August 2014 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: COMMONS EVENTS at 4th Degrowth Conference /-> your help needed
by Michel Bauwens 15 Aug '14

15 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Silke Helfrich <silke.helfrich(a)gmx.de> Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 5:46 PM Subject: COMMONS EVENTS at 4th Degrowth Conference /-> your help needed To: commons(a)lists.riseup.net, Frédéric Sultan <fredericsultan(a)gmail.com>, Alain Ambrosi <ambrosia(a)web.ca>, Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net>, Kevin Flanagan <kevin(a)p2pvalue.eu>, Nicolas Krausz <nicolas.krausz(a)fph.ch>, Heike Loeschmann <Loeschmann(a)boell.de>, Ruby van der Wekken < rubyvdwekken(a)gmail.com>, "\"Claudia Gómez-Portugal M.\"" < claudia.sakbe(a)gmail.com>, Alexis * <alexis(a)sakbe.org.mx>, Friederike Habermann <Friede99(a)gmx.de>, Michael Narberhaus <michael(a)smart-csos.org>, Christian Siefkes <christian(a)siefkes.net>, "ellen(a)ellenfriedman.com" < ellen(a)ellenfriedman.com>, Jannis Kühne <jannis.kuehne(a)gmail.com>, " commoning(a)listen.jpberlin.de" <commoning(a)listen.jpberlin.de>, Jukka Peltokoski <jukka.peltokoski(a)gmail.com> Dear all, commoners & participants at the Degrowth Conference in Leipzig, I hereby spread a pad we've prepared to list the COMMONS RELATED events at the 4th International Degrowth Conference https://titanpad.com/Gjuw2Jl2zQ I'd like to kindly as you to contribute a few things by AUGUST 20 (sorry for the short notice): 1. I think it is helpful to add the venue/ room - because some are in the Audimax (max 800 ppl) others in small rooms (up to 40 ppl). This is important information ppl should see at first glance. 2. There are certainly many more commons related events in this vast and impressive programme. Please ADD THEM if you know off or take part in one, This is the only way to get a good overview. 3. SHARE THIS PAD and information with all the commoners you know off who will participate in Leipzig. 4. and most importantly: We've already scheduled (well, we "were scheduled) a NETWORKING MEETING on Thursday September 4, at 2:30 in Room S 215 (for about 30 ppl only) But this overlaps with events some of us (including me) need to attend. So, WE NEED ANOTHER SPACE to share with all of you first ideas of what might be something similar to this Degrowth Congress but for the Commons Movement in 2016. This seems especially important to me for European Commoners. Your suggestions are very welcome. Please help us to self-organize in Leipzig, it is such a wonderful ocasion and venue to get some of the work done we have on our agenda anyway. All the best Looking very much forward to see you all in Leipzig Silke Helfrich Commons Strategies Group and Commons-Institut e.V. Pd. I guess you meanwhile all know that registration to the conference has been closed with 2500 participants; hope you all registered in time. -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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new p2p calendar
by Michel Bauwens 15 Aug '14

15 Aug '14

We are starting a new public p2p calendar, now in private beta version, to be launched before August 25 I'll add one per day, if more come in, I'll forward with a request to add it, this is my first entry: http://blockupy.org/en/3866/blockupy-international-invites-european-movemen… -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Blockupy International Invites Movements, Networks, Organisations to an Open Assembly in Brussels. September 26-27
by Michel Bauwens 15 Aug '14

15 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Örsan Şenalp <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 2:17 AM Subject: [Networkedlabour] Blockupy International Invites Movements, Networks, Organisations to an Open Assembly in Brussels. September 26-27 To: squares <squares(a)lists.takethesquare.net>, " networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org" <networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>, " transcollab(a)lists.so36.net" <transcollab(a)lists.so36.net> Call for building together a transnational space of initiative for a Europe from below, through, against and beyond current Europe We, as Blockupy international coordinating group, met in Berlin on June 21st, to discuss the outcomes of the May of Solidarity and the future perspectives. During the days of mobilization actions were various and rich, and we valued positively that many have been organized from outside the May of Solidarity process. We also agreed that, though the Blockupy process is focused on mobilizing towards the opening of the new ECB building in Frankfurt (now scheduled for early 2015), an autonomous political initiative cannot be simply bounded to the dates established by the institutional agenda: we need a larger social and political perspective. The postponing of Turin EU summit on “youth employment”, on the other hand, has left many without a common space to gather, act and discuss. The message of May of Solidarity across Europe – “Solidarity beyond borders, building democracy from below!” – found much resonance, but a strong transnational movement is still to come and we know that no one, beginning with us, could consider themselves to be sufficient. We also know we are not alone in our attempts to link struggles across borders and to create a transnational resistance. We openly acknowledge our limits, and we recognize that different networks across the European space are facing that similar limits and contradictions. We do think it is time to turn this situation into a political opportunity. We therefore propose an open meeting to collectively examine the current phase and to strategically discuss our practices and our proposals to build a transnational space of initiative for a Europe from below, through, against and beyond current Europe. The Europe of the ruling classes might be itself in crisis again and again; it might be in continuous reorganization. However, what were before more nationally disparate austerity and saving programmes are being consolidated into the new status quo of the EU. This is the reality behind the rhetoric of the European governments claiming that the moment to go beyond austerity has come. Of course, “post-austerity” does not mean “benefits for all” or real changes for the better! Moreover, as a governing logic it is not “new”: austerity and privatization have been reality in Eastern Europe for twenty-something years now. Rather, we are facing a new phase characterized by the attempt to stabilize the social effects of austerity policies with transnational policy based on creating and exploiting different spaces. This is the logic of new processes of precarization and re-organization of exploitation taking place on a transnational scale, exemplified not least in the “Youth Guarantee” programme of labour governance, which are linked to the positioning of the EU within global value chains and to financial flows that go beyond the institutional borders of the European Union. In this way, Europe is becoming a space of transit and accumulation crisscrossed by differences, unbalances, regional and zonal dynamics. Mobility inside and across these spaces is thus becoming a crucial element, as the governments of Europe are managing welfare policies and the Schengen regime in order to exploit those movements practiced by people both with and without European passports who together make up the living labour force. These novelties are the political problem we have to face together in order to understand what to do next, how, and especially with whom to make Europe a space for transnational politics of radical change, also in so far as today the national space is more than ever too narrow. As the outcomes of the recent European elections show, it is not only that the national space is functional to racist and right wing solutions to the crisis, it is also that within the national space it is impossible