December 2011 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Re: [P2P-F] Article : Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped
by Michel Bauwens 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:08 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson < dante.monson(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/02/debt-slavery-%E2%80%93-why-it-destro… > > *This article appears in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on December 5, > 2011.* > > WEEKEND EDITION DECEMBER 2-4, 2011 > Hammurabi Knew Better > Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s > Stopped > by MICHAEL HUDSON > > Book V of Aristotle’s *Politics* describes the eternal transition of > oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up > being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families > decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, > within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, > democracy, and so on throughout history. > > Debt has been the main dynamic driving these shifts – always with new > twists and turns. It polarizes wealth to create a creditor class, whose > oligarchic rule is ended as new leaders (“tyrants” to Aristotle) win > popular support by cancelling the debts and redistributing property or > taking its usufruct for the state. > > Since the Renaissance, however, bankers have shifted their political > support to democracies. This did not reflect egalitarian or liberal > political convictions as such, but rather a desire for better security for > their loans. As James Steuart explained in 1767, royal borrowings remained > private affairs rather than truly public debts. For a sovereign’s debts to > become binding upon the entire nation, elected representatives had to enact > the taxes to pay their interest charges. > > By giving taxpayers this voice in government, the Dutch and British > democracies provided creditors with much safer claims for payment than did > kings and princes whose debts died with them. But the recent debt protests > from Iceland to Greece and Spain suggest that creditors are shifting their > support away from democracies. They are demanding fiscal austerity and even > privatization sell-offs. > > This is turning international finance into a new mode of warfare. Its > objective is the same as military conquest in times past: to appropriate > land and mineral resources, also communal infrastructure and extract > tribute. In response, democracies are demanding referendums over whether to > pay creditors by selling off the public domain and raising taxes to impose > unemployment, falling wages and economic depression. The alternative is to > write down debts or even annul them, and to re-assert regulatory control > over the financial sector. > > *Near Eastern rulers proclaimed clean slates for debtors to preserve > economic balance* > > **Charging interest on advances of goods or money was not originally > intended to polarize economies. First administered early in the third > millennium BC as a contractual arrangement by Sumer’s temples and palaces > with merchants and entrepreneurs who typically worked in the royal > bureaucracy, interest at 20 per cent (doubling the principal in five years) > was supposed to approximate a fair share of the returns from long-distance > trade or leasing land and other public assets such as workshops, boats and > ale houses. > > As the practice was privatized by royal collectors of user fees and rents, > “divine kingship” protected agrarian debtors. Hammurabi’s laws (c. 1750 BC) > cancelled their debts in times of flood or drought. All the rulers of his > Babylonian dynasty began their first full year on the throne by cancelling > agrarian debts so as to clear out payment arrears by proclaiming a clean > slate. Bondservants, land or crop rights and other pledges were returned to > the debtors to “restore order” in an idealized “original” condition of > balance. This practice survived in the Jubilee Year of Mosaic Law in > Leviticus 25. > > The logic was clear enough. Ancient societies needed to field armies to > defend their land, and this required liberating indebted citizens from > bondage. Hammurabi’s laws protected charioteers and other fighters from > being reduced to debt bondage, and blocked creditors from taking the crops > of tenants on royal and other public lands and on communal land that owed > manpower and military service to the palace. > > In Egypt, the pharaoh Bakenranef (c. 720-715 BC, “Bocchoris” in Greek) > proclaimed a debt amnesty and abolished debt-servitude when faced with a > military threat from Ethiopia. According to Diodorus of Sicily (I, 79, > writing in 40-30 BC), he ruled that if a debtor contested the claim, the > debt was nullified if the creditor could not back up his claim by producing > a written contract. (It seems that creditors always have been prone to > exaggerate the balances due.) The pharaoh reasoned that “the bodies of > citizens should belong to the state, to the end that it might avail itself > of the services which its