Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporate person")
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 we fund and control *if* we compensate the investor's risk with Product instead of with Profit. Paying investors with Product is possible if those investors are actual Users of the Product, and invest (whether Capital or Work) only as much as they intend to use for themselves. These corporations will be Product Maximizers, while Profit will no longer be goal, and in fact will not even be present except during the sale of Surplus. During the sale of Surplus we should charge Profit against those latecomers (allow the market to set Price), but then treat that Price above Cost as an Investment from that Payer - so that all Users gain as much ownership in the Means of Production required to create the Products they use. This is a very different way of organizing our production. Please consider it carefully. Thanks, Patrick Anderson http://ImputedProduction.BlogSpot.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOzpXUAAoJEAlfUArKi+ECYLkIAIHfwsF/7Pc8N9FZNjHnMQK7 oVt5itM5P+3tlJMi7xu1TDi1eHLsIs8Jl5i2FqdNN1M6wHxLYWH8V3jIabfoIr5w SZwRUGHNgRYcBiDMKkz31qoMrM/TBTdNHIUomX3b4v9igkSrzcjnhAimaBOC3WoW zXFYyj8ejDhR5uW8GIyCQHMGQx2chiZ77XL/TQAIGL0sI+F0RcSJI63FzlF3dlSs SNB+sKbjOnohG85hW/G5Ejph5+5tH6EZX1KZGLqtN5ZqvXPDMd8DCatbF4ZmpQcn SbdAKBdYzKlAkAG4eiXrxnGJih+xyNFb9kVbIv60UtLyp3QHNVcduEg14bfnMYI= =Mfdt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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") -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOzpXUAAoJEAlfUArKi+ECYLkIAIHfwsF/7Pc8N9FZNjHnMQK7 oVt5itM5P+3tlJMi7xu1TDi1eHLsIs8Jl5i2FqdNN1M6wHxLYWH8V3jIabfoIr5w SZwRUGHNgRYcBiDMKkz31qoMrM/TBTdNHIUomX3b4v9igkSrzcjnhAimaBOC3WoW zXFYyj8ejDhR5uW8GIyCQHMGQx2chiZ77XL/TQAIGL0sI+F0RcSJI63FzlF3dlSs SNB+sKbjOnohG85hW/G5Ejph5+5tH6EZX1KZGLqtN5ZqvXPDMd8DCatbF4ZmpQcn SbdAKBdYzKlAkAG4eiXrxnGJih+xyNFb9kVbIv60UtLyp3QHNVcduEg14bfnMYI= =Mfdt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Natalie Golovin wrote:
The problems arise from the time horizons & how the profits are dispersed.
Imagine we create a corporation which disperses profits in this way: We invest the profits FOR THE PAYER in the Means of Production needed to create even *more* of the product for which they just overpaid. For example, say you buy a milkshake from such a corporation, and pay Profit. The corporation would accept your over- payment as though you had made an investment. The corporation uses that money to buy more land, water rights, milk cattle, alfalfa seed, corn seed, tools, etc. needed to create more milkshakes in the future. You, the Payer, become a share-holder in this For-Product corporation. If you pay your portion of the recurring costs (including wages or supply that labor yourself), then you will OWN another milkshake even before it is produced. The owner of a milk-cow does not buy the milk back from himself, but owns it already, even before it is produced. We can do the same with co-ownership on a larger (but not too large) scale, so we can enjoy the benefits of economy of scale, and yet avoid the pitfalls of regular corporations that seek scarcity and destruction for the misguided purpose of keeping Price above Cost. Notice, since you no longer buy that Product (you own it already), you do not pay Profit, and do not pay Taxes on that missing transaction. http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_Income explains this fairly well, but seems to limit the concept to singular ownership. Extending this to multi-owner groups will allow us to, in the end, avoid passing tokens all together - for the need to purchase Products can be thought-of as a misallocation of the Means of those Products. When the Means of Production are in the hands of the consumers, then there is no reason to buy or sell, since the one who will use that thing owns it already. Sincerely, Patrick Anderson http://ImputedProduction.BlogSpot.com
I'm having trouble following you. People bought the milkshake, but prices & profits tell whether they liked it, want more or less, or in more flavors. Milk producers usually work in co-ops, which is what I think you think there should be more of...I agree-but unless there are govt rules/taxes that penalize co-ops-there would be more of them-wouldn't there? -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Anderson Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 4:46 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson") Natalie Golovin wrote:
The problems arise from the time horizons & how the profits are dispersed.
