, and
since technological advancement decreases the amount of surplus value
they can extract, they will find ways to get around that.
This passage is key:
Marx's most developed discussion of this story is to be found in Part
III, Capital III: "The Law of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of
Profit." There he recognizes that a tendency towards the total
replacement of humans by an "automatic system of machinery" must
continually be met by "counteracting causes" or else the average rate
of profit will actually fall. These counteracting causes either
increase the mass of surplus value (e.g., raising the intensity and
duration of the working day), or decrease the mass of variable capital
(e.g, depress wages below their value, expand foreign trade), or
decrease the mass of constant capital (e.g., increasing the
productivity of labor in the capital goods industry, expand foreign
trade) or some combination or these disjunctive possibilities (Marx
1909: 272-282). Contemporary US capitalism appears to be applying the
maximal synthesis of these counteracting causes while the European
capitals are being more selective. There is no inevitable capitalist
strategy in the drive to overcome workers' struggles and prevent a
dramatic decline in the rate of profit.
I emailed the author about this and here is what he wrote:
"This is where both Rifkin and Negri got it wrong. Both saw the coming
of the end of waged labor in the mid-1990s at the very moment, when
with the "opening" of China to the world market, the structural
adjustment of India, the de-socialization of the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, more than billion of new workers entered into the wage
labor market! We are still dealing with the consequence of this "big
bang" of labor power."
Now all this seems to fit in very well with World Systems Theory which
argues that the Core of the world-system attains its dominant status
by monopolizing the commanding heights of industry to artificially
increase profit margins via state coercion. Patents on biotech would
be a perfect example. Whereas the Periphery of the world-system is
relegated to the unmonopolized, non-capital-intensive industries such
as textiles.
Now, I personally am very confused by all this. Probably because I am
not as marxist as this guy. Here is my train of thought:
Technological advancement increases productivity -> Profit margins
increase -> Less workers employed -> Less people buying stuff -> Lower
quantity demanded -> Lower profits -> Lower prices -> standard of
living cheaper to maintain -> lower wages necessary -> people willing
to work for less -> outsource -> lower prices -> even lower cost of
living -> even lower wages -> hyperconsumerism, marketing (BUY STUFF!)
-> increased demand -> longer working hours -> more women working ->
engineered obsolescence, single serving crap -> increased output
So this flattening world stuff mixed with hyperconsumerism seems to
have kept the American standard of living high despite drastic
decreases in real wages because that standard of living became so
cheap. This also kept unemployment low despite rapid technological
advancements. The question is if we can keep decreasing the cost of
the standard of living faster than real wage decreases, and if we can
keep consuming more than efficiency increases.
Granted, a lot of this lifestyle was built on easy credit,
unsustainable lending practices, and so forth, and now unemployment
has been creeping upward
One thing to watch out for is that this new push for greater
sustainability and ecological awareness might actually create
unemployment once these temporary stimulus jobs disappear.
Also eventually we will run out of new markets to exploit, but the
Core-Periphery hierarchy might tell us a different story and argue
that Peripheries are created by this monopolization process. Remember,
the Periphery isn't contiguous and could be a block away from the
innermost Core or somewhere out in Africa.
Sorry for my muddled thoughts. I am still hashing all this out... that
is why I posted it here for discussion.
In summary, if we create a more sustainable financial climate, and
more frugal and ecologically aware culture, and as we run out of new
markets, I think it is more likely than not that we will experience
massive unemployment. Even if we don't clean up our financial mess, we
will still likely see the unemployment and perhaps an eventual
"jobless recovery." At that point, another overtime law, like the one
passed by FDR, could become feasible, if not the Basic Income.
That is all just a guess... I wouldn't even know how to go about
making an econometric model to prove any of that, or if that is even
necessary.
Thoughts?
Patrick Anderson
> Now, I personally am very confused by all this.
I used to be very confused about economics until I went back and
reconsidered our base assumption about the supposed 'need' to
perpetuate profit.
Since profit *requires* scarcity, there is no possible way we can have
both profit AND abundance. They are mutually exclusive.
It may seem that any owner must keep price above cost for it to be
'worth' the investment, but there is actually one case where the
investor can be paid in *product* instead - leaving us to find a new
purpose and destination for that surplus value.
Furthermore, this special Mode of Production I allude to also solves
the supposed 'need' to perpetuate work.
Edward, are you willing to reconsider the treatment of profit for new
businesses we create, or would you say there is no room for movement
there?
Sincerely,
Patrick
Edward Miller
production for now is to shrink the space in which capitalism operates
to the smallest possible level to prevent the accumulation of capital
which facilitates global rent-seeking which creates unfair balances of
trade in the favor of elite special interests. There was talk about
consumer unionism in a previous post, and that is a good way to fight
this that is under-utilized, but post-scarcity modes of production
really hit at the core of the problem. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20080107/
Perhaps eventually the idea of profit will then be voluntarily
discarded, but even with a less optimistic assumption that sees things
like land and certain scarce commodities still remaining market-based,
it can still look pretty good.
Capital-intensive industries are another place where it will be hard,
but not impossible, for open source to break through. Microprocessors,
nanotechnology, space technology, nuclear energy, etc. All these
things require huge investment. There have been some efforts at open
source designs for microchips, but that is hardly the profit-free
world you are talking about.
What you are talking about is Marxism. You are talking about
collective ownership of capital and profit-less Modes of Production,
which is straight out of Marx. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_of_production
Now, Marx knew what he was talking about, and it is vital to become
familiar with it since it is at the core of the discussion, but I
think his assumptions about human nature are flawed. Perhaps you might
want to check out the first few pages of this book to see what I mean.
http://books.google.com/books?id=M8x6u0wfgYAC&dq=darwinian+left&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
Now, perhaps when the space in which capitalism operates is very
small, collective ownership will be feasible and/or not matter very
much. In the short run, I don't see it happening, but I do think there
is a place for the state to encourage open source production. Some
examples include prizes (to incentivize production of alternative
energy, automation, cultured meat, decentralized solutions) and tax
breaks (to compensate for positive externalities). Other examples
include stronger overtime laws to shorten the work week and a Basic
Income to replace needs-based welfare and social security. There are a
few other proposals that make sense, even from a very classical
definition of property rights, such as the Intellectual Property Tax
and the Georgist Land Value Tax.
I wrote as much here: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20081123/
On Feb 12, 9:29 am, Patrick Anderson <agnuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
Patrick Anderson
> The point of post-scarcity modes of
> production for now is to shrink the space in which capitalism operates
> to the smallest possible level to prevent the accumulation of capital
> which facilitates global rent-seeking which creates unfair balances of
> trade in the favor of elite special interests.
Maybe that is your point. Maybe that is the point of most people
here. But it is not mine.
We can avoid "global rent-seeking which creates unfair balances of trade
in the favor of elite special interests." even while accumulating
capital *IF* we choose to create new businesses that treat Profit as
an investment from the Consumer who paid it - instead of treating it
as a reward for the current owners.
Ownership is not the problem.
The problem is the mistreatment of Profit.
> There was talk about
> consumer unionism in a previous post, and that is a good way to fight
> this that is under-utilized, but post-scarcity modes of production
> really hit at the core of the problem. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20080107/
Are you saying "Consumer Ownership" of the Means of Production is not
a Mode of Production?
If so, why?
> Perhaps eventually the idea of profit will then be voluntarily
> discarded,
Capitalist owners will always do the wrong thing with Profit (treating
it as a reward for themselves) unless we write a Terms of Operation
for a new business that will treat that "price above cost"
differently.
Much like the GNU GPL, we need a contract to apply to Material Means
of Production.
But just as the GNU GPL requires an 'owner' who uses Copyright as a
legal foothold, we must purchase to become owners who can then use
Property Rights to begin.
> but even with a less optimistic assumption that sees things
> like land and certain scarce commodities still remaining market-based,
> it can still look pretty good.
We can and should use a 'market' - in that we want trade - even while
we treate Profit in a GNU way.
This can also apply to land if we collectively purchase enough to hold
as a semi-sovereign City that can then readdress the property-tax
issue along the lines of Henry George's single-tax.
> Capital-intensive industries are another place where it will be hard,
> but not impossible, for open source to break through. Microprocessors,
> nanotechnology, space technology, nuclear energy, etc. All these
> things require huge investment. There have been some efforts at open
> source designs for microchips, but that is hardly the profit-free
> world you are talking about.
We cannot hope or wish or picket or anything of any consequence unless
we choose to purchase and OWN some Physical Sources of production
under a contract as I have described.
No current Capitalist corporation will choose to do this on their own.
We must become the Free Hardware movement that addresses the
difficulties of co-ownership of the Material Means of Production, and
not just the designs for such things.
> What you are talking about is Marxism.
I thought Marx wanted the Workers to be the Owners, not the Consumers.
Are you saying there is no difference?
> You are talking about
> collective ownership of capital and profit-less Modes of Production,
Actually, I don't say Consumer Ownership is "profit-less" because,
since it will always be in transition (for instance when a new
Consumer wants a product in which he does not yet have enough
ownership in the Physical Sources of Production to cause that product
to be "at cost").
Profit is a measure of scarcity, and can also be thought of as a plea
from the Consumer for his own property that can then be used to secure
his needs.
We should charge non-owning Consumers any profit "the market will
bear", but then must treat that overpayment as their investment toward
*more* Material Means of Production. That way, each consumer
incrementally gains ownership and control of the Physical Sources
needed to sustain them.
> Now, perhaps when the space in which capitalism operates is very
> small, collective ownership will be feasible
How strange that you (and most anyone I talk to) seem to think Capital
cannot be co-owned when the Capitalists are already doing that!
Ownership is certainly achievable; isn't every Corporation on Earth
already Owned? Why are we so scared of property ownership that we
think it cannot be approached?
Consumers already pay ALL costs of production - including paying of
any initial investments, all upkeep, all wages, all input materials,
all energy, EVERYTHING!
Consumers also pay the price above cost called Profit, but that
surplus value is kept by current owners - swelling their pockets and
control. It's obvious to me that is the cause of Capital
overaccumulation and centralized control.
> In the short run, I don't see it happening, but I do think there
> is a place for the state to encourage open source production.
Oh brother, there is no way the governments can help us, for they
already work for the Corporatists who strive for scarcity.