citizens owed it, in times of both war and peace. > For he felt that it would be absurd for a soldier … to be haled to prison > by his creditor for an unpaid loan, and that the greed of private citizens > should in this way endanger the safety of all.” > > The fact that the main Near Eastern creditors were the palace, temples and > their collectors made it politically easy to cancel the debts. It always is > easy to annul debts owed to oneself. Even Roman emperors burned the tax > records to prevent a crisis. But it was much harder to cancel debts owed to > private creditors as the practice of charging interest spread westward to > Mediterranean chiefdoms after about 750 BC. Instead of enabling families to > bridge gaps between income and outgo, debt became the major lever of land > expropriation, polarizing communities between creditor oligarchies and > indebted clients. In Judah, the prophet Isaiah (5:8-9) decried foreclosing > creditors who “add house to house and join field to field till no space is > left and you live alone in the land.” > > Creditor power and stable growth rarely have gone together. Most personal > debts in this classical period were the product of small amounts of money > lent to individuals living on the edge of subsistence and who could not > make ends meet. Forfeiture of land and assets – and personal liberty – > forced debtors into bondage that became irreversible. By the 7th century > BC, “tyrants” (popular leaders) emerged to overthrow the aristocracies in > Corinth and other wealthy Greek cities, gaining support by cancelling the > debts. In a less tyrannical manner, Solon founded the Athenian democracy in > 594 BC by banning debt bondage. > > But oligarchies re-emerged and called in Rome when Sparta’s kings Agis, > Cleomenes and their successor Nabis sought to cancel debts late in the > third century BC. They were killed and their supporters driven out. It has > been a political constant of history since antiquity that creditor > interests opposed both popular democracy and royal power able to limit the > financial conquest of society – a conquest aimed at attaching > interest-bearing debt claims for payment on as much of the economic surplus > as possible. > > When the Gracchi brothers and their followers tried to reform the credit > laws in 133 BC, the dominant Senatorial class acted with violence, killing > them and inaugurating a century of Social War, resolved by the ascension of > Augustus as emperor in 29 BC. > > *Rome’s creditor oligarchy wins the Social War, enslaves the population > and brings on a Dark Age* > > **Matters were more bloody abroad. Aristotle did not mention empire > building as part of his political schema, but foreign conquest always has > been a major factor in imposing debts, and war debts have been the major > cause of public debt in modern times. Antiquity’s harshest debt levy was by > Rome, whose creditors spread out to plague Asia Minor, its most prosperous > province. The rule of law all but disappeared when publican creditor > “knights” arrived. Mithridates of Pontus led three popular revolts, and > local populations in Ephesus and other cities rose up and killed a reported > 80,000 Romans in 88 BC. The Roman army retaliated, and Sulla imposed war > tribute of 20,000 talents in 84 BC. Charges for back interest multiplied > this sum six-fold by 70 BC. > > Among Rome’s leading historians, Livy, Plutarch and Diodorus blamed the > fall of the Republic on creditor intransigence in waging the century-long > Social War marked by political murder from 133 to 29 BC. Populist leaders > sought to gain a following by advocating debt cancellations (*e.g*., the > Catiline conspiracy in 63-62 BC). They were killed. By the second century > AD about a quarter of the population was reduced to bondage. By the fifth > century Rome’s economy collapsed, stripped of money. Subsistence life > reverted to the countryside. > > *Creditors find a legalistic reason to support parliamentary democracy* > > **When banking recovered after the Crusades looted Byzantium and infused > silver and gold to review Western European commerce, Christian opposition > to charging interest was overcome by the combination of prestigious lenders > (the Knights Templars and Hospitallers providing credit during the > Crusades) and their major clients – kings, at first to pay the Church and > increasingly to wage war. But royal debts went bad when kings died. The > Bardi and Peruzzi went bankrupt in 1345 when Edward III repudiated his war > debts. Banking families lost more on loans to the Habsburg and Bourbon > despots on the thrones of Spain, Austria and France. > > Matters changed with the Dutch democracy, seeking to win and secure its > liberty from Habsburg Spain. The fact that their parliament was to contract > permanent public debts on behalf of the state enabled the Low Countries to > raise loans to employ mercenaries in an epoch when money and credit were > the sinews of war. Access to credit “was accordingly their most powerful > weapon in the struggle for their freedom,” Richard