to counter the power of global capitalism. In every respect a strong transnational movement is still to come. Of course the development of such movement will depend on the struggles taking place in daily life rooted in the social dimension, but they also depend on our ways to develop a common space – for strategizing and for finding common spaces of struggles. While an increase of networking has taken place in the past years, we still have not found the practices to translate separate struggles into a transnational movement. Our proposal to meet comes from a genuine desire to openly discuss together, in a practical way, how to turn the variety of networks and present agendas into a political opportunity for social movements to fight together and to build counter narratives, cooperation and lively shared practices of struggle. As Blockupy International coalition, we will mobilize towards the opening of the new ECB building – symbolically experiencing a common transnational space of struggle in the streets and in a very real way blocking production and circulation in Frankfurt, the financial capital of continental Europe. However, we have to ask ourselves whether we are able to re-organize and diffusely tackle the heart of the new regime of exploitation, which was built on the austerity policies in the last years. Therefore we propose to take that new phase of European post-austerity policy seriously. To fight against it, we have much to learn from each other. We know the current social relationships are based on debt and competitiveness on the one hand; precarity and working poor as the general condition of labour, institutional racism and a re-nationalization of citizenship on the other hand. It is also characterized by the attack on wages and incomes, on commons and welfare systems and the consequent restriction of the spaces for democracy. We know we must learn from experiences in places where austerity has long been the way of life, and thus we especially extend this invitation to our friends in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Starting from here, we propose to meet up and discuss about what we can do in order to produce an autonomous initiative at the transnational level, which tackles this relevant issue of post-austerity Europe posing few questions: How can we frame our heterogeneous struggles within and against the newly consolidated governmental regime based on the status quo of austerity and its enforcing institutions? Starting from the conditions of precarity of living and working, the issue of mobility, of Europe as space of transit and accumulation, how we can set our own agenda of mobilization for the upcoming months? How can we think of powerful, transnational social and political practices to address the new conditions of labour and life, building the possibilities to powerfully organize inside of them and to effectively strike against them? In which ways we can connect the different activities, practices, meeting points in and as a common process that could become an orienting shared “road map”? We believe it’s time to develop a powerful practical perspective, time to think about how to act together and how to build the strength we need to overturn the table. We also think that we must approach together the political problem of a transnational, Europe-wide strike around these different issues, how to organize it and how to really hurt the new exploitation regime. For these reasons, we invite all groups interested in a radical change perspective to meet in the evening of the 26th and have meeting all day on 27th September in Brussels for an open discussion which, starting from these inputs, can lead us to one or more days of common action and to build together a larger moment of analysis, exchange and political proposals towards a transnational space of movement, towards an autumn of struggles and some shared medium-term perspectives – in solidarity beyond borders. Feel free to forward this invitation to other networks, groups, organisations. Technical details will follow, please write to international(a)blockupy-frankfurt.org for info and if you interested in coming to Brussels. Dieser Post ist auch verfügbar auf: German _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Common Pools and Wage Funds -- A Reply to Simon Wren-Lewis
by Tom Walker 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

Common Pools and Wage Funds -- A Reply to Simon Wren-Lewis http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2014/08/common-pools-and-wage-funds-reply-to… Simon Wren-Lewis raises an extremely important issue regarding Inequality and the common pool problem <http://mainlymacro.blogspot.ca/2014/08/inequality-and-common-pool-problem.h…>: "there is a clear connection between the rise in incomes at the very top and lower real wages for everyone else." Wren-Lewis explains the common-pool problem as being "about how the impact of just one fisherman extracting more fish on the amount of fish in the lake is small, but if there are lots of fishermen doing the same we have a problem." This needs a bit more explanation. The problem has to do with the difficulty of excluding fishermen (or limiting the catch of any particular fisherman) and with the limitation on the amount of fish in the lake. The essential reference on this is Elinor Ostrom's discussion of common-pool resources. Two caveats: *difficult* does not mean *impossible* and *limited* doesn't mean *non-renewable* or *fixed in quantity*. When it comes to income, it is easy to get lost in a money illusion. Yes, incomes are measured and paid in money amounts. But what they provide are rights of access to material things -- goods and services, "the power of purchasing; a certain command over all the labour, or over all the produce of labour, which is then in the market" (Smith). Nominally, the amount of income can increase without limit. But in real terms, increases in income are constrained by the amount of goods and services available in the market. That last qualification, *the amount of goods and services available in the marke*t, has led to a prodigious amount of confusion in economic thought. The classical wages-fund doctrine *assumed* that the amount of wage goods available at any given time was fixed. Accordingly, if one group of workers formed a union to enforce a wage increase, their gain would be at the expense of other workers. The amount of goods and services in the market *at any given time* is not fixed. But the key to the confusion is not the stipulated quantity but the imaginary temporal dimension of a "given time." Zeno's paradox of the arrow involves the same logical conundrum of dividing time into points. In 1869, W. T. Thornton argued persuasively that the wages-fund doctrine was erroneous and John Stuart Mill concurred and "recanted" the wages-fund doctrine. Exactly *what *Mill recanted may be in dispute but that is beside the point -- the classical doctrine was consigned to the dustbin of history of political economy. Or so we are told... By virtue of one of the most miraculous metamorphoses <http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2014/08/making-sense-of-brad-delongs-making.…> imaginable, the old wages-fund doctrine, used by polemicists as a club against unions demanding higher wages was transformed into the theory of the lump-of-labor, allegedly assumed by trade unionists, whose fallacy was used by economists as a club against unions demanding higher wages. "Heads I win" seamlessly became "tails you lose." But, getting back to Wren-Lewis, isn't his contention that higher executive pay "has to come from somewhere [that is, from the other 99%]" a reversion to the wages-fund -- or lump of labor -- doctrine/fallacy? No, it isn't. But this requires more explanation. There are not one, but two illusions at work here. One is the money illusion. The other is the point-in-time illusion. Combined, these two illusions constitute a powerful temptation to cognitive dissonance. To dispel those two illusions, let's first go back to Adam Smith's definition of wealth: "a certain command over all the labour, or over all the produce of labour, which is then in the market." 