> examples include prizes (to incentivize production of alternative
> energy, automation, cultured meat,
Nasty! Why not organize Consumers to collectively own a group of beef
cattle or a chicken farm, etc. instead of turning to fantasy?
> decentralized solutions) and tax
> breaks (to compensate for positive externalities). Other examples
> include stronger overtime laws to shorten the work week and a Basic
> Income to replace needs-based welfare and social security.
As though we were not already heading toward global fascism fast
enough, you hope to make us even more reliant upon the Mother
Government...
Own or be Owned!
Patrick
Edward Miller
> in the favor of elite special interests." even while accumulating
> capital *IF* we choose to create new businesses that treat Profit as
> an investment from the Consumer who paid it - instead of treating it
> as a reward for the current owners.
>
> Ownership is not the problem.
>
> The problem is the mistreatment of Profit.
in limited liability entities... risk is diffuse, and the maximization
of output becomes the main goal, regardless of externalities.
> Are you saying "Consumer Ownership" of the Means of Production is not
> a Mode of Production?
>
> If so, why?
mode of production. I'm not even sure how it work. Would the early
consumers get huge amounts of ownership, whereas later consumers get
diminishing amounts? You can't sell more than 100% of ownership. Stock
is scarce. Early on in the formation of the company, buying one
products could be akin to buying thousands of products down the road.
> Capitalist owners will always do the wrong thing with Profit (treating
> it as a reward for themselves) unless we write a Terms of Operation
> for a new business that will treat that "price above cost"
> differently.
>
> Much like the GNU GPL, we need a contract to apply to Material Means
> of Production.
>
> But just as the GNU GPL requires an 'owner' who uses Copyright as a
> legal foothold, we must purchase to become owners who can then use
> Property Rights to begin.
entrepreneur is not going to make any profit? I could see people
starting creative non-market endeavors if they have the foundation of
a Basic Income, but we are never going to see the types of
organizations you envision as long as people are slaves to wages...
you gotta eat somehow. Thus, people will be too busy seeking profit
than developing the technologies which can help free us from the need
for it. That is where activism and, yes, the State, can play a role.
> We can and should use a 'market' - in that we want trade - even while
> we treate Profit in a GNU way.
>
> This can also apply to land if we collectively purchase enough to hold
> as a semi-sovereign City that can then readdress the property-tax
> issue along the lines of Henry George's single-tax.
is this collective ownership any different from State power? Is this
collective entity consensus based? What about the people outside the
community... are they taken into consideration, or can we unload our
externalities on them?
> I thought Marx wanted the Workers to be the Owners, not the Consumers.
>
> Are you saying there is no difference?
> How strange that you (and most anyone I talk to) seem to think Capital
> cannot be co-owned when the Capitalists are already doing that!
make up a small portion of society. Collective ownership implied
everyone is an equal owner.
> Oh brother, there is no way the governments can help us, for they
> already work for the Corporatists who strive for scarcity.
think the capitalist interests are always necessarily at odds with
this stuff. FDR implemented the 40 hour work week because of massive
pressure from the labor movement, but capitalists also often recognize
the value of Keynesian approaches. That is why the New Deal and the
current stimulus have been championed by many hardcore capitalists.
> Nasty! Why not organize Consumers to collectively own a group of beef
> cattle or a chicken farm, etc. instead of turning to fantasy?
there are a million reasons that cultured meat makes more sense. It's
more decentralized, it's more ethical, it will be healthier, and it
wont destroy the environment. The meat industry is the most
ecologically destructive industry on the planet, in terms of
greenhouse gases, destruction of the rainforest... you name it. It
releases more greenhouse gases than the entire worldwide automotive
industry which people are so concerned about.
http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/01/29/80-percent-of-amazon-deforestation-stems-from-cattle-ranching-2/
http://embraceunity.com/?p=43
> As though we were not already heading toward global fascism fast
> enough, you hope to make us even more reliant upon the Mother
> Government...
issues. Your collective ownership idea I could easily see pegged as
fascist by staunch individualists. I do think global cooperation is
necessary, and we should work with the institutions we got to reform
them. We should participate in the UN, and work to make it as good as
possible. There are already centralized structures in existence that
have power over our lives. They are the transnational corporations who
are not accountable to anyone, and pick and choose which country's
laws they will follow until it is impossible to reign them in. Perhaps
democratic oversight on the transnational scale is just what we need.
Yet, it should be of the kind that diminishes the space in which
centralization is necessary, since radical proposals to abolish
private property and form collective ownership are doomed to failure
(whether it is labor-based, consumer-based, or any other supposed
vanguard group)
Patrick Anderson
>
>> We can avoid "global rent-seeking which creates unfair balances of trade
>> in the favor of elite special interests." even while accumulating
>> capital *IF* we choose to create new businesses that treat Profit as
>> an investment from the Consumer who paid it - instead of treating it
>> as a reward for the current owners.
>>
>> Ownership is not the problem.
>>
>> The problem is the mistreatment of Profit.
>
> That sounds great, but there is a fundamental problem with ownership
> in limited liability entities... risk is diffuse, and the maximization
> of output becomes the main goal, regardless of externalities.
Externalities can be a big problem, I agree. I think this can be
solved by keeping any such industries we own at a 'local' level
instead of moving all dangerous operations somewhere else.
But those who are currently suffering our pollution, etc. won't be
able to resist our advances unless they organize similarly.
We each finally need ownership for our own protection. Ownership the
beginning of a military stance. Production is the basis of true
defense, but production requires property.
I agree that "maximization of output becomes the main goal" for those
who seek to keep price above cost (to perpetuate profit), but when a
special business does not allow price to be treated as a reward for
the current owners, there is no longer an incentive to overproduce,
nor an incentive to force-feed any potential Consumer.
Some people make "non-profit" corporations, so why are you so sure we
can't make a corporation that treats profit in yet another manner?
>
>> Are you saying "Consumer Ownership" of the Means of Production is not
>> a Mode of Production?
>>
>> If so, why?
>
> It is a particular mode of production, but it isn't a post-scarcity
> mode of production.
What must a MoP contain or do in order to qualify as 'post-scarcity'
in your mind?
> I'm not even sure how it work. Would the early
> consumers get huge amounts of ownership, whereas later consumers get
> diminishing amounts?
Early owners/consumers would likely own more than they need to meet
their needs/wants of consumption, while late-comers would have no
ownership whatsoever.
Imagine you buy an apple from such a special-profit corporation.
Let's say you pay $1 for the apple, yet it only took $.75 to grow,
handle, harvest, store, deliver, etc. that product.
At that point, you would receive a sort of 'receipt' that represents
$.25 investment in more land, water rights, living apple saplings,
tools, wages, etc. that are required to grow yet more apples.
Once you gain enough ownership in this manner, you would no longer be
buying apples, but instead would only be paying to cover the real
costs of production.
You would no longer purchase apples at the end of the year, for you
would have a storehouse full of apples that you ALREADY OWN. You
would need to pay costs, it is true, but you would never pay profit,
for who would you pay it to? You would not buy apples, you would
simply claim what is already yours from the storehouse you co-own with
other investing consumers.
This special corporation grows when a Consumer pays more than cost for
some product. This is the same as current corporations that "plow
back in" profits to grow the business.
The big difference is in WHO owns the growth. Instead of that
ownership being added to the current owners, it is instead treated as
an investment from the Consumer who paid it - so that he slowly,
incrementally gains ownership of *NEW* Material Means of Production
purchased in his name.
New consumers wouldn't be taking-over any ownership that is already
claimed, unless some of the current owners are interested in
selling-off some of what they don't want or need.
> You can't sell more than 100% of ownership. Stock is scarce.
Yes, that is right. The idea is to invest the surplus value into
*MORE* Physical Sources of Production - just as Capitalist owners
already do. The difference is that the consumer who paid the profit
becomes the one holding the title to that newly purchased land, water
rights, bags of seed, tools, etc.
We must grow, but must do so in a continuously decentralized manner.
>> Capitalist owners will always do the wrong thing with Profit (treating
>> it as a reward for themselves) unless we write a Terms of Operation
>> for a new business that will treat that "price above cost"
>> differently.
>>
>> Much like the GNU GPL, we need a contract to apply to Material Means
>> of Production.
>>
>> But just as the GNU GPL requires an 'owner' who uses Copyright as a
>> legal foothold, we must purchase to become owners who can then use
>> Property Rights to begin.
>
> Where is the incentive to produce in the first place if the original
> entrepreneur is not going to make any profit?
The original, and only truly valid purpose of production is PRODUCT, not Profit.
Don't you want co-ownership in a small farm so you can get "at cost"
food that is under your full dominion - even if you choose to hire
others to do that work while you haul garbage or mop floors or design
a different washing machine, or program a computer, or fix someone's
teeth, etc.?
If you are stranded on an island, do you invest time and effort for
product (such as coconuts), or do you work so you can keep price above
cost?
Even if you have a companion on that island, do you think that person
should pay you more than wage to harvest fruit?
If he owns half the trees, then you can only receive wage.
But if you own all the trees, then you can take advantage of his
dependence upon you, and charge any amount you like. This domination
is what profit is about.
> I could see people
> starting creative non-market endeavors if they have the foundation of
> a Basic Income, but we are never going to see the types of
> organizations you envision as long as people are slaves to wages...
> you gotta eat somehow.
Are you saying all people have exactly $0 to invest?
It is true there is crippling poverty in our world, but many people
could afford to pay $100 toward a cooperatively owned cell-phone
network where we could then receive "at cost" service because there
would be no external owners siphoning off Profit.
We could send text messages, pictures, audio, etc. exactly "at cost"
instead of being penalized by those owners that want to subjugate us.
> Thus, people will be too busy seeking profit
> than developing the technologies which can help free us from the need
> for it.
Why is everyone so enamored with technology? We don't need more
whiz-bang engineering solutions nearly as much as we need a GNU way of
organizing and cooperating.
>> We can and should use a 'market' - in that we want trade - even while
>> we treate Profit in a GNU way.
>>
>> This can also apply to land if we collectively purchase enough to hold
>> as a semi-sovereign City that can then readdress the property-tax
>> issue along the lines of Henry George's single-tax.