Ehrenberg wrote in his > *Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance* (1928): “Anyone who > gave credit to a prince knew that the repayment of the debt depended only > on his debtor’s capacity and will to pay. The case was very different for > the cities, which had power as overlords, but were also corporations, > associations of individuals held in common bond. According to the generally > accepted law each individual burgher was liable for the debts of the city > both with his person and his property.” > > The *financial *achievement of parliamentary government was thus to > establish debts that were not merely the personal obligations of princes, > but were truly public and binding regardless of who occupied the throne. > This is why the first two democratic nations, the Netherlands and Britain > after its 1688 revolution, developed the most active capital markets and > proceeded to become leading military powers. What is ironic is that it was > the need for war financing that promoted democracy, forming a symbiotic > trinity between war making, credit and parliamentary democracy which has > lasted to this day. > > At this time “the legal position of the King *qua *borrower was obscure, > and it was still doubtful whether his creditors had any remedy against him > in case of default.” (Charles Wilson, *England’s Apprenticeship: 1603-1763 > *: 1965.) The more despotic Spain, Austria and France became, the greater > the difficulty they found in financing their military adventures. By the > end of the eighteenth century Austria was left “without credit, and > consequently without much debt,” the least credit-worthy and worst armed > country in Europe, fully dependent on British subsidies and loan guarantees > by the time of the Napoleonic Wars. > > *Finance accommodates itself to democracy, but then pushes for oligarchy* > > **While the nineteenth century’s democratic reforms reduced the power of > landed aristocracies to control parliaments, bankers moved flexibly to > achieve a symbiotic relationship with nearly every form of government. In > France, followers of Saint-Simon promoted the idea of banks acting like > mutual funds, extending credit against equity shares in profit. The German > state made an alliance with large banking and heavy industry. Marx wrote > optimistically about how socialism would make finance productive rather > than parasitic. In the United States, regulation of public utilities went > hand in hand with guaranteed returns. In China, Sun-Yat-Sen wrote in 1922: > “I intend to make all the national industries of China into a Great Trust > owned by the Chinese people, and financed with international capital for > mutual benefit.” > > World War I saw the United States replace Britain as the major creditor > nation, and by the end of World War II it had cornered some 80 per cent of > the world’s monetary gold. Its diplomats shaped the IMF and World Bank > along creditor-oriented lines that financed trade dependency, mainly on the > United States. Loans to finance trade and payments deficits were subject to > “conditionalities” that shifted economic planning to client oligarchies and > military dictatorships. The democratic response to resulting austerity > plans squeezing out debt service was unable to go much beyond “IMF riots,” > until Argentina rejected its foreign debt. > > A similar creditor-oriented austerity is now being imposed on Europe by > the European Central Bank (ECB) and EU bureaucracy. Ostensibly social > democratic governments have been directed to save the banks rather than > reviving economic growth and employment. Losses on bad bank loans and > speculations are taken onto the public balance sheet while scaling back > public spending and even selling off infrastructure. The response of > taxpayers stuck with the resulting debt has been to mount popular protests > starting in Iceland and Latvia in January 2009, and more widespread > demonstrations in Greece and Spain this autumn to protest their > governments’ refusal to hold referendums on these fateful bailouts of > foreign bondholders. > > *Shifting planning away from elected public representatives to bankers* > > **Every economy is planned. This traditionally has been the function of > government. Relinquishing this role under the slogan of “free markets” > leaves it in the hands of banks. Yet the planning privilege of credit > creation and allocation turns out to be even more centralized than that of > elected public officials. And to make matters worse, the financial time > frame is short-term hit-and-run, ending up as asset stripping. By seeking > their own gains, the banks tend to destroy the economy. The surplus ends up > being consumed by interest and other financial charges, leaving no revenue > for new capital investment or basic social spending. > > This is why relinquishing policy control to a creditor class rarely has > gone together with economic growth and rising living standards. The > tendency for debts to grow faster than the population’s ability to pay has > been a basic constant