Alternative Currency to Transform Financial Capital into Financial Commons into Free Use Commons (was 100kgarages)

[Nathan Cravens]

Hi Kevin,

 

As I understand it, the limitation of participants to ShopBot owners

is a temporary phase.  Eventually it will be opened up to owners of
non-ShopBot routers, and owners of homebrew CNC tools of all kinds.
So long as the CAD files are public and the producer meets customer
specifications, the producer's selection of equipment won't be an
issue or an entry barrier.

Right. That ethical narrative was meant to express how artificial scarcity happens and hints at why we have markets in the first place and why we do not need them. 

 

I'm especially excited by the prospect of the specs from the various
resilient community designs from Factor e Farm (the CEB Press,
Sawmill, LifeTrac, etc.) being a public domain library, so that anyone
can submit the files to 100kGarages and have Factor e Farm designs
produced anywhere in the country.

I have difficulty trusting someone seeking a paycheck. Kevin, I even have issues with your advocacy of barter agreements. I have issue with barter: as someone may not have equal right to materials available to make an even trade. If it is exchange trade, it is immoral as far as I'm concerned. 

We need a currency to address this: one that safely transfers financial capital into non-commercial common resources to meet use more than adequately. This means if a unit of exchange is needed, that's fine, but your processes must remain transparent and what materials you use must be the community's to use as well. I'm speaking of political economy, something we need to bring back with post-scarcity in mind. 

I do not yet know how the materials I use were acquired or made, so I too am suspect. 

Your personal life can be as private as you like, but if you are using the land and materials for another's use, those processes must be well articulated on the web, or we are not maximizing value in world, we are compromising one another, and continue to destroy--emotionally or ecologically--rather than nurture ourselves.     

Automation, robots, disequilibrium, disemployment. Such notions attempt to describe the implements eroding the old way of exchange trade through proprietary labor or ownership. Resources cannot be adequately distributed that way and it worsens the longer we adhere to such faulty practices, as manufacturing process continues to automate and deskill the workforce or the ability to have material rights--property to product.  

We need to remain critical and address the issues and put into practice something that works better.  

The existence of a cohesive and purpose-driven body of designs for
producer equipment and the essentials of living is an answer to the
question Jeff Vail recently raised, as to whether distributed
manufacturing would remain fixated on "trinkets."  Factor e Farm and
100kGarages are arguably complementary, converging on the problem from
opposite directions.
 

Those tools are greatly needed; and intentional communities or potential communities with hackerspaces are ready soil. 

***

Hi Ted,

Kevin's response is correct: ShopBots for an initial period to get things started. We'll then open it up to other kinds/types of digital fabrication tools.

Sound good, Ted. Keep up the good work. 

 

 

In terms of content available on site: in the long run, we expect there to be a lot of free, open-source content. We're in the process of getting some of that posted now. As just a limited but interesting example, see: www.linkerlogs.org and www.shelter20.com. But the site will also provide content that is purchased if designers wish to sell things in this way. That is how content on the current www.Ponoko.com site is offered.

Selling is fine, but if the material location and how the product is assembled is unknown, it cannot compete with a product where land use, materials, and assembly are free. I understand that fabbers presently depend on proprietary suppliers, but the issues remain.

So how do we get there? 

We need a currency that encourages free use of land, materials, and assembly instruction. That's what open manufacturing as a discipline strives for. If land use requires payment, find an alternative or use the currency attached to that world view, and show that proprietary owner the benefits of what we can call: financial commons.

The hypothesis needs testing, but I pose that if land use, materials, and instructions are transparent and free with a currency that only supports this behavior, that currency will be of greater value than any other. This currency is not earned, but given, based on the amount required to meet needs more than adequately; so based on community requirements, some incomes may be more than others. There needs to be a flat rate income for travelers as well that can at least provide basic needs while traveling. The next step is no currency at all, but that cannot be done at whim, as it requires infrastructure to determine what inputs to create the product or outcome beyond its use to feasibly suspend the use of currency. 

Financial commons therefore is inherently designed to create common use without currency when it is adequate to do so. By design, everyone will have the ability to know when that is possible and do so on a category by category basis.    

 

 

With respect to owners making their shops open to others, that will be totally up to them. 

I agree. 

 

They are just people out in the world with digital fab tools. We are hoping that many of them will host frequent open houses -- as just good PR if nothing else. Our role here is just to create community.