>
> How is collective ownership of land different from communism? And how
> is this collective ownership any different from State power? Is this
> collective entity consensus based? What about the people outside the
> community... are they taken into consideration, or can we unload our
> externalities on them?
These are very important questions that will take quite a bit of time
and effort to explain.
By 'communism' do you mean "state-run communism"? If so, this is
different in that the control of each parcel is held by private
individuals instead of by some faceless state.
I need to talk here about the rights to secede, and the
binding/fasctening effect that improvement-punishing taxes cause - and
especially in the way taxes are collected beforehand into a big
slush-bucket that are then doled out by a well-intentioned committee
that can never do better than Majority Rule.
We need to be able to pay only for those things we want, and to be
able to completely avoid funding any initiative that some damned
committee "sees fit" to go forward with.
This can be accomplished by simply getting out of the way, and
allowing people to afford to own land and capital which they can then
fight over how they will share.
There is more to be said here, but I am losing concentration...
>> I thought Marx wanted the Workers to be the Owners, not the Consumers.
>>
>> Are you saying there is no difference?
>
> Yes.
You are saying a small group of farm Workers Owning an enormous farm
capable of feeding thousands of Consumers is EXACTLY the same as those
thousands of Consumers Owning that farm?
One thing that is different is that the Consumers are at the mercy of
those Worker-Owners, and cannot stop them from poisoning their food in
various (well intentioned) ways.
Another thing that is different is that the Consumers must pay Profit
to the Worker-Owners, yet if the Consumers were the Owners, Price and
Cost would be the same (except for late-coming Consumers who must then
pay Profit until they gain sufficient ownership to protect themselves
from it).
>> How strange that you (and most anyone I talk to) seem to think Capital
>> cannot be co-owned when the Capitalists are already doing that!
>
> When I said collectively owned, I meant everyone. Capitalists only
> make up a small portion of society. Collective ownership implied
> everyone is an equal owner.
Solving this problem through ownership is something that is not instantaneous.
At first, there will only be a very few people willing to invest in
this way, so the number of owners in the GNU system will be very
small. This is how Richard Stallman started too.
But, if the system is more efficient than Capitalism, then it will
grow because we will be able to under-cut them.
The reason we can keep price lower than a for-profit corporation is
because we don't *rely* upon keeping price above cost.
Consumer-Owners invest for Product, and so Profit is not important to
them - it is simply a sign that there are late-coming consumers that
are willing to pay more than cost because of their current lack of
ownership.
Late-coming Consumers will cause it to grow through their overpayments
of Profit which will be invested, but those investments will be THEIR
property.
>> Oh brother, there is no way the governments can help us, for they
>> already work for the Corporatists who strive for scarcity.
>
> They work for whoever is pushing the hardest, and furthermore, I don't
> think the capitalist interests are always necessarily at odds with
> this stuff.
Capitalism is at odds with abundance because Profit requires Scarcity
and Abundance destroys Profit.
> radical proposals to abolish
> private property and form collective ownership are doomed to failure
> (whether it is labor-based, consumer-based, or any other supposed
> vanguard group)
If you are saying I propose to abolish private property, then I must
tell you that is not my goal - nor do I have enough Federal Reserve
Notes to purchase such legislation even if it were my goal.
We need privacy, and I see normal single-owner property as an obvious
solution to that.
But we also need to learn how to co-own some property. The only
difference I propose there is to write a contract that some initial
investors can apply to some Physical Sources of Production such as
land, water rights, living organisms, tools, etc. so they can have "at
cost" access to the Outputs of those Sources, and also so they might
have full dominion over their own life without resorting to the almost
useless practice of begging current owners to do what we want.
Sincerely,
Patrick
Edward Miller
> solved by keeping any such industries we own at a 'local' level
> instead of moving all dangerous operations somewhere else.
>
> But those who are currently suffering our pollution, etc. won't be
> able to resist our advances unless they organize similarly.
pollution. For instance, risk in general is offloaded onto other
people. There is a saying that corporations like privatizing profits
and socializing losses. That is what the Bush Bailouts were about.
This same stuff happens all the time, and the collective action
problem is what allows it to occur.
People also have this related tendency to stifle free movement and
exchange because it is fun to tax others. On the small scale, we like
writing speeding tickets for out-of-state people. On a larger scale
you get protectionism and other such things. There are a million ways
to push costs onto others, but that is by no means my main critique of
your idea.
> Some people make "non-profit" corporations, so why are you so sure we
> can't make a corporation that treats profit in yet another manner?
just forming, there were many utopian dreamers who thought they could
make ideal communities with collective ownership. What you ended up
with was endless discussion, bureaucracy, bickering, etc. Also,
psychologists reported that members felt like they were all part of a
giant family and you could never escape from them, and the idea of
dating someone in the community seemed incestuous.
Naturally, the majority of these communities eroded away over the
years, especially after the first generation of committed people died
off. Now, a majority of them are either defunct or have turned into
corporations which run resorts or even produce microchips. Is it just
an accident that these communities died off? Or is it because it was
inherently less robust and resilient than capitalism?
> We must grow, but must do so in a continuously decentralized manner.
resilient than capitalism, and relying on people to simply understand
that we need to build decentralized structures shows an ignorance of
human nature on par with that of Marx, as I linked you. What we need
is to develop technologies which inherently favor decentralized
production. That is why GNU was a success, because the technology of
the Internet facilitated such decentralization. We can do the same in
other industries if resources are shifted to, say, decentralized
energy production, and food production, using things like prizes, tax
breaks, Intellectual Property Taxes, etc.
> >> Are you saying "Consumer Ownership" of the Means of Production is not
> >> a Mode of Production?
>
> >> If so, why?
>
> > It is a particular mode of production, but it isn't a post-scarcity
> > mode of production.
>
> What must a MoP contain or do in order to qualify as 'post-scarcity'
> in your mind?
people will get lots of stock in a corporation and others won't. This
whole scheme still inherently favors the people who already have a lot
of cash to consume with. Also, what is to stop someone from saying, "I
own most (or all) of the stock... you now all have to pay me profit if
you want the goods."
> > Where is the incentive to produce in the first place if the original
> > entrepreneur is not going to make any profit?
>
> The original, and only truly valid purpose of production is PRODUCT, not Profit.
relativistically. People want more than the next guy. That is what
encourages big risk taking and has driven much of the innovation we
have seen throughout history thus far. To get the big investments,
people need bigger incentives. The only way to get around that is if
it becomes so incredibly cheap to innovate without profit, as we have
seen on the Internet.
> Why is everyone so enamored with technology? We don't need more
> whiz-bang engineering solutions nearly as much as we need a GNU way of
> organizing and cooperating.
innovation I was talking about without technology and social policies
which inherently foster it with their incentive structures.
> I need to talk here about the rights to secede, and the
> binding/fasctening effect that improvement-punishing taxes cause - and
> especially in the way taxes are collected beforehand into a big
> slush-bucket that are then doled out by a well-intentioned committee
> that can never do better than Majority Rule.
decentralize security to some extent with sousveillance, but we will
need centralized authorities for the forseeable future.
> We need to be able to pay only for those things we want, and to be
> able to completely avoid funding any initiative that some damned
> committee "sees fit" to go forward with.
exactly what would happen in the shareholder meetings of the society
you envision... and of course, who cares about the stakeholders.
> Late-coming Consumers will cause it to grow through their overpayments
> of Profit which will be invested, but those investments will be THEIR
> property.
advantages against those with less property. Your system will revert
to corporatism in the blink of an eye, especially without democratic
oversight you seem to shrug off.
> If you are saying I propose to abolish private property, then I must
> tell you that is not my goal - nor do I have enough Federal Reserve
> Notes to purchase such legislation even if it were my goal.
meaning and it is distinct from personal property. The idea of private
property is that you can own capital via voluntary exchange, even if
you aren't personally near it or using it. Capital is profit-producing
resources.
Your idea, on the other hand, is that only the users can own it, and
no profits are supposed to be sought. That is called.... communism.
Many communists and anarchists speak highly of personal property. Of
course some may say that the people can democratically decide to
redistribute it... but honestly that would happen in your shareholder
meetings too. You are talking about communism. Why can't you see that?
If you are talking about communism, don't hide it and speak about it
openly and defend it as such. If not, perhaps reconsider your position.
Patrick Anderson
> You may have heard of the Kibbutz Movement in Israel.
> Is it just
> an accident that these communities died off? Or is it because it was
> inherently less robust and resilient than capitalism?
Oh, I didn't realize they were treating profit as an investment from
the consumer who paid it!
Thanks for letting me know, I didn't think such a treatment of profit
had yet been attempted.
> That is why GNU was a success, because the technology of
> the Internet facilitated such decentralization.
So the requirements that copyright holders enforce through the GNU GPL
had nothing to do with it?
I had this notion that the GNU GPL requirement that every Object User
gain "at cost" access to the Sources had an impact, but maybe you are
saying it would have worked even with Public Domain and BSD type
licenses?
> Patrick Anderson wrote:
>> What must a MoP contain or do in order to qualify as 'post-scarcity'
>> in your mind?
>
> One in which scarcity doesn't exist, like with your idea that some
> people will get lots of stock in a corporation and others won't. This
> whole scheme still inherently favors the people who already have a lot
> of cash to consume with.
Oh, now I see, your plan is to eliminate scarcity instantaneously,
while my incremental plan starts very small and slow at first -
intending to grow within the current situation.
> Also, what is to stop someone from saying, "I
> own most (or all) of the stock... you now all have to pay me profit if
> you want the goods."
The "contract" or "Terms of Operation" (which I need to finish
writing) will prohibit such behaviour - especially since the ownership
will be necessarily diffuse because of the way treating profit as
user-investment splinters property over a number of consuming owners.
The number depends upon the size of the operation - which will vary
depending upon what each group feels is most appropriate or efficient
for them.
On the other hand, if the majority of owners of any specific factory
or farm ever want to remove the contract, it may be for the best that
they are allowed to do so, though I agree this may be an area of
'attack' that we may need to guard against through the wording of the
contract.
>> > Where is the incentive to produce in the first place if the original
>> > entrepreneur is not going to make any profit?
>>
>> The original, and only truly valid purpose of production is PRODUCT, not Profit.
>
> The survival incentive is not enough.