throughout all recorded history. Debts mount up > exponentially, absorbing the surplus and reducing much of the population to > the equivalent of debt peonage. To restore economic balance, antiquity’s > cry for debt cancellation sought what the Bronze Age Near East achieved by > royal fiat: to cancel the overgrowth of debts. > > In more modern times, democracies have urged a strong state to tax*rentier > * income and wealth, and when called for, to write down debts. This is > done most readily when the state itself creates money and credit. It is > done least easily when banks translate their gains into political power. > When banks are permitted to be self-regulating and given veto power over > government regulators, the economy is distorted to permit creditors to > indulge in the speculative gambles and outright fraud that have marked the > past decade. The fall of the Roman Empire demonstrates what happens when > creditor demands are unchecked. Under these conditions the alternative to > government planning and regulation of the financial sector becomes a road > to debt peonage. > > *Finance vs. government; oligarchy vs. democracy* > > **Democracy involves subordinating financial dynamics to serve economic > balance and growth – and taxing rentier income or keeping basic monopolies > in the public domain. Untaxing or privatizing property income “frees” it to > be pledged to the banks, to be capitalized into larger loans. Financed by > debt leveraging, asset-price inflation increases *rentier* wealth while > indebting the economy at large. The economy shrinks, falling into negative > equity. > > The financial sector has gained sufficient influence to use such > emergencies as an opportunity to convince governments that that the economy > will collapse they it do not “save the banks.” In practice this means > consolidating their control over policy, which they use in ways that > further polarize economies. The basic model is what occurred in ancient > Rome, moving from democracy to oligarchy. In fact, giving priority to > bankers and leaving economic planning to be dictated by the EU, ECB and IMF > threatens to strip the nation-state of the power to coin or print money and > levy taxes. > > The resulting conflict is pitting financial interests against national > self-determination. The idea of an independent central bank being “the > hallmark of democracy” is a euphemism for relinquishing the most important > policy decision – the ability to create money and credit – to the financial > sector. Rather than leaving the policy choice to popular referendums, the > rescue of banks organized by the EU and ECB now represents the largest > category of rising national debt. The private bank debts taken onto > government balance sheets in Ireland and Greece have been turned into > taxpayer obligations. The same is true for America’s $13 trillion added > since September 2008 (including $5.3 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac > bad mortgages taken onto the government’s balance sheet, and $2 trillion of > Federal Reserve “cash-for-trash” swaps). > > This is being dictated by financial proxies euphemized as technocrats. > Designated by creditor lobbyists, their role is to calculate just how much > unemployment and depression is needed to squeeze out a surplus to pay > creditors for debts now on the books. What makes this calculation > self-defeating is the fact that economic shrinkage – debt deflation – makes > the debt burden even more unpayable. > > Neither banks nor public authorities (or mainstream academics, for that > matter) calculated the economy’s realistic ability to pay – that is, to pay > without shrinking the economy. Through their media and think tanks, they > have convinced populations that the way to get rich most rapidly is to > borrow money to buy real estate, stocks and bonds rising in price – being > inflated by bank credit – and to reverse the past century’s progressive > taxation of wealth. > > To put matters bluntly, the result has been junk economics. Its aim is to > disable public checks and balances, shifting planning power into the hands > of high finance on the claim that this is more efficient than public > regulation. Government planning and taxation is accused of being “the road > to serfdom,” as if “free markets” controlled by bankers given leeway to act > recklessly is not planned by special interests in ways that are oligarchic, > not democratic. Governments are told to pay bailout debts taken on not to > defend countries in military warfare as in times past, but to benefit the > wealthiest layer of the population by shifting its losses onto taxpayers. > > The failure to take the wishes of voters into consideration leaves the > resulting national debts on shaky ground politically and even legally. > Debts imposed by fiat, by governments or foreign financial agencies in the > face of strong popular opposition may be as tenuous as those of the > Habsburgs and other despots in past epochs. Lacking popular validation, > they may die with the regime that contracted