Community or commerce or both? If both, its not community. Community is a non-commercial act. You can use that community time to play that market, but the market is separate from community. The market corrupts community by making relations insincere or "materialistic." The market turns men into boys and women into prostitutes. 

 

 

And on this last, our intention is that the basic services of the site will always be free. But we are also working on a system where a simple cutting file can be submitted to 100kGarages and the person will then receive an instant quote. If they are happy with the cost, they can run a credit card and will receive the parts in a few days without needing to even contact the fabber. In this system, the fabber will pay a small percentage fee for handing the order and credit card transaction in order to support the system. It will be called "Easy-Cut". Note that neither the "Maker" nor "Fabber" is required to work this way. They can just link up with each other and handle the transaction outside 100kGarages as is currently the case if they would prefer.

I believe I have adequately addressed this issue by proposing an alternative currency and the political economy of financial commons to address it. 

 

 

Hope this answers a couple of the questions. Keep in mind that all this is evolving based on the input and participation of makers and fabbers.

Let us know how we can help Ted. Thanks a lot. 

Nathan 

 

 

[Kevin Carson]

On 10/4/09, Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > As I understand it, the limitation of participants to ShopBot owners is a
> temporary phase. Eventually it will be opened up to owners of
> > non-ShopBot routers, and owners of homebrew CNC tools of all kinds.
> > So long as the CAD files are public and the producer meets customer
> > specifications, the producer's selection of equipment won't be an
> > issue or an entry barrier.
> >
>
> Right. That ethical narrative was meant to express how artificial scarcity
> happens and hints at why we have markets in the first place and why we do
> not need them.

I don't think all scarcity is artificial, though, and I believe we
very much need markets.

We can classify scarcity into this schema:

1) Artificial permanent scarcity: e.g. IP laws, absentee title to
vacant and unimproved land, licensing and regulatory cartels

2) Natural permanent scarcity: e.g., nonrenewable resources,
favorably situated land locations.

3) Temporary scarcity: anything that is available in elastic supply,
but requires labor and time to produce.

Temporary scarcity produces temporary scarcity rents, but if market
entry is not impeded price will always tend toward production cost.
Markets and temporary scarcity rents actually play an important role
in increasing supply and driving price to production cost.

> I have difficulty trusting someone seeking a paycheck. Kevin, I even have
> issues with your advocacy of barter agreements. I have issue with barter: as
> someone may not have equal right to materials available to make an even
> trade. If it is exchange trade, it is immoral as far as I'm concerned.

My position is almost the direct opposite. Information wants to be
free, but labor wants to be paid. I don't trust anyone who wants to
consume the fruits of my labor without compensating me for it.

Take care of artificial scarcity, and the balance between exchange and
gift will take care of itself. Exchange will always exist to the
extent that an output requires signifcant labor to produce, and labor
wants to be paid.

As the amount of labor required for a unit of consumption falls, and
leisure time increases, some productive labor may become "too cheap to
meter" and be done through the gift economy.

For that matter, even when significant amounts of labor are required
to produce for consumption, to the point that labor carries a
significant disutility, productive labor may be organized through
non-monetized primary social units (extended family compounds,
neighborhood cohousing units, communes, etc.). But even in such gift
economies, when consumption requires a significant amount of labor,
reciprocity and exchange are still implicit. For the able-bodied,
pulling one's share of the labor, in return for one's share of
consumption, is generally expected as a condition of membership in
good standing.

> Automation, robots, disequilibrium, disemployment. Such notions attempt to
> describe the implements eroding the old way of exchange trade through
> proprietary labor or ownership. Resources cannot be adequately distributed
> that way and it worsens the longer we adhere to such faulty practices, as
> manufacturing process continues to automate and deskill the workforce or the
> ability to have material rights--property to product.

IMO it's almost the direct opposite. All the disequilibria result
from artificial scarcity, which breaks the link between effort and
consumption. If IP, artificial scarcity of land and capital, and
entry barriers that impose artificial levels of capitalization and
overhead are eliminated, then workers and consumers will appropriate
the full value of their increased productivity. It's artificial
scarcity that breaks the link between effort and consumption, so that
increased productivity is expropriated by rentiers who own artificial
property rights. The link between effort and consumption, in itself,
is a good thing.