I am becoming convinced that I am the only person that would ever
understand this well enough to begin. I blame my poor communication
skills for that.
But once I have enough money to start a small restaurant, the only
incentive people will need is the lower prices I will be able to
offer.
Receiving tiny titles of ownership on each receipt (whatever amount
they paid above cost) will also be a benefit, though few will
understand the importance of that at first.
> People measure their success
> relativistically. People want more than the next guy.
I guess I'm not a people.
> That is what
> encourages big risk taking and has driven much of the innovation we
> have seen throughout history thus far.
Maybe we can use cooperative risk taking instead.
Maybe we can convince big groups of consumers to pre-pay toward some
"at cost" good or service that they would then both OWN and CONTROL
because they would be the literal property owners of those Material
Means of Production. Wahooo!!
>> Why is everyone so enamored with technology? We don't need more
>> whiz-bang engineering solutions nearly as much as we need a GNU way of
>> organizing and cooperating.
>
> Because we are never going to see that profit-less, decentralized
> innovation I was talking about without technology and social policies
> which inherently foster it with their incentive structures.
Social policies? What are those?
>> I need to talk here about the rights to secede, and the
>> binding/fasctening effect that improvement-punishing taxes cause - and
>> especially in the way taxes are collected beforehand into a big
>> slush-bucket that are then doled out by a well-intentioned committee
>> that can never do better than Majority Rule.
>
> You can't get around the idea of collective taxation.
But we can do it differently. There are many ways to share physical
resources that have not yet been tried.
> You can
> decentralize security to some extent with sousveillance, but we will
> need centralized authorities for the forseeable future.
Blech.
>> We need to be able to pay only for those things we want, and to be
>> able to completely avoid funding any initiative that some damned
>> committee "sees fit" to go forward with.
>
> That is exactly what happened in the Kibbutz movement, and that is
> exactly what would happen in the shareholder meetings of the society
> you envision... and of course, who cares about the stakeholders.
What is a stakeholder as compared to a property owner?
I'm talking about property ownership, not meaningless 'membership'.
>> Late-coming Consumers will cause it to grow through their overpayments
>> of Profit which will be invested, but those investments will be THEIR
>> property.
>
> The people with more property rent-seek in order to gain unfair
> advantages against those with less property. Your system will revert
> to corporatism in the blink of an eye, especially without democratic
> oversight you seem to shrug off.
Are you saying a corporation cannot define how profits will be used?
If so, then how do you explain the existence of non-profit corporations?
>> If you are saying I propose to abolish private property, then I must
>> tell you that is not my goal - nor do I have enough Federal Reserve
>> Notes to purchase such legislation even if it were my goal.
>
> In classical political economy, private property has a very specific
> meaning and it is distinct from personal property. The idea of private
> property is that you can own capital via voluntary exchange, even if
> you aren't personally near it or using it. Capital is profit-producing
> resources.
Ok, then I'm talking about 'Personal' property for privacy, and
'co-owned' property for things people choose to share.
We can use regular property ownership as the basis of each, but
co-ownership needs a further constraint that profit be
user-investment.
> Your idea, on the other hand, is that only the users can own it,
Well, not all users (consumers) would own instantaneously, but that is
the goal, yes - for we are all consumers.
> and no profits are supposed to be sought.
Actually, I want non-owning consumers to pay a bit of profit, but
since I will treat that payment as their investment, it's as though
I'm coercing them into investing in their own future, and because of
their ownership, my ability to charge profit will slowly fade - as it
should.
> That is called.... communism.
Oh, I thought a faceless 'State' owned everything in Communism.
> Many communists and anarchists speak highly of personal property. Of
> course some may say that the people can democratically decide to
> redistribute it... but honestly that would happen in your shareholder
> meetings too.
I don't understand what you are saying here.
> You are talking about communism. Why can't you see that?
> If you are talking about communism, don't hide it and speak about it
> openly and defend it as such. If not, perhaps reconsider your position.
Well, if by 'Communism' you each person has the opportunity to co-own
individual enterprises with other people of their own choosing -
without regard to any external entity except in cases of border
disputes and negative externalities, and probably a few more things I
don't yet understand, then yes, I am a Commonist.
Love,
Patrick
Edward Miller
A stakeholder includes all the people with a stake in how an
organization is run. It is real obvious when we are building airports
or landfills that other peoples' needs besides those of the
shareholders should be considered, and that is generally accepted.
Yet, there are numerous other cases where the stakeholders have no
real say because of the collective action problem. Take the patenting
of the human genome as well as the genomes of other species, for
instance.
The social policies I was referring to were the ones I already
mentioned which should incentivize post-scarcity models. I don't like
repeating myself.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20081123/
It is true that licensing strategies such as copyrights or the GPL can
be effectively upheld, but only because it is backed by a state
authority. Your whole system requires such state authority to be in
place, and for such a state authority to deem such contracts
legitimate. This requires a centralized body that commands a monopoly
on force and uses this to extract tax revenue towards the enforcement
of the laws that uphold contracts, etc etc... aka a State. That means
large pooling of taxes towards common purposes. That means at minimum
messy democracy, bureaucracy, and special interest wrangling... all
the things you despise. Of course it is a heck of a lot better than
certain other alternative structures.
Political power in the Modern world comes from legitimacy. People who
are perceived as the legitimate owners or leaders can change the rules
as they see fit, because other people respect their authority and thus
they command the strength to enact their will upon others. In your
system, especially without state enforcement, it could very very
easily become corrupted since it relies so heavily on everyone else
buying into this same value system rather than simply following
incentive structures. Think of all the republics over the years that
have been morphed into dictatorships. How can you possibly prevent
that without state power if some people decide that they want to make
profit and other people respect them as the rightful chairman/majority
shareholder/whatever?
Furthermore, you have provided no evidence that this can undercut
capitalist modes of production. Capitalism employs all sorts of
efficiency maximizing strategies such as economies of scale and
comparative advantage. Your system by no means provides that
incentive... it merely provides a "production for survival" incentive.
There is absolutely no incentive for your system to devise something
like, say, Wal-Mart... and thus Wal-Mart will always have lower
prices... always.
...unless.... you can change the rules of the game via disruptive
technologies which pave the way for new modes of production.
Can we kindly return to the topic of the original post in this thread,
please?
Peace
Patrick Anderson
>
> Patrick,
>
> A stakeholder includes all the people with a stake in how an
> organization is run. It is real obvious when we are building airports
> or landfills that other peoples' needs besides those of the
> shareholders should be considered, and that is generally accepted.
But that is doing it wrong.
If we were organizing correctly, then all stakeholders would BE
shareholders in the exact ratio in which they have a stake.
> Yet, there are numerous other cases where the stakeholders have no
> real say because of the collective action problem. Take the patenting
> of the human genome as well as the genomes of other species, for
> instance.
Are you saying I should respect the patenting of my DNA?
Bah! We must organize to become strong enough that we can resist the
enforcement of such tyranny. We need to OWN enough land to become
productive enough that we can finally begin producing tanks and
missiles to stop anyone trying to stop our freedom and sovereignty.
>
> The social policies I was referring to were the ones I already
> mentioned which should incentivize post-scarcity models. I don't like
> repeating myself.
> http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20081123/
I already read your pleas.
What makes you think the government officials will listen to you when
they are already employed by corporations that seek scarcity.
You do not have enough Federal Reserve Notes to purchase any
legislation, that is why I don't take that route.
>
> It is true that licensing strategies such as copyrights or the GPL can
> be effectively upheld, but only because it is backed by a state
> authority. Your whole system requires such state authority to be in
> place, and for such a state authority to deem such contracts
> legitimate. This requires a centralized body that commands a monopoly
> on force and uses this to extract tax revenue towards the enforcement
> of the laws that uphold contracts, etc etc... aka a State. That means
> large pooling of taxes towards common purposes. That means at minimum
> messy democracy, bureaucracy, and special interest wrangling... all
> the things you despise.
Why are you allowed to use a "state authority" DIRECTLY in your plans,
and yet you say I'm not allowed?
Is it because you think I would be a hypocrite? I don't give a damn
if you think I'm a hypocrite. I'll play both sides for as long as it
takes. RMS doesn't like Copyright, but he is smart enough to utilize
it AGAINST those scarcity seekers that created it.
I will do the same with Property Rights with a sort of Property Left contract.
>
> Political power in the Modern world comes from legitimacy. People who
> are perceived as the legitimate owners or leaders can change the rules
> as they see fit, because other people respect their authority and thus
> they command the strength to enact their will upon others.
> In your system, especially without state enforcement,
I will have state enforcement because I will be using regular property law!
> it could very very
> easily become corrupted since it relies so heavily on everyone else
> buying into this same value system rather than simply following
> incentive structures.
The incentives will be lower prices, local production and full dominion.
> Think of all the republics over the years that
> have been morphed into dictatorships.
> How can you possibly prevent that without state power
I won't. I will utilize state power to enforce property rights.
> if some people decide that they want to make
> profit and other people respect them as the rightful chairman/majority
> shareholder/whatever?
This is solved by insuring any subgroup can secede at any time - so
when some overlord tries to pin us down, we will just let him take his
portion and go away.
>
> Furthermore, you have provided no evidence that this can undercut
> capitalist modes of production.
Capitalism requires owners keep price above cost.
A Consumer-Owned corporation has no such requirement, so we can offer
product "at cost" for as long as we like - though that would cause
growth to stop during that period.
> Capitalism employs all sorts of
> efficiency maximizing strategies such as economies of scale and
> comparative advantage.
Why can my system not scale? I've already told you how it will.
I don't mind repeating myself.
> Your system by no means provides that
> incentive... it merely provides a "production for survival" incentive.
> There is absolutely no incentive for your system to devise something
> like, say, Wal-Mart... and thus Wal-Mart will always have lower
> prices... always.
But War-Mart charges a price above cost. This value leak is called
'profit', and pads the pockets of the Walton family.
>
> ...unless.... you can change the rules of the game via disruptive
> technologies which pave the way for new modes of production.
So we need more robots?
>
> Can we kindly return to the topic of the original post in this thread,
> please?
Ok, in the original post you say:
> In summary, if we create a more sustainable financial climate, and
> more frugal and ecologically aware culture, and as we run out of new
> markets, I think it is more likely than not that we will experience
> massive unemployment.