them. New governments may act > democratically to subordinate the banking and financial sector to serve the > economy, not the other way around. > > At the very least, they may seek to pay by re-introducing progressive > taxation of wealth and income, shifting the fiscal burden onto *rentier*wealth > and property. Re-regulation of banking and providing a public option for > credit and banking services would renew the social democratic program that > seemed well underway a century ago. > > Iceland and Argentina are most recent examples, but one may look back to > the moratorium on Inter-Ally arms debts and German reparations in 1931.A > basic mathematical as well as political principle is at work: Debts that > can’t be paid, won’t be. > > *This article appears in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on December 5, > 2011.* > > *MICHAEL HUDSON is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished > Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the > author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy > of American Empire<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745319890/counterpunchmaga> (new > ed., Pluto Press, 2002) and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A > History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3980846695/counterpunchmaga>. > He can be reached via his website, mh(a)michael-hudson.com* > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Fwd: The Ideology of Gold.
by Michel Bauwens 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. <dk(a)telekommunisten.net> Date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:45 PM Subject: The Ideology of Gold. To: "Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. Subscriber" <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> (Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.) __ The Ideology of Gold. You all know them, the "Gold Bug," often using words like "fraud" and "debasement of our money," they decry government issued fiat money as a big scam to rip off the masses! We need "sound money" or "real money," meaning gold. Gold has real value, it's not "worthless" like paper! Using gold as money, instead of government issued non-convertible currency, will bring prosperity and stability and prevent us from being defrauded by bakers and bureaucrats! The concept rests on the basic premise that since gold is relatively fixed in supply, the government can't increase the money supply, thus money is sound. What's more, investors and savers, financial planners and contract holders have certainty, knowing the money in their plans and bargains will keep a stable value. Of course, there is one small problem with this: It's hopelessly wrong. More than just being false, it's an ideological pretense favouring the interests of the powerful, who's real object of disdain is redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, like the majority of neoclassical theory, the real point is that inequality is just and any attempt to help the poor will lead to economic catastrophe. For one, metallic currency will not prevent the money supply from growing. Most money in the economy is created by lending, and is only tentatively connected with the monetary base by policy and regulation, whenever a bank lends money, it creates money, and beyond any policy or regulation, the limit of how much money it can create is a function of the productive output of the economy and the structure of transactions within it. Thus, even with a metallic monetary base which the government can not increase, the money supply can still increase through the actions of lenders and borrowers. The real point here is not simply controlling the money supply, but controlling the government. Gold Bugs often characterise government spending as wanton extravagance, telling torrid tails of Roman Emperors Nero and Caligula, or King Charles II to illustrate their point. The government must be kept under control! The obvious conclusion being that rather than try to restrict the spending of potential tyrants by employing dubious currency schemes, we instead focus on created better forms of governance. However, better forms of governance may govern on behalf of all the people, not just the rich, so the Gold Bugs, would rather have depraved wanton rules, only they want to make sure these rulers are dependant on their gold. This is an ideological position. Constraining government spending may prevent rulers from wanton extravagances, but also from beneficial spending as well. In most cases, its the beneficial spending that will attract the greater protest, as for the Gold Bug, there can no crime worse than improving the conditions of the poor. When pressed, the Gold Bug will admit that lending and borrowing can also increase the money supply, every bit as much as money printing by the government can, and what's more the government can be one of these lenders and borrowers as well, since the government usually has an excellent credit rating, this means it can continue still spend more gold than is collected by