As for transparency in the production process, I think--again--that
eliminating artificial scarcity and allowing a genuinely unfettered
market is the solution. When patents and copyrights do not exist, the
normal tendency of competition is to promote designs that are
compatible with other producers' designs, and that are completely open
to alteration and adaptation. A product that is transparent, easily
reparable and alterable, and is compatible with other products, is
better than one that isn't. So without IP as a legal barrier to such
competitive pressure, producers that make products with such qualities
will do better in the competitive market.

--
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Kevin Carson wrote:
> On 10/4/09, Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> As I understand it, the limitation of participants to ShopBot owners is a
>> temporary phase. Eventually it will be opened up to owners of
>>> non-ShopBot routers, and owners of homebrew CNC tools of all kinds.
>>> So long as the CAD files are public and the producer meets customer
>>> specifications, the producer's selection of equipment won't be an
>>> issue or an entry barrier.
>>>
>> Right. That ethical narrative was meant to express how artificial scarcity
>> happens and hints at why we have markets in the first place and why we do
>> not need them.
>
> I don't think all scarcity is artificial, though, and I believe we
> very much need markets.
>
> We can classify scarcity into this schema:
>
> 1) Artificial permanent scarcity: e.g. IP laws, absentee title to
> vacant and unimproved land, licensing and regulatory cartels
>
> 2) Natural permanent scarcity: e.g., nonrenewable resources,
> favorably situated land locations.
>
> 3) Temporary scarcity: anything that is available in elastic supply,
> but requires labor and time to produce.
>
> Temporary scarcity produces temporary scarcity rents, but if market
> entry is not impeded price will always tend toward production cost.
> Markets and temporary scarcity rents actually play an important role
> in increasing supply and driving price to production cost.

Great analysis of different types of scarcity. I wonder if we could refine
this even further?

>> I have difficulty trusting someone seeking a paycheck. Kevin, I even have
>> issues with your advocacy of barter agreements. I have issue with barter: as
>> someone may not have equal right to materials available to make an even
>> trade. If it is exchange trade, it is immoral as far as I'm concerned.
>
> My position is almost the direct opposite. Information wants to be
> free, but labor wants to be paid. I don't trust anyone who wants to
> consume the fruits of my labor without compensating me for it.

Well, maybe labor wants to be paid if it has to pay other labor? :-)

> Take care of artificial scarcity, and the balance between exchange and
> gift will take care of itself. Exchange will always exist to the
> extent that an output requires signifcant labor to produce, and labor
> wants to be paid.

"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

Still, any productive system needs some coordination process. Even agreeing
to rules for stygmergy is a kind of coordination. But, I'm thinking there
needs to at least be a system behind the scenes that rations and schedules,
even if people never deal with it day to day (because human needs are so
trivial relative to high-tech productive capacity with robots and
renewable/fusion energy and 3D printing and self-replicating space habitats).

> As the amount of labor required for a unit of consumption falls, and
> leisure time increases, some productive labor may become "too cheap to
> meter" and be done through the gift economy.

I think we are getting there at different rates in different industries. But
what is a bigger issue is accumulation. Programmers may still need to eat,
but there is so much free software that the reason to hire programmers to
write new stuff diminishes. Of course, there may still be needs (both to
pick software and customize it), but they shift over time as old solutions
pile up. Even in the physical world this can happen when we produce new
things faster than they wear out.

> For that matter, even when significant amounts of labor are required
> to produce for consumption, to the point that labor carries a
> significant disutility, productive labor may be organized through
> non-monetized primary social units (extended family compounds,
> neighborhood cohousing units, communes, etc.). But even in such gift
> economies, when consumption requires a significant amount of labor,
> reciprocity and exchange are still implicit. For the able-bodied,
> pulling one's share of the labor, in return for one's share of
> consumption, is generally expected as a condition of membership in
> good standing.

Different communities may work this out differently. Again, with cheap
energy and robots and AI (or just smarter software), what do we really need
paid labor for?

Maybe you could be specific. What things do you think people will need to do
in the future?

