Damage to the environment is an externality that can be addressed (nothing is perfect) through taxes & subsidies. Capturing/measuring the costs is often difficult and relies on current technologies and legal structures. Poverty & inequality are in different categories and no “system” can eradicate them. Scarcity of resources and risk-taking play major roles in allocation, and choices become skewed as decisions are controlled by govt policies, religion, culture & personal ethics. Consider the simple example of providing HIV drugs to poor populations. Lengthening lives results in the infection of many more individuals unless the culture “buys in” to prevention like condom use. Profits pay for the returns to risk in bringing a product to market. Once a product successfully hits the street, competitors are encouraged until a dynamic equilibrium is reached and in the long-run profit is roughly equivalent to the interest rate plus depreciation. Today we have nothing close to that due to cartels, monopoly behavior, collusion, FED manipulation of interest rates, insufficient or over-regulation & favoritism etc. etc.,, all now made more complex on a global scale.
Short Run vs Long Run & Individual vs Group considerations also interfere with desired results. Granted, things are a horrible, F’ed Up mess and there’s lots of criminal behavior going on, but you can’t blame it all on “seeking profits” Prices and profits are just signals.
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson")
 
natalie: ideology aside, do you have any evidence for the efficient allocation of resources,

are you aware of the damage being done to the environment, on rising inequality, on persistent povery and hunger in the world?

in actual fact, corporations are the engine of systematic misallocation of resources, and precisely because of the profit maximisation logic,

I recommend reading peter barnes' capitalism 3.0 (but especially his new upcoming book), and kelly's divine right of capital,

Michel

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:48 AM, Natalie Golovin <10natalie@cox.net> wrote:
As to examples..I believe Kaiser Permanente is a model for cost-savings in
the health care industry and also highly rated in patient outcomes It's
essentially a not-for-profit Co-op of Doctors.
As to general corporations, I don't see anything wrong with profit as a
concept that motivates efficient allocation of resources. The problems arise
from the time horizons & how the profits are dispersed.

-----Original Message-----
From: mrc
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 11:07 AM
To: P2P Foundation mailing list
Cc: Patrick Anderson
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was:
"corporateperson")

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On 11/23/2011 05:30 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>> much better is to change the DNA and
>> not make them profit maximizers
>
> It *is* possible to change the DNA (or 'goals')
> of corporations

do you know any who'd let their legal advantadges derived of their
"corporation" status ?

(i'd like to know more about in comparision with the cooperative or
association status for example) some examples


i.e. get to use an account from our bank accounts sharing world network
for fundraising for your project.

i.e.2.
get to use our legal number for doing your construction work if you
invest what you get from that job in a 'nice' project (aproved without
too much burocracy by us) (we won't tax you much)

i.e.3.
is there an activists' activities insurance 'bigsomething' ? one that we
could use for granting projects developments (i.e. some works for the
state i.e. software implementations in the public administration is
taken by i.e. novell(SUSELinux) and then passed from them, after taxing
it, to a local subcontracted companies because the state papers asks you
for having a big economic activity and insurance)
(that was a real case that happened to 'me' while trying to get those
jobs for other more free local free software communities. ended with:
novell getting the job, people at schools misusing opensuse linux, it
could go wrong so probably after no more free software proposed by the
local goverment )


i.e.4. flash moneylender (i.e. at some cases you need to show you have
5000 $ for setting up a cooperative, you could withdraw that money the
day after, but you need to show that)

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