borrowing it, however it must increase the income of lenders in the process. The Gold Bug will now launch into the second part of the diatribe, this time not against fiat currency, but rather against "Fractional Reserve Banking." Just as evil in their mind as the practice of printing money. They will propose "Full Reserve Banking," where the banks are constrained to only lend out money in proportion to what they have in long term deposits. Since longterm deposits can not be withdrawn, the money available to be spent is thus fixed. With the money supply fixed, the value of money is certain to be stable! Yet, even this is false. The value of money is not based on the volume of money alone, but on the volume of money available in comparison to the amount of goods that are available for purchase. Monetary Inflation is a outcome of the ratio between monetary growth and productive growth, thus having a stable money supply will only produce stable money value when the economy never grows or shrinks. Thus, even with a gold standard, the value of money is not stable. In fact, as the economy is more likely to grow than to shrink, if the volume of money is fixed, it's value is likely to continuously increase. Now, who would really want money to increase in value? Those that have lots of money. The value of money is essentially the exchange rate of money relative to goods and services. On one hand, providers of goods and services want more money for what they produce, on the other hand, holders of big piles of money want greater returns on their money. All prices fluctuate on the market, the value of eggs is not stable to the value of corn flakes, the value of semiconductors is not stable relative to the value of LEDs. Fluctuations of values are best constrained, so that savings aren't wiped out or debt rendered impossible to pay, but fluctuations are quit manageable and deflation is certainly not preferable to inflation. When you borrow money and you pay it back later, if the value of money goes down you have in real terms paid back less than you borrowed, on the other hand if the value of money goes up, you will need to effectively pay back more than you borrow. Inflation is a transfer of wealth from lenders to borrowers, while deflation is a transfer of wealth from borrowers to lenders. In many cases, borrowers include the entrepreneurs who borrow money to invest in new business and who create economic growth. Thus deflation is also a transfer of wealth from entrepreneurs to money lenders. So far form being an great economic boon, so-called "sound" money, is actually a constraint to building the capacity for creating more wealth. The ones that benefit are those that are already rich. Make no mistake, promoters of Gold Standards and Full Reserve Banking are promoters of the interests of the rich, and are not so much interested in economic stability, but in class stability: making sure the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. There can be no such thing as "sound" money, money is a relationship, a way of keeping track of what we do for each other in a large impersonal economy. The amount of money there can be is limited only by the amount we can do for each other. The aggregate of all the things that we do and make for each other is called the economy. The right amount of money to have is that which is enough for anybody who wants to buy something from anybody that wants to sell something, in other words, the amount of money needs to only to stay stable relative to how much their is for sale. A free economy can not be constrained by people who want to get richer just by hoarding the currency everybody else needs to conduct their exchanges. Paper money, and other forms of credit are not "worthless," any more than a contract is "worthless." Its worth comes from the promises that it represents, and we should not be limited in what we can promise each other. If government is untrustworthy, then we need new democratic forms to take its place, not try to constrain it by tying its spending to some arbitrary volume of metal, and if the banking system is not managing our money supply, we can not help ourselves by adding even more limits on how credit can capital can be formed, but rather we need to create ways to create credit and capital amongst ourselves. Gold Standards and Full Reserves don't help us do any of these things, what they do is chain us even more to the established distributions of wealth and power and help conserve the structure of wealth, at the expense of our common wealth.

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Fwd: Video - Leipzig - The birthplace of a peaceful revolution
by Michel Bauwens 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:47 PM Subject: Video - Leipzig - The birthplace of a peaceful revolution To: econowmix(a)googlegroups.com http://www.euronews.net/2009/09/23/leipzig-the-birthplace-of-a-peaceful-rev… -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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P2P Vs Cooperative and Distributist approaches ?