But employment itself is not a *need*. Work is a cost to be reduced
on our road to leisure.
This confusion arises because we don't recognize the consumers must be
the owners of the Means of Production. In that case, work can safely
be minimized.
If just you and I were on an island and were able to automate all of
our work away, would we be in trouble because we then had too much
leisure?
>
> Peace
Peace requires Abundance, yet Abundance destroys Profit.
So which will it be, Peace or Profit?
Joseph Jackson
great interest since I came across it a year ago or so. You 2 seem to
be talking past each other at points. Ed, this is no more communism
than Free Software is communism. Patrick is trying to translate a
model that has worked with bits--a private ordering solution--and
apply it to the ownership of physical sources. It is one of the most
ambitious and impressive concepts I have come across.
I believe that his framing of treating profit as investment from the
consumer is a radically new perspective that has not ever been put
forth before in economic history--Marx did not anticipate this.
Ed, you seem to be getting hung up a bit too much on definitions
from classical political economy which we are trying to transcend
"capital is profit-producing resources." This is tautological given
the axioms of that theory. Profit is not a goal in itself but should
be a signal for others to enter the marketplace because there is a
mismatch between demand and what is being supplied.
On the issue of getting from here to there via contract--a good debate
took place in 2001 http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-08-17-016-20-OP-CY
O'Reilly vs Stallman, then Raymond chimed in--this is the link.
Basically, we are all stuck relying on contract law which ultimately
is enforced by a coercive government. The above debate centers around
Stallman saying proprietary licenses should be illegal/unenforceable
and then Raymond says this makes us less free because developers
should be able to release under these contracts. Read the comments
for where he goes wrong.
As long as contracts are enforced neutrally, there is no reason a
property-left scheme could not work, and, if viable, start to out-
compete existing ways of organizing. Ongoing access to the benefits
of a user innovation community are the ultimate carrot, and social
norms the ultimate stick, when it comes to open source.
The contract/GPL is essential today, but in the absence of copyright--
companies would be unable to go after customers--and F/OSS would
thrive without needing a govt to "force freedom" by backing up the
viral clause in the courts. The benefits of releasing source code
would be enough.
Likewise, if Patrick's model is so superior at satisfying consumer
desires it could eventually be self-perpetuating as government
withered away.
Roberto Verzola
paper or piece that fully develops this idea? Has it been tried
successfully somewhere? (How different is it from turning firms into
consumer coops?) Someone here says he doesn't know how it works. I don't
either.
> disputes and negative externalities, and probably a few more things I
> don't yet understand, then yes, I am a Commonist.
>
> Patrick
I love this one, Patrick. Really. It puts in the center the commons as
legitimate form of ownership. Legitimate enough that people can actually
now identify themselves as its supporters. The first step to a meme is to
give it a name. I'm a commonist myself. Your consumer ownership idea sounds
to me like a way of building a commons.
By the way, I am Roberto Verzola from the Philippines. I wrote a piece
Undermining Abundance
(http://rverzola.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/verzola-on-abundance1.pdf)
which seems to have earned me an invitation to join this list.
Greetings to all,
Roberto
Patrick Anderson
>
> Hi Patrick, Your idea of consumer ownership is interesting. Do you have a
> paper or piece that fully develops this idea?
I've written alot about this, but have trouble getting it laid-out in
a completed manner.
That is part of the reason I bug people (sorry Edward) so much --- I'm
trying to find out why this isn't already understood and utilized so I
can further hone my communication.
I know it isn't actually obvious, but then again, in some ways it so
simple I'm astounded it isn't. On the other hand, there are also
probably many intricate details about dispute resolution that will
require years of consideration (many versions of the contract) to
insure 'correctness'.
I really view it as a form of scheduling/allocation just as the kernel
of a computer Operating System must share physical sources among many
processes - except this kernel is enforced as an inter-owner agreement
that any two or more processes (persons) can use to co-own (and
therefore co-control) any physical resource that is otherwise too
expensive or even meaningless to own singly.
> Has it been tried
> successfully somewhere? (How different is it from turning firms into
> consumer coops?)
All the consumer cooperatives I'm aware of (surely there are more)
don't treat Profit as Consumer Investment, and therefore slowly move
away from being truly Consumer Owned since new Consumers do not gain
Ownership according to their overpayment. This causes centralization
and general profit seeking until these organizations finally differ
little from regular for-profits or from the nearly as problematic
non-profits.
The idea that Consumers should have Ownership is not my invention.
The earliest paper I know of is at
http://FAX.libs.UGA.edu/HD3271xG453/1f/consumers_coop_societies.txt
I think of Richard Stallman's call for User Freedom is really the same
thing - though only in the virtual realm.
The GNU GPL requires: When Object code is distributed, the new User
must gain "at cost" access to the Source code.
The analogy I've drawn is: When an Object (good or service) is
distributed (sold or traded), the new User (consumer) must gain "at
cost" access to the (physical) Sources of Production.
> Someone here says he doesn't know how it works. I don't
> either.
I'll start another thread to try to clear things up.
Edward Miller
> trying to find out why this isn't already understood and utilized so I
> can further hone my communication.
in the right place and your head in in the right thought-space, but
your plan is doomed to failure because it cannot compete with
capitalism's incentive-based resiliency.
> The GNU GPL requires: When Object code is distributed, the new User
> must gain "at cost" access to the Source code.
nothing to do with the mandate that source code be provided at cost.
The genius of the GPL is that derivative works must also be licensed
under the GPL, which is the basis for its reproductive fitness. That
is why the GPL has self-replicated so quickly whereas the BSD licensed
work has been co-opted as other licenses... both proprietary and GPL.
The only thing the "at cost" provision provides for is the tiny
fraction of the world that is rich enough to own a computer but too
poor to have an internet connection. In the world of bits, once data
is out there it becomes bittorrented and mirrored until anyone can
easily access it.
Yes, your theory is just an application of the Free Software idea into
the world of atoms. The problem with that is that bits and atoms have
very different qualities right now. Bits can be copied and transmitted
endlessly and instantaneously. Atoms cannot. There is, however,
something that allows atoms to become more manipulable like bits....
technology. Without the capacity for data to be transmitted endlessly
and without humans using that capacity to create a worldwide
decentralized network called the Internet, Free Software would simply
be impossible. Could you imagine if things were always like they were
when Stallman was just starting out on mainframes and complaining
about the closed and proprietary nature. GNU would never have gotten
off the ground without the Internet.
What we need is an analogous platform from which to build a true
"property-left" movement, or whatever you want to call it.
> So we need more robots?
Getting back to incentives, think carefully about exactly what it
means to just rely on a "production for survival" incentive in a world
where collaboration, automation, and transportation are nowhere near
as capable as the world of bits. Why would a group of guys get
together and decide, "hey let's build a semiconductor fab and work our
asses off so that, get this, we can make absolutely no profit... but
we will get a few of those shiny new microchips we always wanted."
The production for survival incentive is strong for things that you
absolutely need to live, but it isn't so strong for capital-intensive
industry. Compare that to a diffuse profit motive under a limited
liability organization called a corporation.... now you're talking. At
that point the risk/reward and cost/benefit ratios start to look
pretty good. You must understand that you are competing against the
most resilient economic system yet devised. Even if you are able to
get a consumer-owned operation up and running... true there could be
no profit margin, but prices would not be lower. The power of
economies of scale and comparative advantage are so great that it
would slaughter you in price competition, and there is virtually no
incentive for you guys to engage in similar practices.
Now, on the other hand, Linux was able to compete effectively with the
multi-billion dollar behemoth known as Windows because collaboration
was so easy and efficient that the cost of participating was very very
low, thanks to the Internet and the nature of bits. The Internet was
developed in US Government-funded research labs, and so when I propose
that we use government as the tool by which to begin making the world
of atoms more like the world of bits, you shouldn't shrug that off as
if it is too unglamorous and reformist or something.
Joseph Jackson
interview (managed to piss off a few people it seems)--there is not,
and never has been, an incentive or motivation problem. You do not
incentivize human creative effort, you merely enable it. Try ordering
a scientist or artist to produce a breakthrough or masterpiece--you
can't raise pay and expert a commensurate increase in output.
All of Hollywood is subsidized by aspiring actors taking negative
income (working diners) just for the chance of 15 mins of fame. There
is an oversupply/glut of talent, while Tom Cruise and his ilk
monopolize all the eyeballs and thus the $. Total inefficiency
results as the public pays much more for the creation of quality
cultural products than is necessary--and we're stuck with a steady
diet of lowest common denominator output.
This is why talk of raising teacher salaries is a doomed strategy
for fixing our education system. You could never pay them enough to
put up with the the torture of trying to teach in this environment.
The solution is abolishing schools (deschooling society) in favor of
life long peer based learning webs--not trying to prop up a dying
institution. Paying high salaries is usually a sign that something is
wrong (hazard pay), that the task is not worth doing for itself, or
that there is some artificial barrier to entry (doctors) or the sector
has co-opted the govt to rig the rules and generate obscene pay for
its participants (Finance).
Capitalism is not nearly so resilient as you make out. Think of it
like this. There are things I already want to do without asking for
money/expecting profit (all the hobbies/activities I'd be doing in a
leisure society). There are things I will not do for any amount of
money (kill, sell my child/family into prostitution). Then there is a
middle category of things I would otherwise not do unless being paid.
Somehow this middle category has expanded exponentially over several
centuries as all activities were "professionalized" such that creating
a song no longer counts as part of the economy unless you are using
copyright to enforce artificial scarcity and charge for it. Charging
for, and outsourcing childcare and eldercare appears to have helped
grow the economy by creating new "services" but when the true costs
are counted, it is massively more expensive--we'll soon go bankrupt by
shrinking the sphere of social production in this way.
Intrinsic motivation is always superior to mercenary loyalty. Look at
all the great struggles of history--US revolutionary war (guerilla
colonists defeated world super power). The starting conditions
influence who can win--but all things equal (even with greatly unequal
capabilities) the intensely motivated beat those solely in it for the
money. When it becomes too costly--the empire gives up, whereas the
fanatic (also read "fan") keeps going as long as he has enough
resources to sustain his efforts.