Imagine we create a corporation which disperses profits in this way: We invest the profits FOR THE PAYER in the Means of Production needed to create even *more* of the product for which they just overpaid. For example, say you buy a milkshake from such a corporation, and pay Profit. The corporation would accept your over- payment as though you had made an investment. The corporation uses that money to buy more land, water rights, milk cattle, alfalfa seed, corn seed, tools, etc. needed to create more milkshakes in the future. You, the Payer, become a share-holder in this For-Product corporation. If you pay your portion of the recurring costs (including wages or supply that labor yourself), then you will OWN another milkshake even before it is produced. The owner of a milk-cow does not buy the milk back from himself, but owns it already, even before it is produced. We can do the same with co-ownership on a larger (but not too large) scale, so we can enjoy the benefits of economy of scale, and yet avoid the pitfalls of regular corporations that seek scarcity and destruction for the misguided purpose of keeping Price above Cost. Notice, since you no longer buy that Product (you own it already), you do not pay Profit, and do not pay Taxes on that missing transaction. http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_Income explains this fairly well, but seems to limit the concept to singular ownership. Extending this to multi-owner groups will allow us to, in the end, avoid passing tokens all together - for the need to purchase Products can be thought-of as a misallocation of the Means of those Products. When the Means of Production are in the hands of the consumers, then there is no reason to buy or sell, since the one who will use that thing owns it already. Sincerely, Patrick Anderson http://ImputedProduction.BlogSpot.com _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
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 <[email protected]> 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")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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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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. From: Michel Bauwens Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list 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 <[email protected]> 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") -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOzpXUAAoJEAlfUArKi+ECYLkIAIHfwsF/7Pc8N9FZNjHnMQK7 oVt5itM5P+3tlJMi7xu1TDi1eHLsIs8Jl5i2FqdNN1M6wHxLYWH8V3jIabfoIr5w SZwRUGHNgRYcBiDMKkz31qoMrM/TBTdNHIUomX3b4v9igkSrzcjnhAimaBOC3WoW zXFYyj8ejDhR5uW8GIyCQHMGQx2chiZ77XL/TQAIGL0sI+F0RcSJI63FzlF3dlSs SNB+sKbjOnohG85hW/G5Ejph5+5tH6EZX1KZGLqtN5ZqvXPDMd8DCatbF4ZmpQcn SbdAKBdYzKlAkAG4eiXrxnGJih+xyNFb9kVbIv60UtLyp3QHNVcduEg14bfnMYI= =Mfdt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation -- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Can we please unpack the term 'profits'? 'Profits' are 'money' and right now the production of money is monopolized by an international banking cartel. If corporations are the 'engine' of mis-allocation then the monetary system is the fuel that runs that engine, the politicians are behind the wheel, the military is sitting in the passenger seat with a shotgun ready to blow out the politicians brains if they change directions, the economist is sitting in the back seat reading the map upside down next to the priest with his eyes closed praying that the car stops so he can run for the hill. The general public is hog-tied in the truck and everyone is listening to pop radio. The military will shoot anyone in the car who tries to change it's direction, but they don't have many options if the car runs out of gas. The Fed is the gas station. End the Fed. On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
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. *From:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM *To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> *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 <[email protected]>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")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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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-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
well said, and I certainly think the present privatized Fed should be abolished. I'm agnostic as to the necessity of a democratic monetary authority and personally think it may be a transitional necessity, to protect against fully privatized banking so a democratic national banking authority, in a context of monetary pluralism, with international cooperative governance, would seem like a good combination to me On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]
wrote:
Can we please unpack the term 'profits'? 'Profits' are 'money' and right now the production of money is monopolized by an international banking cartel.