Fair warning: :-)
"[p2p-research] 60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

>> Automation, robots, disequilibrium, disemployment. Such notions attempt to
>> describe the implements eroding the old way of exchange trade through
>> proprietary labor or ownership. Resources cannot be adequately distributed
>> that way and it worsens the longer we adhere to such faulty practices, as
>> manufacturing process continues to automate and deskill the workforce or the
>> ability to have material rights--property to product.
>
> IMO it's almost the direct opposite. All the disequilibria result
> from artificial scarcity, which breaks the link between effort and
> consumption. If IP, artificial scarcity of land and capital, and
> entry barriers that impose artificial levels of capitalization and
> overhead are eliminated, then workers and consumers will appropriate
> the full value of their increased productivity. It's artificial
> scarcity that breaks the link between effort and consumption, so that
> increased productivity is expropriated by rentiers who own artificial
> property rights. The link between effort and consumption, in itself,
> is a good thing.

That link has been breaking for decades, if not centuries. From 1964:
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is
that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird
people’s rights as consumers. ... The continuance of the income-through-jobs
link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand—for
granting the right to consume—now acts as the main brake on the almost
unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

I think you are still assuming people need to be "motivated" to produce.
Maybe most do. But if technology is an amplifier, it can amplify the
abilities of the percent of the population who like doing stuff for whatever
reason.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

> As for transparency in the production process, I think--again--that
> eliminating artificial scarcity and allowing a genuinely unfettered
> market is the solution. When patents and copyrights do not exist, the
> normal tendency of competition is to promote designs that are
> compatible with other producers' designs, and that are completely open
> to alteration and adaptation. A product that is transparent, easily
> reparable and alterable, and is compatible with other products, is
> better than one that isn't. So without IP as a legal barrier to such
> competitive pressure, producers that make products with such qualities
> will do better in the competitive market.

Except markets have all sorts of problems:
* systemic risks of collapse, especially from pyramid schemes involving debt
* negative externalities like pollution are paid by society
* positive externalities like global health are ignored in product design
* money tends to get centralized, as it takes money to make money
* those with a lot of money set standards to benefit themselves
* competition can be very wasteful if people otherwise agree on goals
* preparing and fighting war is profitable
* as above, human labor is needed less and less for production
* money tends to corrupt the political process
* the market doesn't hear the needs of people with money, so people can
starve or sicken amidst physical plenty
* extrinsic security and planned obsolescence may be more profitable than
intrinsic security and durable goods
* money distorts information flows about news
* money corrupts the medical decision making process (conflict of interest)
* money corrupt academia (Kept University)

There are probably others. :-)

If you are going to push alternative currencies and a market, at least
promote a basic income at the same time to deal with some of these problems.
But high progressive taxes, regulation, and subsidies are also important,
too, to resist centralization of wealth and negative externalities, and to
promote positive externalities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

[Kevin Carson]

On 10/6/09, Paul D. Fernhout <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:

> Different communities may work this out differently. Again, with cheap
> energy and robots and AI (or just smarter software), what do we really need
> paid labor for?
>
> Maybe you could be specific. What things do you think people will need to do
> in the future?

I don't know. That's what the market's for. In whatever areas
scarcity still exists--i.e., production still requires a significant
amount of labor that carries a significant amount of
disutility--payment will persist.

> I think you are still assuming people need to be "motivated" to produce.
> Maybe most do. But if technology is an amplifier, it can amplify the
> abilities of the percent of the population who like doing stuff for whatever
> reason.
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

Sure. But until picking up the garbage is automated to the point that
the job of garbage man disappears, and so long as there's a
requirement for more garbage men than there are people who like doing
that job for fun, people will have to be paid to pick up the garbage.

> Except markets have all sorts of problems:
> * systemic risks of collapse, especially from pyramid schemes involving debt
> * negative externalities like pollution are paid by society
> * positive externalities like global health are ignored in product design
> * money tends to get centralized, as it takes money to make money
> * those with a lot of money set standards to benefit themselves
> * competition can be very wasteful if people otherwise agree on goals
> * preparing and fighting war is profitable
> * as above, human labor is needed less and less for production
> * money tends to corrupt the political process
> * the market doesn't hear the needs of people with money, so people can
> starve or sicken amidst physical plenty
> * extrinsic security and planned obsolescence may be more profitable than
> intrinsic security and durable goods
> * money distorts information flows about news
> * money corrupts the medical decision making process (conflict of interest)
> * money corrupt academia (Kept University)

Most of the pathologies you identify with the market are things I
would identify with privilege, or artificial scarcity. In a genuine
free market, without rents from artificial scarcity, there wouldn't be
large concentrations of money in the first place, and therefore no
outlets for excess accumulations of money like debt bubbles and the
like. And one of the reasons for negative externalities like
pollution, IMO, is that the state subsidized resource waste and has
preempted the full force of tort liability for pollution.