'Labor' appears to refer to a definite quantity and 'then' appears to refer to a definite point in time. Labor is not, however, a *discrete* distinction and a "point" in time is strictly conceptual. Just as with Zeno's arrow, no labor is performed in a "point in time." Labor can only be performed *over a duration,* be it an hour, a day, a week, a year or a lifetime. Furthermore, the amount of labor performed by one person during any interval of time is variable. It is not infinitely variable but it is flexible within certain definite limits. The expression labor-power indicates this characteristic of labor as *potentially* equivalent to a given quantity of production. So, we can now amend Smith's definition as follows: income represents command over a portion of the labor-power in the market during a given extension of time. This definition could be further refined but the point that I want to get to is that it is the labor-power that constitutes the common-pool resource. The amount of goods and services that corresponds to this amount of labor-power is not fixed -- but neither is it "infinitely" variable. The extent to which real GDP may vary depends on people's capacity to work, on their motivation and on their opportunities for employment, all of which may be affected by the distribution of income. In other words, great inequalities of income may well *diminish* the common pool of goods and services -- and ultimately of labor-power itself -- from which incomes are derived. That is, executive pay may be taking a bigger slice of a pie that is smaller than it would be if executives weren't taking such a big slice of it. Or to put it bluntly, they may be being richly rewarded for a *negative* contribution to social production that results from their excessive incomes! There is much more that can said (and has been said <http://www.scribd.com/doc/44657733/Time-on-the-Ledger-Social-Accounting-for…>) about both the implications and the background of the analysis of labor-power as a common-pool resource <http://commonsandeconomics.org/groups/stream-2-labor-and-care/forum/topic/l…>. I will pause for now to see how the conversation unfolds. -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)

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Fwd: Blockupy International Invites Movements, Networks, Organisations to an Open Assembly in Brussels. September 26-27
by Örsan Şenalp 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

reposting the below: Call for building together a transnational space of initiative for a Europe from below, through, against and beyond current Europe We, as Blockupy international coordinating group, met in Berlin on June 21st, to discuss the outcomes of the May of Solidarity and the future perspectives. During the days of mobilization actions were various and rich, and we valued positively that many have been organized from outside the May of Solidarity process. We also agreed that, though the Blockupy process is focused on mobilizing towards the opening of the new ECB building in Frankfurt (now scheduled for early 2015), an autonomous political initiative cannot be simply bounded to the dates established by the institutional agenda: we need a larger social and political perspective. The postponing of Turin EU summit on “youth employment”, on the other hand, has left many without a common space to gather, act and discuss. The message of May of Solidarity across Europe – “Solidarity beyond borders, building democracy from below!” – found much resonance, but a strong transnational movement is still to come and we know that no one, beginning with us, could consider themselves to be sufficient. We also know we are not alone in our attempts to link struggles across borders and to create a transnational resistance. We openly acknowledge our limits, and we recognize that different networks across the European space are facing that similar limits and contradictions. We do think it is time to turn this situation into a political opportunity. We therefore propose an open meeting to collectively examine the current phase and to strategically discuss our practices and our proposals to build a transnational space of initiative for a Europe from below, through, against and beyond current Europe. The Europe of the ruling classes might be itself in crisis again and again; it might be in continuous reorganization. However, what were before more nationally disparate austerity and saving programmes are being consolidated into the new status quo of the EU. This is the reality behind the rhetoric of the European governments claiming that the moment to go beyond austerity has come. Of course, “post-austerity” does not mean “benefits for all” or real changes for the better! Moreover, as a governing logic it is not “new”: austerity and privatization have been reality in Eastern Europe for twenty-something years now. Rather, we are facing a new phase characterized by the attempt to stabilize the social effects of austerity policies with transnational policy based on creating and exploiting different spaces. This is the logic of new processes of precarization and re-organization of exploitation taking place on a transnational scale, exemplified not least in the “Youth Guarantee” programme of labour governance, which are linked to the positioning of the EU within global value chains and to financial flows that go beyond the institutional borders of the European Union. In this way, Europe is becoming a space of transit and accumulation crisscrossed by differences, unbalances, regional and zonal dynamics. Mobility inside and across these spaces is thus becoming a crucial element, as the governments of Europe are managing welfare policies and the Schengen regime in order to exploit those movements practiced by people both with and without European passports who together make up the living labour force. These novelties are the political problem we have to face together in order to understand what to do next, how, and especially with whom to make Europe a space for transnational politics of radical change, also in so far as today the national space is more than ever too narrow. As the outcomes of the recent European elections show, it is not only that the national space is functional to racist and right wing solutions to the crisis, it is also that within the national space it is impossible to counter the power of global capitalism. In every respect a strong transnational movement is still to come. Of course the development of such movement will depend on the struggles taking place in daily life rooted in the social dimension, but they also depend on our ways to develop a common space – for strategizing and for finding common spaces of struggles. While an increase of networking has taken place in the past years, we still have not found the practices to translate separate struggles into a transnational movement. Our proposal to meet comes from a genuine desire to openly discuss together, in a practical way, how to turn the variety of networks and present agendas into a political opportunity for social movements to fight together and to build counter narratives, cooperation and lively shared practices of struggle. As Blockupy International coalition, we will mobilize towards the opening of the new ECB building – symbolically experiencing a common transnational space of struggle in the streets and in a very real way blocking production and circulation in Frankfurt, the financial capital of continental Europe. However, we have to ask ourselves whether we are able to re-organize and diffusely tackle the heart of the new regime of exploitation, which was built on the austerity policies in