If corporations are the 'engine' of mis-allocation then the monetary system is the fuel that runs that engine, the politicians are behind the wheel, the military is sitting in the passenger seat with a shotgun ready to blow out the politicians brains if they change directions, the economist is sitting in the back seat reading the map upside down next to the priest with his eyes closed praying that the car stops so he can run for the hill. The general public is hog-tied in the truck and everyone is listening to pop radio.
The military will shoot anyone in the car who tries to change it's direction, but they don't have many options if the car runs out of gas.
The Fed is the gas station. End the Fed.
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]>wrote:
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. *From:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM *To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> *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 <[email protected]>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")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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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Love It-Great Post! From: Devin Balkind Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 9:58 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson") Can we please unpack the term 'profits'? 'Profits' are 'money' and right now the production of money is monopolized by an international banking cartel. If corporations are the 'engine' of mis-allocation then the monetary system is the fuel that runs that engine, the politicians are behind the wheel, the military is sitting in the passenger seat with a shotgun ready to blow out the politicians brains if they change directions, the economist is sitting in the back seat reading the map upside down next to the priest with his eyes closed praying that the car stops so he can run for the hill. The general public is hog-tied in the truck and everyone is listening to pop radio. The military will shoot anyone in the car who tries to change it's direction, but they don't have many options if the car runs out of gas. The Fed is the gas station. End the Fed. On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote: 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. From: Michel Bauwens Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list 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 <[email protected]> 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") -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOzpXUAAoJEAlfUArKi+ECYLkIAIHfwsF/7Pc8N9FZNjHnMQK7 oVt5itM5P+3tlJMi7xu1TDi1eHLsIs8Jl5i2FqdNN1M6wHxLYWH8V3jIabfoIr5w SZwRUGHNgRYcBiDMKkz31qoMrM/TBTdNHIUomX3b4v9igkSrzcjnhAimaBOC3WoW zXFYyj8ejDhR5uW8GIyCQHMGQx2chiZ77XL/TQAIGL0sI+F0RcSJI63FzlF3dlSs SNB+sKbjOnohG85hW/G5Ejph5+5tH6EZX1KZGLqtN5ZqvXPDMd8DCatbF4ZmpQcn SbdAKBdYzKlAkAG4eiXrxnGJih+xyNFb9kVbIv60UtLyp3QHNVcduEg14bfnMYI= =Mfdt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation -- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation -- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
the design of the money system is of great importance, we agree, and by the way, I recommend that everybody should see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8fDLyXXUxM&feature=share however, it is not the only issue to be tackled, even with a better designed money system, corporations would still practice planned obsolence, seek infinite capital accumulation, etc ... Michel On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 9:01 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
Love It-Great Post!
*From:* Devin Balkind <[email protected]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 24, 2011 9:58 PM *To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> *Subject:* Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson")
Can we please unpack the term 'profits'? 'Profits' are 'money' and right now the production of money is monopolized by an international banking cartel.
If corporations are the 'engine' of mis-allocation then the monetary system is the fuel that runs that engine, the politicians are behind the wheel, the military is sitting in the passenger seat with a shotgun ready to blow out the politicians brains if they change directions, the economist is sitting in the back seat reading the map upside down next to the priest with his eyes closed praying that the car stops so he can run for the hill. The general public is hog-tied in the truck and everyone is listening to pop radio.
The military will shoot anyone in the car who tries to change it's direction, but they don't have many options if the car runs out of gas.
The Fed is the gas station. End the Fed.
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]>wrote:
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. *From:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM *To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> *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 <[email protected]>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")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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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-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
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On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
Damage to the environment is an externality that can be addressed (nothing is perfect) through taxes & subsidies.
agreed, to a point. The very purpose and goal of profit-maximisation pushes corporations to undercut them though, and now they have clearly captured the state apparatus. I believe that externalities need to be internalized, hence we need a new type of structure, market-oriented, profit-making, but not profit-maximising.
Capturing/measuring the costs is often difficult and relies on current technologies and legal structures.
true, but many people have been working on solutions, they need more political power to push them through, so now they can only be applied on small scales
Poverty & inequality are in different categories and no “system” can eradicate them.
must disagree with that one; they can be eradicated and a more just and sustainable system is within the realm of possibility; we don't need perfection, but we can do much better than today
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.
we can agree on this ..