The distinction between for profit/non profit entities today is
ultimately a bogus artifact of the tax code. For any goal that
individuals and groups want to pursue they can set up an
organization. In my view, profit is just a sign of inefficiency.
In a functioning economy, profit would always tend asymptotically to
0.
Perfect entry/exit would mean that those managers/companies interested
solely in profit would exit a sector to chase higher returns
elsewhere, leaving only those dedicated to their craft as a calling in
that profession. Those who had remained would then command a profit
again until more firms entered and left again leaving the
intrinsically motivated...... Eventually a stable situation would
result where you love what you do/do what you love--everyone would
self sort and even compete for the privlage of serving on the official
production teams (like trying out for the olympics). If you have to
pay somebody to do something, that task probably shouldn't be done
because no free human being sees the value in doing it. The system
should be assesed to eliminate this task or rotate teams in and out on
a draft/service/peace corps model.
The FOSS movement is more resilient than any corporation--there is no
entity that can be decapitated, blackmailed, or sued--forget limited
liability.
Chris Watkins
Central to Richard Stallman's philosophy is that if you have the ability to let people have copies of your work for zero additional cost, it is immoral to restrict access when people can benefit.
Clearly this doesn't translate to physical goods. Not to say that it can't be tried, but the marginal cost issue is very different, and for this reason the incentives in a free enterprise economy are probably much more important than they are in software development.
Chris
Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
identi.ca/appropedia / twitter.com/appropedia
blogs.appropedia.org
I like this: five.sentenc.es
Edward Miller
between my position, which I believe you also share, and Patrick's, is
that Patrick seems to think the technological environment we have is
irrelevant to whether his idea would work or not. I'm not saying that
creativity itself needs to be incentivized, but that people are too
dependent upon wage labor to spend enough time working on things that
could get us towards a post-scarcity environment. The wage labor
projects that they are working on are by definition things that
require scarcities - real or artificial - in order to produce profit.
Both you and I know that by changing the incentive structures via
technologies and social policies that we can free people to be
creative. Until we have those technologies and social policies, it
would be as futile as Stallman's ideas were before the Internet, when
he was just working on mainframes and first venting about closed,
proprietary software. If that weren't the case, then what would be the
point of the Network for Open Scientific Innovation's advocacy of
intellectual property reform?
Basically, Patrick is jumping the gun. We don't have that platform
analogous to the Internet yet, from which human creativity can easily
flow. Let's build it first, and then we can begin talking about a
world without profit.
Joseph Jackson
building to get to post-scarcity/post-profit. Open Science, Open/
Social money/finance, FAB-tech/distributed manufacturing/ and Energy
are the Big 4 categories (with some overlap and mutual
reinforcement).
None of this however, requires any leaps to AI or nano-manufacturing.
My position is that if we don't solve scarcity before then, we won't
solve it--personal fab of conventional weapons-- missiles/drones, and
syn bio is already here and is a preview of the challenges to come if
civilization doesn't collapse and we make it to AI nanotech. Either
there is a global mind-shift in the approach to technology
(liberatory, appropriate tech), or the game changing achievements of
AI/Nano develop under the conscious and unconscious influences/
distortions prevailing today in our polluted value system.
Organizational reform/revolution can't wait for technological
change.
The impetus behind the journal at first is to organize our thinking.
Everyone is already jumping head-on into particular utopia engineering
projects--this is great, but slightly premature. Still, I don't want
to sit around doing post scarcity academic theory for 10 yrs while the
apocalypse creeps up on us. Thus, the idea to spend 1 yr on "theory"
before using the journal to promote various practical efforts. At
some point in the next 10-20 yrs, one or more of these utopian
projects can cross the viability threshold. I personally doubt that
Seasteading is going to be the way (there is plenty of unused land and
the challenges of the ocean don't make it the ideal testing ground).
I've been in LA and without reliable internet for 12 days. Lets
confer about latest plans and set things moving for a first issue.
Edward Miller
open rapid prototypers and other such decentralized productive
technologies. Also, the policies I recommended would create broad
shifts in the way production occurs generally.
Guido D. Núñez-Mujica
How to arrive there
BIG
Simplified models of abundant environments
Unintended consequences of abundance
Uneven distribution and expansion of abundance
Roberto Verzola
strongly that technologies carry built-in ideologies. When we use these
technologies, we often unknowingly absorb the ideological biases they
carry. And some of these biases go against the values we need for a truly
sustainable society.
I discuss this important issue in this piece published a few years ago:
http://www.scu.edu/sts/nexus/summer2005/VerzolaArticle.cfm
I identified at least 4 ideological biases built into the Internet and
ICTs:
1) the English tongue and the Anglo-Saxon taste that comes with it,
2) automation -- that we should keep replacing people with machines
3) the technofix -- a more general version of (2), that technology will
solve all our problems
4) a strong bias for globalization through subsidies built into the
technology itself.
I can even detect these strong biases in some posts here. I look forward to
the journal to debate these things.
Roberto
Edward Miller
I very much agree with your critique. Neil Postman posited a similar
argument in his book, Technopoly. However, I'm not so sure that you
have proved any of those are bad things.
One of my hopes for the Internet is that it will indeed stamp out some
of the most tyrannical local cultures which prize things like female
genital mutilation or "honor killing." Many of these cultures have
extreme nationalistic tendencies which easily lead to genocide. If we
can close the digital divide, perhaps that dreaded Political
Correctness will infect them and neutralize the most unsavory aspects
of their culture, yet still allow them to participate meaningfully in
global civil society.
I agree that is a rosy picture, and reality isn't as black and white
as this. Indeed, some cultures have used information technologies to
promote hateful ideas. Yet, I think that on par there is more
potential for good than bad. Another counter-argument to my view is
Andrew Keen and the Cult of the Amateur. He argues that the Internet
provides a breeding ground for not only widespread mediocrity and a
breakdown of manners, but it also provides a venue for fascistic
ideologies. I don't buy his arguments either, but I definitely believe
they should be addressed head on.
Ultimately, I think what we have seen is an increase in global
consciousness where people feel as if everyone is part of a global
community, and thus things like human rights and transnational norms
and declarations can begin to be put into effect to fight things like
genocide. Noam Chomsky would argue that this may be the case for the
crimes of others, but that most governments are unwilling to look in
the mirror and take responsibility for one's own crimes. My hope is
that the Internet and eventually post-scarcity production can foster a
sort of civil society that will force the governments to look in the
mirror.
It isn't a "sure thing," but nothing ever is.
Edward Miller
Perhaps this would be a good topic for a new thread. Actually, I do
think Joseph had a thread somewhere related to this. Certainly we need
to hammer out the details of the scope of Abundance Studies, and this
is a good start.
On Feb 15, 5:15 pm, Guido D. Núñez-Mujica <noalaignoran...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> How to arrive there
> BIG
> Simplified models of abundant environments
> Unintended consequences of abundance
> Uneven distribution and expansion of abundance
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Joseph Jackson
>
Joseph Jackson
range of topics of what we might mean by post-scarcity. I will dig it
up. Would like to get a front page up soon and have an idea of who is
submitting to and helping produce the first issue. Shooting for April
15 release for maximum irony.
Bryan Bishop
> There is a post from the open manufacturing list where Paul lays out a
> range of topics of what we might mean by post-scarcity. I will dig it
> up. Would like to get a front page up soon and have an idea of who is
> submitting to and helping produce the first issue. Shooting for April
> 15 release for maximum irony.
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/b9d6f3b894f18535
Joseph Jackson
the first issue of the journal. Start throwing out all the ideas and
people can start drafting their submissions. I need to know who wants
to be coordinating editors for this issue. Not sure how many papers
we will get--6-10 pieces is a good figure.
"From Paul Fernhout
Dec 20, 2008
"Anyway, I feel Bryan is right in wanting to separate out some issues.
Here
are six broad areas of exploration I see right now that have been
discussed
on this list:
* The world how it was historically (like what has been tried and
thought
about, all the "-ologies" and "-isms", and also how they would relate
to
open manufacturing and related ideals, as in, how does open
manufacturing
affirm or invalidate the principles of, say, "the iron law of wages"
or
"hunter/gatherer ideals" or the almost half-century old "Triple
Revolution"
document.)
* The world as it is right now, and how it might be patched up (with
open
manufacturing or the open enterprise or other alternatives like a new
currency to redirect the flow of manufacturing, for example, can
Iceland be
saved with open manufacturing under the current dominant economic
system? Or
could an Icelandic electric-Krona help it right now?)
* The world in transition to a post-scarcity future (and how open
manufacturing relates to that, as well as other proposals like, how
can a
slowly expanding open source movement bring abundance to more and more
people? Or, can a different sort of currency bring about a better
future
with manufacturing happening in a more open and sustainable way, like
an
electric-based dollar, or a basic income guarantee, and so on). There
is
some overlap here with the previous topic of patching up the world --
I'm
not combining them though because there may be people who do believe
in open
manufacturing but don't believe in the possibility or desirability of
a
post-scarcity future moving beyond conventional economics.
* The world as a fully post-scarcity society in the future and how it
would
work (once we got there, like, how what are the implications of every
home
having a 3D printer or similar system at the neighborhood level, such
as
what it means to be able to print toys, or print agricultural robots
to grow
our food, or print solar panels to collect power, or print diamandoid
materials to build our spacecraft, or print machines to make more 3D
printer
toner from air, water, rock, and print shredders that can recycle no
longer
needed printed objects back into 3D printer toner). A lot of this
entails
speculation, and relates to a lot of sci-fi, from authors like Vinge,
Banks,
Hogan, Brain, and so on.
* The world approaching "The Singularity" or a series of singularity-
like
transitions, and a how open manufacturing values and approaches may
interact
with a singularity. Again, there is overlap here with the post-
scarcity
world idea, but there are people who may believe in one but not the
other,
and some who believe in both, and some who believe in neither.
* Interwoven with all those societal discussions are the specific
technical
artifacts we might be talking about and the process of actually
designing
them in detail. But this interconnection would be more obvious if we
had
some critical mass of manufacturing designs and metadata encoded in
common
open formats and usable for analysis and simulation to explore all
these
areas (historic, current, transitional, post-scarcity, singularity).