the last years. Therefore we propose to take that new phase of European post-austerity policy seriously. To fight against it, we have much to learn from each other. We know the current social relationships are based on debt and competitiveness on the one hand; precarity and working poor as the general condition of labour, institutional racism and a re-nationalization of citizenship on the other hand. It is also characterized by the attack on wages and incomes, on commons and welfare systems and the consequent restriction of the spaces for democracy. We know we must learn from experiences in places where austerity has long been the way of life, and thus we especially extend this invitation to our friends in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Starting from here, we propose to meet up and discuss about what we can do in order to produce an autonomous initiative at the transnational level, which tackles this relevant issue of post-austerity Europe posing few questions: How can we frame our heterogeneous struggles within and against the newly consolidated governmental regime based on the status quo of austerity and its enforcing institutions? Starting from the conditions of precarity of living and working, the issue of mobility, of Europe as space of transit and accumulation, how we can set our own agenda of mobilization for the upcoming months? How can we think of powerful, transnational social and political practices to address the new conditions of labour and life, building the possibilities to powerfully organize inside of them and to effectively strike against them? In which ways we can connect the different activities, practices, meeting points in and as a common process that could become an orienting shared “road map”? We believe it’s time to develop a powerful practical perspective, time to think about how to act together and how to build the strength we need to overturn the table. We also think that we must approach together the political problem of a transnational, Europe-wide strike around these different issues, how to organize it and how to really hurt the new exploitation regime. For these reasons, we invite all groups interested in a radical change perspective to meet in the evening of the 26th and have meeting all day on 27th September in Brussels for an open discussion which, starting from these inputs, can lead us to one or more days of common action and to build together a larger moment of analysis, exchange and political proposals towards a transnational space of movement, towards an autumn of struggles and some shared medium-term perspectives – in solidarity beyond borders. Feel free to forward this invitation to other networks, groups, organisations. Technical details will follow, please write to international(a)blockupy-frankfurt.org for info and if you interested in coming to Brussels. Dieser Post ist auch verfügbar auf: German http://blockupy.org/en/3866/blockupy-international-invites-european-movemen…

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Fwd: ZNet Commentary: Jack Rasmus: The New Global Finance Capital Elite
by Michel Bauwens 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: ZCommunications <no-reply(a)zcomm.org> Date: Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:57 PM Subject: ZNet Commentary: Jack Rasmus: The New Global Finance Capital Elite To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…>. Jack Rasmus: The New Global Finance Capital EliteZ Communications Daily Commentary A practice and loophole that emerged around 2008, US corporate tax ‘inversions’—the latest version in a long list of US transnational corporation tax scams—have taken off in 2014. A tax inversion is set in motion when a US based corporation buys another company offshore and then manipulates the tax codes of both countries to extract the greatest net tax reduction. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland and others are favorite locales for ‘inversions’ of late. And US corporations and industries at the forefront of this new wave are typically pharmaceutical, technology, cable tv, entertainment, medical equipment, finance, and related retail companies—with many others waiting in the wings as well. Briefly, here’s how it works: After purchasing an offshore company, the US company then designates its global headquarters as located in the new country of its purchase. With its headquarters now outside the US, the company can now transfer profits made in the USA, via various ‘intra-company price transfer’ tricks, to the foreign based headquarters and country where effective tax rates are lower and where various US tax code offshore loopholes are available to US transnational corporations. The US purchasing company can also transfer its offshore debt from the purchased company to its US operations in turn. The higher debt and resulting higher interest payments on that debt are deductible from US corporate taxes, according to US tax law. The ‘inversion’ deal thus provides a double tax cut advantage to the US corporation. But that’s only the beginning. The gains to be realized are not only from US tax code manipulation by the purchasing non-financial corporation. Shadow bankers and their financial speculators (i.e. hedge funds, private equity firms, investment banks, insurance companies, etc.) are also big beneficiaries of the Merger & Acquisition process at the heart of what appears on the surface, in the case of the tax inversion, as ‘just’ another transnational US corporate tax scam. Lower taxes for the US corporation from the inversion means more retained corporate cash on hand, and the prospect of more future earnings as well, all of which in turn drives up the company’s stock price. That makes the company even more attractive to investors like hedge funds and equity firms, which buy up big blocks of both the purchasing and purchased companies’ stock. Banks and shadow bankers that jump into the process at the outset, buying up company stock in the process, also provide original funding for the company’s purchase. Others jump into the stock as the acquisition deal proceeds. Once concluded, early and latecomers both then reap a nice capital gain from the eventual stock price appreciation that almost always follows the deal. So the profits gained are not just from tax reduction for the US purchasing company, but are financial and related to asset price speculation associated with the ‘tax inversion’ process and acquisition itself. The practice of inversions gained public attention earlier this year with the US drug giant, Pfizer, attempting to purchase the UK drug firm, Astrazeneca. Pfizer offered more than $69 billion to purchase Astrazeneca, but was rebuffed by the latter’s shareholders, who wanted even more. The key role of hedge funds and shadow bankers in the Pfizer-Astrazeneca deal was clearly evident from the start, since Pfizer did not put up the lion’s share of its $69 billion offer for Astrazeneca from its own retained cash. The big block of financing was to come from its hedge funds and other shadow banker partners and outside investors. In many cases hedge funds (aka Vulture Funds) and other shadow bankers are the initiators and instigators behind the acquisition. They are at the forefront, prodding US corporation managements to ‘invert’. A good example is the recent case of Walgreen, the US drug retailer. Its major investor, the hedge fund, Jana Partners LLC, pushed hard for Walgreen to move its headquarters to Switzerland or the UK. This kind of pressure from funds like Jana Partners makes it difficult for corporate CEOs to resist, since the hedge fund can always turn to the company’s stockholders and have them put pressure on the management to do the deal, if they don’t want to deal with a stockholder ‘revolt’ and want to keep their corporate jobs. Major stockholders see the opportunity for significant capital gains from stock appreciation in tax inversion