by Dante-Gabryell Monson 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

What does p2p "property", "governance" and "production" most relate to , in comparison to other ( historic ) movements ? And what may people related to the p2pfoundation be supporting ? *Do we have access to a chart which compares each of these ?* And what "Laws" ( or absence of Laws ? ) would such p2p approaches support ? A limit to the concentration of personal wealth ? ( or on any wealth at all, including businesses ? ) No moral person for corporations or any business entities ? Such limits leading to the sale of property, maintaining prices lower and hindering any artificial scarcity on land and resources ? /// Ownership of ones own basic means of production, combined with cooperatively owned property and means of production ? Distributism combined with Cooperative approaches ? ( see links below ) - How would this compare to Anarcho Syndicalist forms of governance, production and property ( absence of private property ? ). - Or with Libertarian approaches ( in the US sense ). Differing from Libertarian approaches by Putting a ( moral ? ) limit to private accumulation ? - feel free to correct based on your understanding of Libertarianism - ( as in Distributism ? see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism#Anti-trust_legislation ) - How would it also differentiate with Technocrats and the Technocratic Movement ( and/or the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement ). /// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism#Economic_theory Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property> of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer, etc. *The "cooperative" approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be "co-owned" by local communities larger than a family, e.g., partners in a business.* * * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism#Economic_theory

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Redd + and the Congo
by robert searle 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

The following maybe of interest. http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/12/05/redd-in-the-news-28-november-4-decem…

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Economyths....
by robert searle 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

The following maybe of interest. http://www.postpythagorean.com/book_economyths.html

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Scientists discover earth twin planet
by robert searle 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

The following maybe of interest. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/scientists-discover-earths-twin-planet-010419253.h…

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Fw: Sandbag Newsletter November 2011
by robert searle 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Sandbag Climate Campaign <no-reply(a)sandbag.org.uk> To: dharao4(a)yahoo.co.uk Sent: Monday, 5 December 2011, 21:57 Subject: Sandbag Newsletter November 2011 Trouble viewing this email? Read it online by clicking here. German carbon fatcats report - Klimagoldesel Guten Tag from the Sandbag team, November has been a very German month for Sandbag, seeing the release of our new report profiling the German companies which have benefitted most from free carbon permits under the EU Emissions Trading System Sandbag partnered with BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) and Germanwatch in a high profile launch event on November 8th which received substantial television and print media coverage (a full list of clippings as well as English and German translations of the report and an interactive map can be found at www.sandbag.org.uk/germany ). To date, the EU Emissions Trading System had received limited public attention in Germany, despite the centrality of the traded sector in achieving Germany’s ambitious 2020 targets (40% below 1990 levels) and the high proportion of ETS installations which are on German soil. Our report highlighted the need for a tighter cap in the wider European scheme to ensure that Germany’s domestic efforts to reduce emissions were captured, rather than simply allowing other Member States to free ride. It also highlighted that some of the companies and sectors which had most fiercely resisted tighter ETS caps on the basis of competitiveness threats and potential job losses had actually been economically assisted by the scheme to date. Since the report launch, Sandbag has returned to Berlin to present our findings before a cross-industry Emissions Trading Workgroup and to some important members of the German parliament. We have also received new information about installation ownership and waste gas transfers from some of the companies profiled in the report, and are due to publish an addendum with some revised figures shortly. Developments in the European Parliament The increased profile of the ETS in Germany is proving timely, as German MEPs on the Environment Committee will have considerable weight in a key initial vote on ETS reforms tabled as amendments to the draft Energy Efficiency Directive on December 20th. This is currently the strongest political opportunity to change the supply of permits under the scheme, and in the weeks leading up to that vote Sandbag will be working alongside our NGO partners in the UK, Germany and Brussels to galvanize