The centralization of wealth is not the normal result of a free
market. It's the result of capitalism, which is a very different
thing.

[Nathan Cravens]

Hey fellahs. :) Now to argue all scarcity is (mostly enough) artificial. . . 

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Paul D. Fernhout <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:

Kevin Carson wrote:
> On 10/4/09, Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> As I understand it, the limitation of participants to ShopBot owners is a
>> temporary phase.  Eventually it will be opened up to owners of
>>> non-ShopBot routers, and owners of homebrew CNC tools of all kinds.
>>> So long as the CAD files are public and the producer meets customer
>>> specifications, the producer's selection of equipment won't be an
>>> issue or an entry barrier.
>>>
>> Right. That ethical narrative was meant to express how artificial scarcity
>> happens and hints at why we have markets in the first place and why we do
>> not need them.
>
> I don't think all scarcity is artificial, though, and I believe we
> very much need markets.
>
> We can classify scarcity into this schema:
>
> 1)  Artificial permanent scarcity:  e.g. IP laws, absentee title to
> vacant and unimproved land, licensing and regulatory cartels
>
> 2)  Natural permanent scarcity:  e.g., nonrenewable resources,
> favorably situated land locations.

Non-renewables can be circulated according to use to make the value infinite rather than linear. If this cannot be accomplished, alternatives must be found, if they cannot, use of non-renewables must be restricted. 

Favorable locations may well remain scarce for the next hundred years until favorable habitats themselves are manufactured. The original spot will remain scarce in terms of originality, but if a thing is produced to exact standards, say that specific ocean view front you always wanted, then 'scarcity by authenticity' is a null issue. 

Spacial scarcity is probably the greatest challenge to post-scarcity practice. 

>
> 3)  Temporary scarcity:  anything that is available in elastic supply,
> but requires labor and time to produce.

If people have basic needs met without a work requirement; people will want to work freely without payment; boredom therefore base line motivator. 

Freedom is too precious in a post-scarcity environment; paid labor is comical and a sign of the drudgery of the past. You work because you want to; anything less is insincere or in "bad faith." 

>
> Temporary scarcity produces temporary scarcity rents, but if market
> entry is not impeded price will always tend toward production cost.

When materials are well accounted for and freely accessed from 'free use commons' materials are free to use. 

Again, when basic needs are met for each person without a work requirement, they will be motivated to work harder than ever, because they are given the incentive (no longer a dirty word to imply compromise) to work in the areas they find interesting. This assumes a highly coordinated and automated world; so when 'interest utility' is no longer maximized, the innovator can go on to something else; while the means of production continues to operate to meet production requests; preventing the need for arbitrary market reward that would only continue market behavior in kind; a lesser world. 

> Markets and temporary scarcity rents actually play an important role
> in increasing supply and driving price to production cost.

I'd like to know more on this point. Sounds interesting. :) 

Great analysis of different types of scarcity. I wonder if we could refine
this even further?

>> I have difficulty trusting someone seeking a paycheck. Kevin, I even have
>> issues with your advocacy of barter agreements. I have issue with barter: as
>> someone may not have equal right to materials available to make an even
>> trade. If it is exchange trade, it is immoral as far as I'm concerned.
>
> My position is almost the direct opposite.  Information wants to be
> free, but labor wants to be paid.  I don't trust anyone who wants to
> consume the fruits of my labor without compensating me for it.

The fruits of labor have gone into machinery over time unable to adequately compensate labor.

A basic income is needed to act as a transition buffer to solve that issue.

Basic income is often described as something produced by the state, but a basic income aligned with a post-scarcity outcome may well first arise in the form of an alternative currency, one that can ensure transparent (perfect information) of land use, materials, and processes within a 'financial commons' until each product or outcome can flow into a 'free use commons' after goods or outcomes are shown to produce above rates of demand. States will reform toward this outcome, then fade away after functions become self regulating like our communications technologies: this e-mail and cell phones for example; government a personal or community activity. 