deals, and together with the Hedge Funds demand that management undertake the corporate purchase and headquarters relocation. In other words, while it appears that corporations gain at the public taxpayer expense through corporate tax reduction—which they clearly do—even greater gains come from financial speculation that benefit investors, big shareholders, and senior management of the purchasing company as well. In the Walgreen case, last week it was announced that Walgreen was backing off the purchase—for now. The timing was not right, apparently, coming just before a midterm election in the US for a company dependent on US government subsidies to its customers with which to buy its drugs. But the hesitation by Walgreen is probably temporary, to resume after the November elections when the ‘tax inversion’ loophole gets addressed in comprehensive US corporate tax revision legislation that US corporations have been demanding of the Obama administration and Congress for several years now. Corporate managers as well as hedge fund speculators benefit nicely from tax inversions. They are typically offered a ‘sweet incentive’ by their hedge fund investors and other big shareholders to do an inversion deal. So it’s not just the possible threat of a stockholder revolt, instigated by the company’s in house big fund investors, that incentivizes more corporate managers to jump on the tax inversion bandwagon. Senior managers stand to gain greatly as well from stock price appreciation in the wake of the deals. Often their personal income tax bill from selling their own personal stock holdings after the company’s stock price rises from the deal is covered by their companies. Their own personal capital gains from the deals is often ‘grossed up’ by their company (i.e. paid for out of the company’s earnings) as part of the deal. So all levels of financial speculators benefit from these ‘inversion’ deals—shadow bank investors, hedge fund managers, big stockholders, and top corporate managers with significant stock holdings and compensation—all realize big capital gains from stock price manipulation that is at the core of tax inversion deals. Again, it is not just about tax avoidance; it is about stock price manipulation and huge capital gains. Long term the benefits for the company may be from corporate tax reduction; but short term the big speculative profits rip-off is from engineering stock speculation and other forms of financial manipulation. In the past year there has emerged a veritable ‘wave’ of corporate inversion deals erupting. And the potential loss to US corporate tax revenue, should the trend continue, is considered significant by many estimates. The Obama administration this past summer raised the possibility it may support legislation to curb the practice. But the political outlook of such before the midterm elections in November 2014 is practically nil, so far as passage of legislation to check the trend is concerned. While bills have been introduced earlier this year by a few liberal Senators, the Obama administration so far has been mostly just talking about supporting such legislation, or offering proposals tweaking the requirements for allowing inversions, not actually preventing them. What’s going on politically in the administration and Congress is therefore just ‘grandstanding’ to make it appear they are concerned. Nothing will happen before the November midterm elections. Political elements of both parties in the USA are eyeing the period after the election, during which the US tax code and general corporate tax revisions and cuts will be taken up. An institutionalizing of rules governing corporate tax inversions going forward will undoubtedly be part of that comprehensive corporate tax revision. Tax inversions are not going away; they have only just begun. The ‘inversion’ trend is another example of the growing dominance of the global finance capitalist elite, who are deeply entrenched in the USA and UK in particular, but worldwide growing in terms of numbers and absolute wealth as well. This elite is deepening its control of nonfinancial companies and are increasingly directing those companies increasingly toward profits growth from financial manipulation as the primary corporate activity—in this case ‘inversions’ and corporate mergers and acquisitions activity. Instead of making profits by making real things that require real investment and the employ real people, the focus of global capitalism is increasingly toward more financial asset investment—i.e. investment that produces even quicker, more lucrative profits growth than old fashioned ‘real’ investment that makes things that creates jobs and income for people to buy the things. Global capitalism is growing progressively less interested in making things for profit than it is in generating forms of money capital as profit. Those engaged in financial asset investment (i.e. financial elite) are therefore accruing an ever larger share of global income and wealth for themselves, while those who were once participating in investment producing goods are finding their share of income in steady relative decline. Global shadow banks now control more than $70 trillion in investible assets, according to such ‘radical’ sources as the *Financial Times* global periodical. And very high net worth investors, about 200,000 individuals worldwide with annual income flows of $30 million or more from existing assets—i.e. the new global finance capital elite—now own close to half of that $70 trillion in investible assets. And their assets are projected to rise another $10 trillion by 2017. Inversions’ and related M&A activity are but one example of a growing emphasis of global capitalism on financial forms of speculative ‘investment’ in the 21st century. Inversions are but the latest example of this global relative shift toward financial speculative investing. The growing shift by non-financial corporations toward ‘portfolio’ investing; the growing trend toward speculating in M&A, derivatives, old and new forms of bonds, dark pools of stocks, and other proliferating forms of securitized financial securities; the explosive growth of shadow banking institutions worldwide; the spread of liquid financial markets in which to speculate; and the accelerating ranks and assets of very high net worth investors worldwide—two third of whom are located in the US and Europe—are all examples of the new trends in 21st century global capitalism as it shifts toward greater reliance on financial profit making. US politicians will not only fail to stop inversions, but following the November 2014 midterm elections, watch for both wings of the US Corporate Party in the USA to come together and legislate a new comprehensive corporate tax cut. Included in that new code will be new terms governing future global corporate tax inversions—as well as a likely major reduction in the official US corporate tax rate to 28% or less that has been promised by both Obama and the Republicans for the past two years but has been postponed until the coming November midterm elections. *Jack Rasmus is the author of ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression’ (2010) and ‘Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few’(2012), by Pluto Press, London, UK, and the forthcoming ‘Transitions to Global Depression’(2015). He hosts the Alternative Visions radio show on the Progressive Radio Network, and serves as the ‘Shadow’ Federal Reserve Chair, in the Green Shadow Cabinet. His website is * *www.kyklosproductions.com* <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…>*. He blogs at **jackrasmus.com* <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…>*, and tweets at @drjackrasmus.* ZCommunications, 18 Millfield St., Woods Hole, MA, USA, 02543 Unsubscribe <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…> | Manage Subscription <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…> If you'd like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails click here <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/unsubscribe?upn=V-2FUUiW5KvBPNV-2FItFYsbuIFOqr58Na…> . -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Searching for radicalism in a corporate age