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.
they are not just signals, because they are embedded in a particular system, and this skews any signalling power they may have; also, price is a poor, 'single' signal; we can do better; think about the stigmergic nature of peer production where transparency allows global mutual coordination of a multitude of players, without pricing at all; my argument is that this can be transferred to material production, through collective open book management
*From:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM *To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> *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 <[email protected]>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")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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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On 25/11/11 08:22, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
we can agree on this ..
are these problems (cartels, monopolies etc.) hindering a well functioning a profit system, or are they rather problems made by a profit system?
martin, would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ... pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...) it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially when the market dynamics are subsumed? perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated, to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round without counter-measures, are these not inevitable? my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures? Michel On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 6:14 PM, mp <[email protected]> wrote:
On 25/11/11 08:22, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
we can agree on this ..
are these problems (cartels, monopolies etc.) hindering a well functioning a profit system, or are they rather problems made by a profit system?
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On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
martin,
would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction. So, when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit". While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators, notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed. There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False exercise of the mind.
pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs. them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past. Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where - crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within system X? martin
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <[email protected]> wrote:
On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
martin,
would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market systems vs capitalist market systems
So, when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators, notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False exercise of the mind.
No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on this.
pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs. them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and focusing on their wrong epistemology.
it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather than permanent warfare (see the book, The first european revolution)
to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is accumulated
my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where - crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within system X?
it is really difficult to even use language without using any generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
martin
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i agree On 26/11/11 04:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <[email protected]> wrote:
On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
martin,
would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market systems vs capitalist market systems
So, when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators, notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False exercise of the mind.
No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on this.
pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs. them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and focusing on their wrong epistemology.
it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather than permanent warfare (see the book, The first european revolution)
to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is accumulated
my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where - crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within system X?
it is really difficult to even use language without using any generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
martin
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-- NOT sent from a flippin' "smart"phone - 'cause I like birds...
Patrick, let me just say that a product maximization based economy is the only sane thing to have. The economy we are in is messed up and i mean on its core principles. I think that any coorporation should be based on a contract between the affected parties. The consumers will decide which product will be made and its quantity. The consumers will pay a price per unit that will be the sum of all the work being put in it.(tools plus wages). The workers will codecide with the consumers on what the conditions of the working environment will be plus their wages. The community might also have to sign that contract if it the production affects it. So in fact a just management of a coorporation would give all those people voices, exactly at the things which affect them. Right now, none of them has any voice. In general, I have the same ideas with you patrick but what i want to investigate is whether this new network of coorporations can lead to inequality or not. I intend to find this out not in an empirical way since there is no such network today but in an axiomatic mathematical way. 2011/11/26 mp <[email protected]>
i agree
On 26/11/11 04:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <[email protected]> wrote:
On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
martin,
would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e.
an
accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market systems vs capitalist market systems
So, when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators, notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False exercise of the mind.
No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on this.
pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs. them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and focusing on their wrong epistemology.
it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general,
especially
when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather than permanent warfare (see the book, The first european revolution)
to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is accumulated
my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where - crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within system X?
it is really difficult to even use language without using any generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
martin
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-- NOT sent from a flippin' "smart"phone - 'cause I like birds...
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-- Sincerely yours, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis wrote:
investigate whether this new network of coorporations can lead to inequality or not ... in an axiomatic mathematical way.
This will help us plan the internal rules of these cooporations before we risk real value. I have a rough outline of the conditions that must be met to avoid the typical concentration of power, and from that the incremental (not necessarily immediate) equipotential of all participants. I hope we can collaborate on this. Sincerely, Patrick Anderson http://ImputedProduction.BlogSpot.com
dear apostolis, could you explain/qualify product maximizing economy or corporation, eventually for our blog or wiki ? would this be like a CSA kind of structure, I think you are on to something very important, and I may use this concept myself in the future, it feels like a missing piece in the p2p edifice? Michel On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:40 AM, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis < [email protected]> wrote:
Patrick, let me just say that a product maximization based economy is the only sane thing to have. The economy we are in is messed up and i mean on its core principles.