 

Well, maybe labor wants to be paid if it has to pay other labor? :-)

Philosophers do not like this approach, Paul. ;p 

If you demand $5 to take out the trash, someone else will demand $10 to recycle it, and so on, then you will need to demand another $5 for some arbitrary task category to pay the recycler. That's just lame. ;p 

> Take care of artificial scarcity, and the balance between exchange and
> gift will take care of itself. Exchange will always exist to the
> extent that an output requires signifcant labor to produce, and labor
> wants to be paid.

I would agree that a market is a useful safety net if for some reason the other approaches mentioned fail, but I cannot see it failing if land use, materials, and processes are transparent and well presented in a way that's easy to learn, especially with the available time to learn once a basic income is distributed. 

Robert Theobald, The Guaranteed Income, 1966

The guaranteed income will, in fact, lead to the revival of "private enterprise." Once the guaranteed income is available, we can anticipate the organization of what I have called "consentives": productive groups formed by individuals who will come together on a voluntary basis simply because they wish to do so. The goods produced by these consentives will not compete with mass-produced goods available from cybernated firms. The consentive will normally produce the "custom-designed" goods that have been vanishing within the present economy. The consentive would sell in competition with firms paying wages, but its prices would normally be lower because it would need to cover only the cost of materials and other required supplies. Wages and salaries would not need to be met out of income, as the consentive members would be receiving a guaranteed income. The consentive would be market-oriented but not market-supported.

And if the cost of materials are null: free use commons result

 

"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

We need to put those contraptions in dumps to separate and clean materials for reuse. Right now that would be a money makin' business given you clear the rights with govmnt!

 

Still, any productive system needs some coordination process. Even agreeing
to rules for stygmergy is a kind of coordination.

"stygmergy" and "coordination" are post-scarcity werds dere partner!

 

But, I'm thinking there
needs to at least be a system behind the scenes that rations and schedules,
even if people never deal with it day to day (because human needs are so
trivial relative to high-tech productive capacity with robots and
renewable/fusion energy and 3D printing and self-replicating space habitats).

You and Hunting aim high. ;) Self-replicating space habitats would be fun! 

 

> As the amount of labor required for a unit of consumption falls, and
> leisure time increases, some productive labor may become "too cheap to
> meter" and be done through the gift economy.

Anderson. *sneer* :p

Hi Kevin, will you explain that paragraph differently with some examples? I want to make sure I know what you mean before responding. 

That link has been breaking for decades, if not centuries. From 1964:
  http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is
that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird
people’s rights as consumers. ... The continuance of the income-through-jobs
link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand—for
granting the right to consume—now acts as the main brake on the almost
unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

I think you are still assuming people need to be "motivated" to produce.
Maybe most do. But if technology is an amplifier, it can amplify the
abilities of the percent of the population who like doing stuff for whatever
reason.
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

> As for transparency in the production process, I think--again--that
> eliminating artificial scarcity and allowing a genuinely unfettered
> market is the solution.  When patents and copyrights do not exist, the
> normal tendency of competition is to promote designs that are
> compatible with other producers' designs, and that are completely open
> to alteration and adaptation.  A product that is transparent, easily
> reparable and alterable, and is compatible with other products, is
> better than one that isn't.  So  without IP as a legal barrier to such
> competitive pressure, producers that make products with such qualities
> will do better in the competitive market.

This assumes 9-5 work, a requirement for a market to flourish, so labor in theory can have enough income to continue market activity. That is a fool's game; machinery has captured labor value and placed it into a commons we are yet unable to adequately measure. In the US:

• 1820-1970s real wages went up to buy produced goods that increased in kind overall
• Beginning in 1920s wages began to split with exponential rising productivity
• In the 1970s real wages stagnated relative to rising productivity 

The sort of labor you are describing Kevin began to die in the 1920s; this is that good 'ol equal-for-equal exploitation within the market compromise you are advocating. If we do not create financial and free use commons then we will have the drudgery you believe is right. 

But not to worry Kevin, we may disagree, but I still like you, because you know your Political Economy. ;)

Nathan

[Kevin Carson]

On 10/7/09, Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Non-renewables can be circulated according to use to make the value infinite
> rather than linear. If this cannot be accomplished, alternatives must be
> found, if they cannot, use of non-renewables must be restricted.

I believe the distribution problem can be addressed through the
market, with price as a means of rationing scarce resources to their
most productive use (a sort of cap-and-trade system in which the cap
is imposed by the quantity in existence). The main moral objection,
that rationing is according to ability to pay, would not apply in a
genuine market where purchasing power resulted from effort rather than
privilege.