by Michel Bauwens 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:46 PM Subject: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Searching for radicalism in a corporate age To: "<networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>" < networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> Another interesting read: Begin forwarded message: *From:* "Brian K. Murphy" <brian(a)radicalroad.com> *Date:* 14 augustus 2014 13:26:20 CEST *To:* <worldsocialforum-discuss(a)openspaceforum.net> *Subject:* *[WSF-Discuss] Searching for radicalism in a corporate age* *Reply-To:* Discussion list about the WSF < worldsocialforum-discuss(a)openspaceforum.net> http://greattransition.org/document/searching-for-radicalism-in-a-co rporate-age *Searching for Radicalism in a Corporate Age* *Review and discussion of: Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism, by Peter Dauvergne and Geneviere LeBaron, Polity, 200 pp.* by Gus Speth, July 2014 As national and international challenges mount across the full spectrum of human affairs, and as more and more acute observers conclude that the problems we face trace back one way or another to our system of political economy-the corporatist, consumerist capitalism that we have today-it is timely to ask, where is the activism that might change the system? Some would say that it is currently surging. But Peter Dauvergne and Geneviere LeBaron in their new book* Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism* are skeptical. Addressing the prospects for an organized transnational movement, they see "little chance of a global grassroots uprising able to transform the world order." Turning to the possibility of a more decentralized "movement of movements," they ask, "Do the facts really suggest that mobilizing the grassroots in this way can ever slow globalization? Or replace capitalism? Or achieve peace and justice? Many activists certainly think so. But our analysis suggests that this is unlikely, and gets unlikelier with each passing year." What Dauvergne and LeBaron see as critical to the goals they seek is the rise of a radical activism that will "challenge political and corporate authority and call for structural changeŠSolutions for radical activists cannot arise from within the structures of the capitalist system but must instead get at the root causes." "What we are trying to understand," they write, "is why so many activists within longstanding social and environmental movements are increasingly accepting and working within the frame of global capitalism." The book's great value lies in its contribution to the analysis of the headwinds driving against the rise of this radical activism. Prominent in their analysis is the active suppression and discouragement of dissent. The authors contrast the escalating protests pre-9/11-at international trade talks, World Bank meetings, G8 summits, and elsewhere-with the post-9/11 situation and the concurrent increasing frequency of paramilitary policing, forced emptying of streets and parks, criminalization of protests, branding of protesters as terrorists, and heightened surveillance of activists. Another headwind they describe is the breakdown of social capital, group solidarity, and shared political consciousness-in short, the loss of the infrastructure of dissent. Runaway businesses, throwaway cities, and fast-moving populations-and, in the United States, the decline in union membership-have all contributed to this breakdown. We have lost many of the most important settings where group dissent can be born. Closely related to these patterns is the individualization of responsibility. The fault, dear friends, is not in the system but in ourselves. We need to buy more that is fair trade, GMO-free, and organic. If only we all drove Priuses, then we could save XYZ tons of carbon from going into the air. In the process, the authors note, we channel more and more time and energy into the market as consumers, and less and less time as citizens collectively addressing the paucity of responsible consumer choices and the curse of consumerism generally. "With social life privatizing and fragmenting," the authors note, "activism and politics require more time, just as people have less and less time to become involved." *Protest Inc.* also highlights the enclosure of activism in increasingly large and bureaucratic NGOs. In the NGO world, there are three dominant, interconnected imperatives: winning victories, getting credit for one's accomplishments, and raising money. In many, perhaps most, contexts today, the desire to be "effective" compels NGOs to a certain tameness. We see this, for example, in the severely circumscribed world of climate action advocacy in Washington, DC, today. The imperative to get credit for accomplishments and to raise funds to get more underlie the current fracturing of each progressive cause into an often bewildering array of separate, competing groups, each promoting its own brand. And in our world of creeping corporatocracy and plutocracy, NGO success on all three fronts can benefit greatly from close links to business and family wealth. But the closer one gets, the narrower the range of acceptable critique becomes. I suspect there are other forces sapping the strength of radical activism. Certainly, in the United States, there are some who see our situation as overwhelming and hopeless-too far gone to save, more* game-over* than* game-on*. Even more find it all too painful or difficult to think about, so they do not even try. Others who might be prepared to struggle ask, for what? Quietly, they fear that Margaret Thatcher was correct when she famously said that "there is no alternative." Clearly, more needs to be done to establish with a wide public the plausible possibility of a Great Transition to a new political economy-the next system. Dauvergne and LeBaron package their core points and much more in what they call the* corporatization of activism* (though not everything fits neatly). They see an overall trend towards a situation where "more and more corporations [are] financing and partnering with activist groups [and] activists are increasingly communicating, arguing, and situating goals within a corporatized frame." They see a world "where the agendas, discourse, questions, and proposed solutions of human rights, gender equality, social justice, animal rights, and environmental activist organizations increasingly conform with, rather than challenge, global capitalism." Overall,* Protest Inc.