I think that any coorporation should be based on a contract between the affected parties. The consumers will decide which product will be made and its quantity. The consumers will pay a price per unit that will be the sum of all the work being put in it.(tools plus wages). The workers will codecide with the consumers on what the conditions of the working environment will be plus their wages. The community might also have to sign that contract if it the production affects it.
So in fact a just management of a coorporation would give all those people voices, exactly at the things which affect them.
Right now, none of them has any voice.
In general, I have the same ideas with you patrick but what i want to investigate is whether this new network of coorporations can lead to inequality or not. I intend to find this out not in an empirical way since there is no such network today but in an axiomatic mathematical way.
2011/11/26 mp <[email protected]>
i agree
On 26/11/11 04:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <[email protected]> wrote:
On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
martin,
would you agree that there is a difference between profit making
(i.e. an
accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi, braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market systems vs capitalist market systems
So, when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators, notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False exercise of the mind.
No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on this.
pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I
don't
think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs. them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and focusing on their wrong epistemology.
it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism, but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general,
especially
when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather than permanent warfare (see the book, The first european revolution)
to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is accumulated
my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where - crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within system X?
it is really difficult to even use language without using any generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
martin
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Sincerely yours,
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
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On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:
dear apostolis, could you explain/qualify product maximizing economy or corporation, eventually for our blog or wiki ?
would this be like a CSA kind of structure, I think you are on to something very important, and I may use this concept myself in the future, it feels like a missing piece in the p2p edifice?
Michel
This might help - just pretend I didn't write it: Corporations, in their current form, cannot do the "right thing" because they/we erroneously believe Profit to be the goal of production while somehow misplacing Product itself as the real end. This is caused by our choosing investors who expect to be paid Profit. And can be solved by choosing investors who expect to be paid Product. But the only investors able to accept Product as a return are the future Users of that Product. So we must organize Users to co-buy and co-own the Sources of Production for the purpose of receiving at-cost use-value. Corporations organized in this way will have no reason to work against we, the people, except when selling some of that Product to non-owners. For that we must write a Terms-of-Operation as a form of self-regulation to impose the constraint "Profit is Payer Investment" so that all Users incrementaly gain ownership in the Sources of the Products they need. [extracted from https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/2011-June/002158.html ]
I think that csa is a nice example of what the economy should be like. They democratically decide about production. They create economic stability and the only concern that farmers have is the quality of their product and production. I ll try to refrain from telling much since I dont know where my endeavor will take me. The csa model works because there are only 2 parties. What if for example we had a trading circle of more parties. Lets take a circle of 4 parties. This example is simple. 4 people A, B, C, D 4 products a, b, c, d producer -product-> consumer This is the Social contract between the 2 parties. The circle: A -a-> B -b-> C -c-> D -d-> A As we can see there can be no economic stability if at least one of the contracts is not signed since prices, the quantity of products are determined by all 4 contracts. *ps1 Also each party hasnt contacted or talked to one party from which they are affected. In contrast to the csa model it is impossible to talk to all parties. In the general case, there are thousands of circles connected together. So the csa system cant be used. My work is abstract. it represents parties as a decision function. ( it is simply an ordering of the possible states of living plus some other things) I intend to create a method that finds the prices and quantities of products in such a network. This way social contracts that last for a long time and provide economic stability will be able to be created. Each party will know how much he is affected by each party and will give them the incentive to help them, protect them. Imagine if a consumer in USA knew how he would be affected if the life conditions in Brazil of the workers deteriorated. As a conclution, I could say that this will remove the market uncertainty as a factor of economic production. People will just be interested in how to reduce the working hours and increase the product quality. 1. ps. The quaity of the product and the working conditions will be determined with democratic conversation. 2 ps. Right now i have the impression that there will be inequalities. I am not sure though. 2011/12/1 Patrick Anderson <[email protected]>
On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:
dear apostolis, could you explain/qualify product maximizing economy or corporation, eventually for our blog or wiki ?
would this be like a CSA kind of structure, I think you are on to something very important, and I may use this concept myself in the future, it feels like a missing piece in the p2p edifice?