If there is an argument for a "openmanufacturing-dev" list like Bryan
made,
that might be a clearer boundary -- the focus on making such a system
(or
systems, SKDB, OSCOMAK, fenn's Gingery-related work, open biotech, and
so
on, maybe in partnership with others, or using existing platforms and
standards) so it may be used to inform general discussion here, like
support
detailed simulations of alternative economics and sustainability.
Though
even then, should discussions of simulations be on which list? Or
building
simulations is discussed on that one, and running simulations is
discussed
on this one? But one could possibly work that out down the road.
All of these are overlapping, yet distinct, areas of discussion. But
discussions can quickly go from one area to another. So, amplifying on
Bryan's theme, we can wonder how open manufacturing relates to each of
these
areas, and also ask how this list itself or "open manufacturing" is
presented to the public in this context. Are we emphasizing one of
these six
areas? Or all? I feel all six areas have been fair game, and that's
why I
feel Bryan is right to focus on the more general statement for the
list;
also, it is not clear what solutions will emerge from discussions, so
I feel
it is premature for the group as a whole to endorse one approach
(beyond the
virtue of open manufacturing using open source methods, which ties all
these
things together). Still, the clearer we have all this in mind, maybe
the
stronger the argument can be for a separate dev list like Bryan
started? "
Patrick Anderson
I am behind in this thread, so must be brief:
Edward Miller wrote:
> The genius of the GPL has
> nothing to do with the mandate that source code be provided at cost.
If the GNU GPL did not require the source code be provided at cost,
how would it be any different from a binary-only 'Freeware' license?
Patrick Anderson
<noalaig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Simplified models of abundant environments
I've been thinking over the weekend about this. Here are my
scattered/incomplete thoughts:
The scenario begins with a handful of people stranded on an island in
a salt-water ocean... The island represents our Earth.
There is plenty land and the seafood for them (so we can eliminate
those complexities for now), but there is only one source of fresh
water in the middle of a very stinky swamp swarming with biting
insects. The water is the Sources of Production.
Anyone reading this would probably assume that each person should have
equal rights to his portion of the water. If there are 5 people, then
each has the 'right' to 1/5 of the water. In my thinking, the 'right'
to some thing and the 'ownership' of some thing are in the end the
same thing.
Ownership as we think of it today is not quite the same when the group
is so small, but what if there were 500 people? What about 5,000 or
50,000 or 500,000?
At what point do we think the ownership (and therefore control and
'rights') should be concentrated into a small subset of all those that
require the Outputs of those Sources?
At first, each person would probably do that dirty work for themselves
by wearing protective clothing and carrying buckets.
This somewhat terrible situation continues for a while until a 6th
person washes ashore.
After the 5 original persons nurse #6 back to health, they decide to
help him out by employing him as a waterboy.
If he fetches all the water for the 5 others, then, as payment, they
will allow him to fetch water for himself as well. This is charging a
price above cost.
Now, if you are to say "that isn't fair, #6 should have 1/6 'rights'
in the well", then I will say "are you telling me that every consumer
should have ownership in the Sources of Production?
One day, as #6 sat covered in bugs to rest, he realizes pipe could be
made out of some of the larger reeds so that the amount of work to
fetch water would fall near zero. This is Automation.
But #6 is no dummy. Without Source Ownership he also knows that such
automation would put him out of work, so he doesn't reveal or
implement that information - essentially quelling progress. This is
one of the side-effects of Capitalism.
There is more to cover, and I want to rewrite this more simply, but
wanted to kind of 'ask' if such an approach is what we are looking for
in this regard?
Thanks,
Patrick
Edward Miller
> how would it be any different from a binary-only 'Freeware' license?
believe that it has no such provision. Yet, it is still an open source
license. As long as the original creator puts the code up on the
internet and has relatively liberal terms, a community can quickly
form around it. Even if the original creator goes out of business or
whatever, the code will still be out there floating around the net for
people to use, regardless of any "at cost" provision. Yet, since the
BSD license is so tolerant that it allows people to turn it into a
proprietary license, derivative works can be kept secret.
Works derived from GPL-licensed code must also be licensed under the
GPL with the same liberal terms and the same mandate to share-alike.
That is the key to its reproductive fitness. It self-replicates and
becomes like a virus. Microsoft has even explicitly called it a
"cancer" in the marketplace. That is exactly what it is, only it is a
cancer upon an obsolete mode of production.
Patrick Anderson
>
>> If the GNU GPL did not require the source code be provided at cost,
>> how would it be any different from a binary-only 'Freeware' license?
>
> I don't know the intricacies of the BSD license, but you led me to
> believe that it has no such provision.
That is correct; you may distribute BSD licensed binaries without
offering the source-code. This causes such software to be 'open', but
not what I would call "locked open".
> Yet, it is still an open source license.
Yes, and also qualifies as Free Software (according to the FSF.org),
but does not 'perpetuate' freedom the way GNU GPL software does.
> As long as the original creator puts the code up on the
> internet and has relatively liberal terms, a community can quickly
> form around it. Even if the original creator goes out of business or
> whatever, the code will still be out there floating around the net for
> people to use, regardless of any "at cost" provision.
> Yet, since the
> BSD license is so tolerant that it allows people to turn it into a
> proprietary license, derivative works can be kept secret.
Just a nitpick: it's not that someone can change the license of that
original code, it's that the BSD license allows 'mixing' with non-BSD
licensed code.
> Works derived from GPL-licensed code must also be licensed under the
> GPL with the same liberal terms and the same mandate to share-alike.
Yes, I agree that is part of how the GNU GPL works, and you are
correct that it is a very important part of the license, but I must
defend my stance that another facet of the license is the requirement
that every end user receive "at cost" access to the virtual Sources of
Production (the source code).
Richard Stallman (RMS) talks about User Freedom.
He wants to insure every users is able to [from
http://GNU.org/philosophy/free-sw.html ]:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that
the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is
a precondition for this.
If the GNU GPL required all derivatives use the same license, yet did
not require Source access, then the only thing it would protect is the
ability to run(0) and redistribute(1) binaries; it would not allow
end-users to study(2), or improve(3) the program.
Now, this may seem unimportant - since very few end-users have the
skill to 'operate' those Sources (to program).
But if we look closely, and think clearly we will see that when every
user (consumer) has "at cost" access to the Sources (Means) of
Production - even without skills, they can then hire ANY worker to
fulfill those goals instead of being at the mercy of those that would
withhold access for the purposes of profit.
Since wages are a cost, we see that the GNU GPL already eliminates
profit in that realm, since the consumer can always "go around" those
who would otherwise withhold access to the Sources for the purpose of
charging a price above cost.
Does this make sense? Please let me know if it does not.
Thanks,
Patrick
Guido D. Núñez-Mujica
am interested also in the behavior of real human beings in
approximations of abundant environments.
But your model, properly written and displayed, could be very
interested. Maybe some cellular automata also...
Patrick Anderson
<noalaig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I like your approach, and it is part of what I have in mind. However I
> am interested also in the behavior of real human beings in
> approximations of abundant environments.
Thanks for the kind words, and I apologize for the sloppy draft...
Here is an example that can be applied today in a common neighborhood
setting. It is a rework of a post I originally made at
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2008-March/000398.html
==The Utilization/Price Ratio for SINGULAR ownership:
Why do people choose to BUY some tools,
while they choose to RENT others?
When a person can make use of (utilize) a machine
to a sufficient degree, it is more efficient for them to
OWN instead of RENT.
But wait, how could that be? The owner (whoever he is) must pay all
costs either way.
A rental agency must pay for the initial
investment, upkeep/repair/maintenance/wear,
insurance, protection/security, storage, taxes,
and any wages to any workers needed to do any
of those things.
A private owner must pay those exact same costs,
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 owner 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.
So how can a consumer increase the utilization
of a tool to the point of making ownership "worth it"?
==The Utilization/Price Ratio for CO-ownership:
One way is to buy the machine with a group of
other consumers.
Organizing with your neighbors to OWN a roto-tiller
instead of continuing to RENT is cheaper if that
equipment can be kept sufficiently 'busy'.
These savings are often overlooked as being the result
of not paying Wages to workers, but that work must
be done either way, and we know the Rental agency
or the Capitalist employer enjoys Price above Cost while
calculating Wages as a Cost, so where is the confusion?
For example: Let's say a for-profit business has hired
employees to go door-to-door offering to roto-till a
garden patch.
The business owner offers the service for some fee -
say $1 per square meter while paying the employee
operating the tiller say $10 per hour.
The owner has other costs such as management, initial investment,
gasoline, oil, replacing parts, storage, insurance, and maybe many
others.
But we know he is charging more that these costs if he
is reporting a profit - for that is the definition of profit =
"price above cost".
Now let's look at what happens when the owners of the
Source (the tiller) are also the consumers of the outputs
(the tilled ground): They must pay all the same costs as
the Capitalist, including Wages to the operator and
mechanics, but they wouldn't be paying the extra amount
called Profit - for who could they possibly pay it to?
When the Sources are Consumer-Owned, they could probably pay the
Workers slightly more (say $12 per hour) and *still* pay less since
they wouldn't be paying the unnecessary burden of Profit.
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 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 efficiency
(as in the lowest price) comes when ownership is in
the hands of those that consume the final output?
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 forecasted
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.
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 dueling 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 as those extra payments will be invested
toward another machine until the number of machines is sufficient to
cover the needs of that community.
Furthermore, each sub-community that develops around each of those
machines can then secede from the whole if they decide to treat their
new machine in a different manner (say changing the oil more often).
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.
Edward Miller
requirement for providing the source code. The caveat to that is that
absolutely no company would release code under the BSD license that
they intended to keep secret, and once that code is available, it is
permanently available. At minimum it would get cached by archive.org
or google or someone. More likely it would be mirrored and torrented
by interested third parties, and a community would spontaneously form.
You are getting tripped up with the legalistic aspect of it. There is
virtually no need for an "at cost" provision. I'm not saying it
shouldn't be in there, but I'm just saying that it is rather
irrelevant. The code will be provided for virtually nothing 99.99
percent of the time to 99.99 percent of the people. It would be as
irrelevant as a price floor of one dollar for houses.
On a slightly related note, I think the minimum wage would become
obsolete with a Basic Income. The basic income would already give
people a reason to value their labor highly, and furthermore
voluntarily working for pennies when you are assured a basic standard
of living is perfectly acceptable. The biggest benefit of a minimum
wage now is that it promotes automation by increasing the value of
human capital. That function becomes irrelevant later on.