* is feisty, provocative, and persuasive on many points, and it raises vital issues. Where is radical activism when we need it? Can we expect existing environmental and other NGOs to deliver it? The book is not optimistic on either question. Nor should the reader expect a bold plan of action. The authors' goal, they say, is to sound a loud alarm, to send a warning shot "across the bows of corporatizing activism, moving along conversations among activists about strategy and encouraging re-evaluation of public policies that stifle grassroots activism." But the book has definite shortcomings. Like the authors, I believe some important things can be seen best from 30,000 feet, but this book carries that approach to an extreme. It often overgeneralizes and overstates, only to be forced into repeated 'let-us-be-clear-what-we're-not-saying' qualifications. It takes a lot of easy shots at groups like the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International, as if anyone ever expected them to be radical activists. The authors also see a trend of increasing NGO coziness with corporations and capitalism and a weakening of NGO resolve to challenge the system. At least judging from my experience with environmental NGOs, my reading of history is a little different. The main environmental NGOs opted to work within the system well over 40 years ago, and little has changed on that score since then. My concern, which I have now written up several times, is that we should have changed. We should have realized that we were winning battles but losing the planet and that we should reassess our strategy and launch a new environmentalism aimed at systemic changes that could lead us to a new economy and a new politics. My larger concern with the book, though, is its failure to look more searchingly at the prospects for deep, transformative change. The issue deserves more than the brief invocation of "corporatization." It would be helpful to know, for example, what the authors' theory of change is. Even with the long odds they see, if they have not abandoned hope altogether (and the book itself is good evidence that they have not), there must be some set of circumstances that they would agree might launch a Great Transition. What are they? Here, the authors would do well to consult for guidance the work on scenarios, agency, and strategy gathered on this website. Certainly, the potential role of crises features prominently in many such analyses, but says little about crises and essentially nothing about the climate change tsunami right off shore. Linked to the omission of a theory of change is the failure to look systematically at whether the levers of change are beginning to move. I, for one, think that they are and that we are seeing the birth of a new activism, some of it radical in both intent and method. But I would have liked to know more about what the authors think. Regardless of who has the better crystal ball on this matter, Dauvergne and LeBaron are right that societies are perilously close to losing the ability cope and that large NGOs have failed to face up to the extent of change needed. *************** *Gus Speth* is an Associate Fellow at Tellus Institute and a professor at the Vermont Law School. Previously, he was the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and chairman of the US Council on Environmental Quality. He is the founder of the World Resources Institute and the co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council. His latest book is a memoir,* Angels by the River*, to be published by Chelsea Green Publishers in October 2014. *See more at: http://greattransition.org/document/searching-for-radicalism-in-a-cor <http://greattransition.org/document/searching-for-radicalism-in-a-cor>porate-age#sthash.M6WKOr0E.dpuf* _______________________________________________ ** WSFDiscuss is an open and unmoderated forum for the exchange of information and views on the experience, practise, and theory of the World Social Forum at any level (local, national, regional, and global) and on related social and political movements and issues. Join in !** _______________________________________________ WSFDiscuss mailing list POST to LIST : Send email to WorldSocialForum-Discuss(a)openspaceforum.net SUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe(a)openspaceforum.net UNSUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-unsubscribe(a)openspaceforum.net LIST ARCHIVES: http://openspaceforum.net/pipermail/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspaceforum… LIST INFORMATION: http://openspaceforum.net/mailman/listinfo/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspa… _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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History of abuse of power
by willi uebelherr 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

Dear friends, this is the translation of the statement from Quiliro to the exclusion from him and me on the P2P-lang-es maillist. For me, this exclusion is an act of fascism: "If you are not my friend, you are my enemy". All Yes-sayer are grouped together. All Not-Yes-sayer are attacked and defamed. This method was applied for all those, who do not clearly behaved as friends and follower. But this methods are totally incompatible to the principles of P2P in a free environment. This is pure Stalinism. We never need the monotony in our search of the truth. In the monotony, we find no development. The unity in diversity is our principle. many greetings, willi Popayan, Colombia History of abuse of power I present the following chronicle as a meditation about how people which say they want the well being of society but they carry on actions that are contrary to it when they exert their power against a majority, or worse yet, a minority. Although exerting power over a majority is more scandalous, exerting it against a minority is more hurtful, unjust and perverse because of tho minoryty's low capacity to exert counterforce and defend itself. It all starts with a project in which four foreign people propose the ecuadorian government the change of the production matrix to one of libre knowledge. They speak of community and of sumak kawsay. They convince a lot of local and foreign activists that this can have big impact. However, some people begin to notice the inconsistency of this project and of its intent of attaining impact on the media instead of making real change since various of the participants show that tho project was acting against its own precepts of freedom, endogenous creation and inclusion. The proponents of the project use tools that are not free in networks that are not free, bring in foreign preconceived precepts and try to justify their suitability by promoting them instead of investigating what are the local people's needs. Finally they segregate the people that make observations to these practices by convincing a large majority of locals and foreigners that the project with such construction and its presence in media is better that the deep observations made by those who criticize it. This type of exacerbation of the feelings of the group causes that the activists charge in a blind persecution of those who do made observations by using tactics of discredit, censorship and banishing opposers from the project. This type of practice would not surprise me if it came from the extreme right or from socialism of the 20th century. However from a group of people that organizes horizontaly under the scheme of respect of all beings including of nature as is proposed in "sumak kawsay", anarchism, socialism of the 21st century and the P2P commons, I can not understand imposition, censorship and exclusion. Instead, the Right, Stalinism and Robespierre have characterised themselves by guillotining those who question their positions and decisions. A true progresivism evolves away from destructive competition into constructive collaboration within diversity. The contrary carries to self destruction. The story ends with the debate of censorship in other spaces of P2P and with the capture of the mailing list of the P2P Foundation in Spanish with its stealth change of name in light of the questioning of the list as it shows in: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-lang-es/2013-february/000000.html This story is not new. It is the modus operandi of all dictatorships. It may be that I was the dictator. But then, where is my realm? Who can prove that I imposed my power and censorship upon others? If is not me but someone else then, who is the one which has this power? Perhaps I am an agitator. But it is to agitate the minds towards thinking and to not to letting them be manipulated by persons that use the feelings of the people against of their own deep interests. Saludos libres, Quiliro Ordóñez

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Book of the Day: Copyright Masquerade
by willi uebelherr 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