MEPs to support these amendments as they reach their first hurdle. Carbon price slipping further The case for political reform of the EU ETS is becoming ever clearer, with the spot price of carbon permits slipping below €8, and Deutsche Bank forecasting further drops over 2011 and 2012 if no clear signal is given that there will be political intervention soon. With current Deutsche projections finding the scheme oversupplied out to 2020, they state that the ongoing market value of a European carbon permit “now lies exclusively in…EU policymakers at some point amending current EU-ETS targets.” UK Phase 3 allocations announced On the UK front, Sandbag has been busy scrutinizing some of the proposed allocations to British industry over Phase 3 (2013-2020) as the British government applies the European-wide benchmarking rules. A leaked copy of the government’s draft figures were leaked to Point Carbon ahead of their formal publication in December. While these new allocation rules should help prevent the kind of ongoing industrial windfalls from the EU ETS which we have identified in our Carbon Fatcats reports, there is still a danger that surpluses carried over from the current trading period (2008-2012) will buffer companies from the scheme for a long time to come. Following on from George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, where he announced a £250 million package to support Energy Intensive Industries against their indirect carbon costs, Sandbag will be highlighting where these indirect costs are offset by direct gains in some of the companies and sectors claiming eligibility. So another busy month behind us and an even busier winter ahead. Thanks as ever for your continued support. Damien and the Sandbag team All the best,The Sandbag Team Click here to unsubscribe from the Sandbag monthly newsletter Follow sandbag on Sandbag Climate Campaign CIC info(a)sandbag.org.uk Registered as a Community Interest Company in England & Wales: Company No. 6714443 Registered Address: BWB Secretarial Ltd, 2-6 Cannon Street, LONDON, EC4M 6YH Trading Address: 13 Charterhouse Square, LONDON, EC1M 6AX

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What Ron Paul, Occupy Wall Street, Lech Walesa, Tahrir Square, Tiananmen Square and many Tea Party people have in common - The Hill's Pundits Blog
by 10natalie＠cox.net 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/197297-what-ron…

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Fwd: <nettime> 12/12 Essex Seminar: Models for a Peer-to-Peer Society
by Dante-Gabryell Monson 05 Dec '11

05 Dec '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stevphen Shukaitis <stevphen(a)autonomedia.org> Date: Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 7:52 PM Subject: <nettime> 12/12 Essex Seminar: Models for a Peer-to-Peer Society To: Nettime <nettime-l(a)kein.org> Models for a Peer-to-Peer Society A seminar with Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation Monday December 12th at 2pm in the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall Seminar Room Centre for Work, Organization and Society, University of Essex ( http://www.essex.ac.uk/ebs/**research/emc<http://www.essex.ac.uk/ebs/research/emc> ) Many observers argue that the change induced with the internet is on a par with at least the effects of the printing press, which was instrumental in creating a cascade of changes such as the renaissance, the reformation and the Enlightenment, culminating in the replacement of feudalism with capitalism. It is therefore reasonable to posit a phase transition this time as well, but what kind of transition and on which timescale? This is the question we want to address. Our first answer is that the emergence of a new hyper-productive mode of value creation, i.e. commons-based peer production as, a new ‘mode of production,’ and its co-emerging institutional framework, illuminate us about the incipient ‘patterns’ of the emergent new social order. The temporality of change is more complex as it involves the breakdown and end of a Kondratieff cycle (a seventy year cycle), then, on a deeper level, the exhaustion of the industrial model based on cheap fossil fuel (a 500 yr cycle), and on a even deeper level, the questioning of civilization itself, as a mode of exploiting nature (a 5,000 yr cycle). Given this deep change, what part of capitalism and the market can we expect to see surviving? What kind of ‘open business models’ and p2p-friendly market structures, may be expected to be part of the new mix? Though out, our talk will be based on extrapolating current and visible trends, not on ‘desires’ for a better society. Bio: Michel Bauwens is Peer-to-Peer theorist and an active writer, researcher and conference speaker on the subject of technology, culture and business innovation. He is the founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Foundation for P2P Alternatives: http://p2pfoundation.net/ Respondent for the session will be Chris Land Michel will also be presenting at Tent City University, as part of Occupy London, on December 10th at 11:00am. More information about that can be found here: http://tentcityuniversity.**occupylsx.org<http://tentcityuniversity.occupylsx.org> . # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/**listinfo/nettime-l<http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org

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