Just like how this "at cost" provision is basically irrelevant. Catch
my drift?
Forget this whole profit margin thing... you are thinking about it
wrong. Just because a consumer-owned enterprise has no profit margin
added to the price of its products, that doesn't mean that enterprise
has any reason to attain the extraordinary levels of efficiency and
economies of scale that mega-corporations do. It sounds nice and
simple to just eliminate the profit and bring down prices, but it just
isn't that easy.
On Feb 16, 8:52 pm, Patrick Anderson <agnuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
Patrick Anderson
>
> You are correct that without an "at cost" provision there is no legal
> requirement for providing the source code. The caveat to that is that
> absolutely no company would release code under the BSD license that
> they intended to keep secret, and once that code is available, it is
> permanently available. At minimum it would get cached by archive.org
> or google or someone. More likely it would be mirrored and torrented
> by interested third parties, and a community would spontaneously form.
But you are talking about protecting the original project as released
by the original Copyright holders.
The original code is certainly available - whether Public Domain, BSD, etc.
But the GNU GPL does something else.
The GNU GPL disallows anyone from building UPON that codebase unless
they ALSO release the source-code to anyone to which they distribute
the binaries.
If you are running 2k, XP or Vista try the following:
Press [WindowsKey-R] to bring up the run dialog.
Type 'cmd' (without the quotes) and press [Enter] to open a command prompt.
Now, within that prompt type:
find "Regents" %SystemRoot%\system32\ftp.exe
which will output:
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Proving Microsoft built upon BSD licensed networking code to complete
their operating system.
If that code had been protected by the GNU GPL, then Microsoft would
have either been unable to build upon it (requiring them to
reimplement all that work), or they would have been required to
release the source-code of all the CHANGES that they made to it.
That is a big difference, and is the reason why most corporations that
choose to do any Free Software (Open Source) work at all, choose the
GNU GPL for the code they release - for it stops their competitors
from using that work against them the way Public Domain or BSD
licenses allow.
> You are getting tripped up with the legalistic aspect of it. There is
> virtually no need for an "at cost" provision.
Again you seem to be saying there is no economic difference between
the GNU GPL and the BSD licenses.
If that is what you are saying, then please tell me, for I have more
explaining to do.
> Forget this whole profit margin thing... you are thinking about it
> wrong. Just because a consumer-owned enterprise has no profit margin
> added to the price of its products, that doesn't mean that enterprise
> has any reason to attain the extraordinary levels of efficiency and
> economies of scale that mega-corporations do.
A rewrite of http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2008-March/000441.html
follows:
Keeping price above cost appears to be the only motivation for
production, but what about the product itself?
Aren't the use-value of the outputs of production important?
Or is exchange-value (profit) the only motivator?
Use-value is certainly important to the consumers, and consumers never
expect to be paid profit, so why not have them be the owners? I'm not
pretending these consumers would be a totally separate set of humans
that lay around eating all day without ever working. I assume they
will also need to work somewhere, in many cases they can operate some
of those Means of Production that they rely upon for that which they
consume, but we also want to incent high skills, so it will
be common for the consumer of honey to own beehives without being the
beekeeper himself - for he can hire someone else to do that while he goes
and shovels manuer to pay for that trading of labor.
I'm not trying to take advantage of workers, I'm trying to stop the
exploitation of
the consumer while keeping in mind that EVERY WORKER IS A CONSUMER,
but may not necessarily have the skills needed to operate the sources
he needs ownership in in order to have the control required for true
freedom.
If profit were eliminated while those that consume the product were
the owners, there would only be celebration - as price would meet cost
and competition would be perfected. That point occurs when each
product consumer has sufficient ownership in the Land and Capital
needed to insure their future needs. Each consumer is also workers
SOMEWHERE, and in some cases even on that same Land and Capital, but
ownership should be determined by those that PAY, not by those that
happen to have the skills needed to operate those sources.
I need ownership in the sources of the things that I consume. If I
happen to also eat apples, I should be investing in part of ANOTHER
apple tree. If you are paying me to pick your apples by giving me
apples, then I should be compensated for any amount I pay (any amount
I labor) above the real costs of the apples you pay me with by your
investing that extra amount (the profit you gathered) toward the
purchase of more land, water rights, trees and tools that will
eventually become my property (should vest to me). But that is only
if I were an apple CONSUMER.
If we want the lowest prices; if we really want price to meet cost and
profit to hit zero, then we had better make sure the consumers are the
investors and owners of the Means of Production, otherwise those that
do happen to own them will declare the business a failure just as we
are reaching our goal.
Product is better than profit because "use value" is more important
than "exchange value".
Patrick
marc fawzi
There is virtually no need for an "at cost" provision. I'm not saying it
shouldn't be in there, but I'm just saying that it is rather
irrelevant. The code will be provided for virtually nothing 99.99
percent of the time to 99.99 percent of the people. It would be as
irrelevant as a price floor of one dollar for houses.
>>
With that said, I think this is very relevant to a model I'm evolving
for trading in "man hours" and "cpu hours" for open content (e.g. open
software) and open content production (e.g. open software
development.)
There are two things in software (as open content) and software
development (as open content production) that need to be traded
without throttling by artificial "price" which is what Patrick is
getting at, IMO.
In the model I'm evolving (please see discussion tab of wiki page for
P2P Energy Economy), those two things are the "man hour" cost in human
energy (for producing the software) and the "cpu hour" cost in
computational energy (for running and replicating the software)
[start of somewhat irrelevant section]
The "cpu hour" cost for running the software or
replicating/downloading it is relatively very low. In case of
replicating/downloading via P2P the bandwidth is some fixed sunk cost,
e.g. $40/mo, which, for the sake of simplicity, does not factor into
the replication/downloading cost. This way, anyone using my machine
for x cpu hours to download some software will let me use theirs too
for x cpu hours at any time in the future and for whatever
cpu-consuming purpose, e.g. running some web service. That's much
better than the bandwidth-exchange model in BitTorrent which will be
used too but does not factor in the 'cpu hour' exchange which is of
more interest since 'cpu hours' are usable at any time and for any
purpose (so they work more like a currency)
[end of somewhat irrelevant section]
If developer spends a total of 2,000 man hours building the software
and recoups those 200 man hours, in virtual "man hour" tokens, from
the users (assuming the users are other developers) he can then have
2,000 man hours (of other developers' time) to apply to his software,
to enhance it. If he doesn't recoup the 2,000 man hours he spent his
productivity is not likely to grow (or if it does then it's at the
cost of something else unless he is funded and the funding grows as he
makes progress, which is how it works in the commercial and free
software business), i.e. he'll have the same 2,000 man hours to put
in, so his productivity stays constant. But if he does recoup the
2,000 man hours as "man hour tokens" then he can trade the tokens in
return for 2,000 man hours of other developers' time (again, assuming
the users or participant in such economy are also developers) and puts
in another 2,000 man hours of his time, so now he has 4,000 man hours
invested in the project, which he can recoup (in "man hour" tokens)
and then trade for other developers' time while again putting 2,000
man hours of his own time, so now he has 6,000 man hours invested in
the project, which he can recoup (in "man hour" tokens) and trade for
other developers' time while again putting 2,000 man hours of his own
time, so now he has 8,000 man hours invested in the project, and so
on...
In other words, by recouping my man hours in "man hour" tokens" and
trading them for other developers' time, I can continuously grow my
software project, faster than just giving it away for free, without
major corporate donors.
I have figured out how to create the "man hour" and "cpu hour" tokens
such that they are linked to (or are the result of) higher
productivity not just created with a magic wand. More specifically,
they are created based on the increase in the flow of man hours and
cpu hours from peers with surplus to peers with deficit. This way,
they represent spent human and computer energy so money becomes equal
to work, or an enabler of production, not an enabler of scarcity or
ownership, which are two sides of the same exact coin based on the way
I see it.
When it comes to "billing" for open software (as downloaded content or
as P2P-based SaaS) "cpu hour" billing is easy because it relates to
use of a cpu which is measurable based on cpu spec. When it comes to
billing for open software development, "man hour" biling requires
consensus between the developer and their peers (other users of the
economy, who are also developers) on how many "man hours" a given task
should take, ideally speaking and on average. Obviously, anyone not
using the P2P trading app can go and download the software from some
external torrent, to circumvent having to pay the ridiculously low
cost in 'cpu hours' and 'man hours' (which is divided by the number of
_all_ users in the economy)
:-)
Edward Miller
discussion is futile and only giving you more opportunities to
uncritically regurgitate your position. Unless of course you actually
address my arguments. I'll be here when you're ready to do so.
Use-value this, exchange-value that. I thoroughly recommend you
continue calling your movement the CCCP because that is the side of
history you are on. To be dialectical materialist about it.
I'm trying to be mature, but you're making it real hard.
On Feb 17, 5:36 pm, Patrick Anderson <agnuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
marc fawzi
is recursive, not conditional.
... which is why it's impossible to measure it with a logical stick
Edward Miller
On Feb 18, 2:00 am, marc fawzi <marc.fa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that maturity, like wisdom, truth, and all conscious things,
> is recursive, not conditional.
>
> ... which is why it's impossible to measure it with a logical stick
>
marc fawzi
guess it's gotten more pop now.
If we take something as seemingly mundane as the concept of the Limit
in calculus (not related to G/E/B but much simpler as an example)
we're told the final agreed story in math textbooks, a 2nd hand often
inaccurate interpretation by 90% of historians, another by Newton's
writings about it (which expose the relationship between "innovation
and the idiocy of the established order") and yet another by competing
analytical models like Non-Standard Analysis.
I think what happened with me and G/E/B is I picked up a copy of G/E/B
back around 90-91 (if my memory serves me correctly.. it could have
been 93) and I looked at some random pages and was disappointed to see
a mention of Godel's work without the full context (e.g. Hilbert's
arguments) so I put it back and did not want to read it again. I
generally avoid shiny books when it comes to history. My gut feeling
is that history is best seen undisturbed in the original work, not in
new shiny books written to generate maximum sales and fabricated "zen"
like feelings of knowing rather than actual understanding of what had
happened.