(in the first i used the wrong mail account) Dear friends, thanks to hartsellml for this text. Without to read the full book, i formulate two answers. 1) knowledge is always world heritage. We never need any private (individual or group) ownership of knowledge. And we never accept it. 2) We have to build our own Internet, the inter-connection of local networks. Based on the geografical location for the IP address. Then and only then we can be independent. many greetings, willi Popayan, Colombia -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Book of the Day: Copyright Masquerade Datum: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 16:00:52 PDT Von: hartsellml Book of the Day: Copyright Masquerade *A Copyright Masquerade by Monica Horten* URL = http://www.amazon.com/dp/1780326408/electronicfro-20 *Review by Parker Higgins (EFF)*: “Veteran journalist Dr. Monica Horten goes deep into the details of how the entertainment industries gain political sway, and how policymakers respond to the industry’s advances.” Horten focuses on three recent policy initiatives, and painstakingly pulls together facts from publicly available sources about how those proposals came together. By comparing the development of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the Spanish “Ley Sinde,” and the UK’s Digital Economy Act, she draws a clear picture of the mechanisms that play into each of the debates, and who is behind them. A major part of that story is the export of U.S. intellectual property policy abroad. To that end, Horten looks at the history and the development of the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual “Special 301″ report, a document mandated by law which must list countries that do not provide “adequate and protective” protection of intellectual property rights. Horten makes a solid case that the U.S. entertainment industry lobbying played a direct and deliberate role in establishing the Special 301. With the background on Special 301, its role in shaping ACTA and Ley Sinde becomes that much more apparent. Legislators are asked to approach many problems as experts, but are rarely given the time or information to do so. The standard corporate exploitation of that mismatch is to present those legislators with information favorable to industry position. Horten tracks how the copyright industries have taken this bargain a step further, pushing for the creation of whole new structures like the Special 301 report that funnel industry-friendly information to legislators with the imprimatur of government legitimacy. Moreover, that system itself has been refined over the years to create a default condition that advances the copyright lobby’s goals. At the behest of the copyright industries, the U.S. Trade Representative must critique laws all over the world to a maximalist IP standard; as a result of its findings, countries around the globe are put under great pressure to change those laws. While documenting this process, Horten provides meticulous footnotes that point to public documents and legislative proceedings. Beyond providing sources, these footnotes reveal a history of otherwise uncaptured expertise: many cite live web streams of policy debates dating back years, watched by Horten at the time. The landscape Horten describes may be bleak for those who would like to see evidence-based copyright policy, but it’s not hopeless. After all, each of the major case studies she documents have been diminished, delayed, or defeated by popular opposition. Money and connections play a major role in politics, but few politicians can afford to ignore real and widespread dissatisfaction. A Copyright Masquerade is no handbook for activism, but it does describe effectively what political pressure points activists have been able to successfully press. In presenting the stories of activism that have slowed or stopped proposals that had the full backing of the copyright industries, Horten raises an important question. What is so compelling about copyright policy that it gets Internet users up in arms, draws resignations from EU officials, and leads to street protests in actual freezing temperatures? Again, Horten’s got an answer. It’s a familiar one to those versed in copyright debates. Whether the copyright industries are seeking measures that filter content (like blacklisting sites from Domain Name Servers, search engines, or payment providers) or measures that restrict user access (like graduated response programs that result in a slow-down or suspension of Internet connections), the effect is the same. When the Internet as a communications medium is the target, users’ essential freedoms and civil liberties are all too often collateral damage.” (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/copyright-masquerade-corporate-lobbyi…)

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market orientation
by willi uebelherr 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

Dear friends, on the maillist from NetworkedLabour, now i am excluded, Michel wrote in a discussion: -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Re: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: Ontogenesis and the Negation of Life and Death (was Re: Internet: the INTER-connection of local NET-works) Datum: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:04:28 +0700 Von: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> An: networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org <networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> the first email I ever got from willi was an accusation that I was an austrian economist, the very people I have been fighting for so many years; I have since simply ignored any email communication coming from him; I am surprised that people are so tolerant against systematic ad hominem attacks that are often slanderous and based on pure ignorance and projection; we used to manage this on p2p-f list, asking people to focus on arguments ... but once I gave up , I notice no one else seems to care about this deterioration of discourse ethics, Michel On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 8:13 AM, Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I set up a gmail filter because I was getting sick of willi > free.market.anticapitalist from Kevin Carson. What is that? Yes Michel. The PPL is a "free market" instrument. Independent of your intention. And independent, that you think, you fight against the "austrian economist", you act at the same level with your PPL. We have read the critical reflection from Jakob Rigi and Stephan Meretz. You don't like the principal discussion about market orientation. Then you write, i have say, you are a CIA agent. But you know very clear, that never i do it. But Hellekin do it to me. It is not important. It is like the "political commissars" from Cuba in Venezuela. They don't like to args in a discussion. Therefore they have generated this personal slander. Like Hellekin and some people in the P2P-lang-es maillist. The market orientation have only one goal. To create a parasitic space. For that they organize the money system. And they create the term "knowledge worker". People who never work for their material livelihood. They live from the work of others. But in our future it is impossible. All people have to be part of this working. Then we can reduce the necessary labor to 8 hours or lesser in the week. As an average. Of course, for many tasks we concentrate our labour time. If we construct machines or electronic systems we need the concentration of time. But what people in this lists and discussion environment have ever been active in the real working? Oriented to the material forming for that, what we need for our life? Only very few. The most are only speakers and writers. No more. This is the core for "market orientation". Because you have nothing for directly exchange, you need the abstraction level of a money system. Very simple. many greetings, willi Popayan, Colombia

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