> If people have basic needs met without a work requirement; people will want
> to work freely without payment; boredom therefore base line motivator.
> Freedom is too precious in a post-scarcity environment; paid labor is
> comical and a sign of the drudgery of the past. You work because you want
> to; anything less is insincere or in "bad faith."

But this state of affairs will exist in the real world to the extent
that labor ceases, in fact, to be drudgery. Until that point is
reached, I think the laborer is the best judge of his reasons for
working, and what he wants in return for his labor.

> When materials are well accounted for and freely accessed from 'free use
> commons' materials are free to use.
> Again, when basic needs are met for each person without a work requirement,
> they will be motivated to work harder than ever, because they are given the
> incentive (no longer a dirty word to imply compromise) to work in the areas
> they find interesting. This assumes a highly coordinated and automated
> world;

It does indeed. In the meantime, it's best to let things sort
themselves out through individual choice. So long as production is
not, in fact, automated, we leave it to the producers to decide what
is sufficient to motivate them, when there are not enough interesting
or pleasant jobs to go around.

> > > Markets and temporary scarcity rents actually play an important role
> > > in increasing supply and driving price to production cost.

> I'd like to know more on this point. Sounds interesting. :)

When the demand for a good at cost of production is greater than the
existing supply, the buyers bid up the price until the number of
buyers who can afford it equals the supply of goods. But the
existence of a price above production costs causes rival producers to
rush into the market to reap the scarcity rents, which increases
supply until price is driven back down to production cost, and the
supply equals the number of people willing to buy it at cost of
production.

> Philosophers do not like this approach, Paul. ;p
> If you demand $5 to take out the trash, someone else will demand $10 to
> recycle it, and so on, then you will need to demand another $5 for some
> arbitrary task category to pay the recycler. That's just lame. ;p

It's the other way around. My landlord wants $350 for the rent right
now, so I want $15 for a hour's labor.

> > > IMO it's almost the direct opposite. All the disequilibria result
> > > from artificial scarcity, which breaks the link between effort and
> > > consumption. If IP, artificial scarcity of land and capital, and
> > > entry barriers that impose artificial levels of capitalization and
> > > overhead are eliminated, then workers and consumers will appropriate
> > > the full value of their increased productivity. It's artificial
> > > scarcity that breaks the link between effort and consumption, so that
> > > increased productivity is expropriated by rentiers who own artificial
> > > property rights. The link between effort and consumption, in itself,
> > > is a good thing.

> Hi Kevin, will you explain that paragraph differently with some examples? I
> want to make sure I know what you mean before responding.

When a subsistence farmer meets most needs autarkically, and he
figures out a new work process to reduce the amount of labor inputs
required for a unit of consumption, he doesn't consider the reduced
work time as an evil ("unemployment" or reduced hours at his "job"),
because he appropriates the full fruit of his labor. It's only when a
class of IP owners and rentiers are able to appropriate the gains of
efficiency, and pay the laborer for less work without the reduced cost
being translated into a lower price, that "technological unemployment"
lowers the standard of living.

So without IP as a legal barrier to such
> > > competitive pressure, producers that make products with such qualities
> > > will do better in the competitive market.

> This assumes 9-5 work, a requirement for a market to flourish, so labor in
> theory can have enough income to continue market activity. That is a fool's
> game; machinery has captured labor value and placed it into a commons we are
> yet unable to adequately measure. In the US:

No. In a genuine market, where labor appropriates the full benefits
of its own productivity gains, the wages from any amount of labor will
be enough to buy the product of that labor. IP prevents the increased
productivity of machinery from being transferred to the commons by the
natural process of market competition. Market competition is perfect
socialism, because it socializes the productivity benefits of
innovation.

> The sort of labor you are describing Kevin began to die in the 1920s; this
> is that good 'ol equal-for-equal exploitation within the market compromise
> you are advocating. If we do not create financial and free use commons then
> we will have the drudgery you believe is right.

If it requires less labor to produce a given unit of output, and labor
gets the full output, how is it exploitation? If worker A and worker
B exchange products of 16 hours of their labor, that would have taken
50 hours to produce in 1920, they are progressively working less hard
over time. Exploitation is when someone lives off another's labor
without working himself.

> But not to worry Kevin, we may disagree, but I still like you, because you
> know your Political Economy. ;)

I'm reassured!