Michel
This might help - just pretend I didn't write it:
Corporations, in their current form, cannot do the "right thing" because they/we erroneously believe Profit to be the goal of production while somehow misplacing Product itself as the real end.
This is caused by our choosing investors who expect to be paid Profit.
And can be solved by choosing investors who expect to be paid Product.
But the only investors able to accept Product as a return are the future Users of that Product.
So we must organize Users to co-buy and co-own the Sources of Production for the purpose of receiving at-cost use-value.
Corporations organized in this way will have no reason to work against we, the people, except when selling some of that Product to non-owners.
For that we must write a Terms-of-Operation as a form of self-regulation to impose the constraint "Profit is Payer Investment" so that all Users incrementaly gain ownership in the Sources of the Products they need.
[extracted from https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/2011-June/002158.html ]
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-- Sincerely yours, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
That's where Government comes in..the role of referee/umpire. As corporations grow they want to survive and thrive despite challenges from newcomers-new ideas, products. Govt has to be a smart and fair regulator. The ineptness & corruption of Govt allowed Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley to wipe out all their competition. The SEC is a joke & The FED funds the whole casino. -----Original Message----- From: mp Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 3:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson") On 25/11/11 08:22, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
we can agree on this ..
are these problems (cartels, monopolies etc.) hindering a well functioning a profit system, or are they rather problems made by a profit system? _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Natalie Golovin wrote:
That's where Government comes in..the role of referee/umpire.
But governments are owned and operated by the corporations. And why are the corporations (and governments) against us? Because they seek too keep Price above Cost, which requires scarcity, and in the end, even purposeful destruction. For example: ""Belgian farmers dump milk in massive protest"" -- http://YouTube.com/watch?v=pDAjMcDWDZ0 Profit cannot survive during abundance, and so it is easy to see why we do not get very far - with corporations pretending to want to solve problems, but simultaneously being required to pay their investors with Profit which can only remain while the consumers are being subjugated and permanent solutions withheld. This paradox can be resolved by choosing consumers to be the investors, and to compensate that risk with the Product itself. This would allow such corporations to truly solve problems and they would be on 'our' side because 'they' and 'we' would be one and the same. When the owner of a milk-cow intends to sell the milk, then he hopes all other providers are destroyed, for then Price will be far above Cost. But when the owner of a milk-cow intends to use the milk, then it does him no good if other providers are harmed. The same is true if a milk dairy is co-owned by 1,000 people. We can solve these internal conflicts and the drive for artificial scarcity by choosing investors who can accept Product as ROI while only selling any Surplus for a Profit and treating that Profit as a "For Product" investment from the consumer who paid it.
Govts don't have to be owned and operated by Corporations. Its up to an educated and responsible citizenry to maintain sound govt or democracy will fail. Yes, Co-Ops are wonderful-wish there were more of them. Suggest you undertake more rigorous study re scarcity-marginal costs-risks etc. -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Anderson Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 8:16 AM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson") Natalie Golovin wrote:
That's where Government comes in..the role of referee/umpire.
But governments are owned and operated by the corporations. And why are the corporations (and governments) against us? Because they seek too keep Price above Cost, which requires scarcity, and in the end, even purposeful destruction. For example: ""Belgian farmers dump milk in massive protest"" -- http://YouTube.com/watch?v=pDAjMcDWDZ0 Profit cannot survive during abundance, and so it is easy to see why we do not get very far - with corporations pretending to want to solve problems, but simultaneously being required to pay their investors with Profit which can only remain while the consumers are being subjugated and permanent solutions withheld. This paradox can be resolved by choosing consumers to be the investors, and to compensate that risk with the Product itself. This would allow such corporations to truly solve problems and they would be on 'our' side because 'they' and 'we' would be one and the same. When the owner of a milk-cow intends to sell the milk, then he hopes all other providers are destroyed, for then Price will be far above Cost. But when the owner of a milk-cow intends to use the milk, then it does him no good if other providers are harmed. The same is true if a milk dairy is co-owned by 1,000 people. We can solve these internal conflicts and the drive for artificial scarcity by choosing investors who can accept Product as ROI while only selling any Surplus for a Profit and treating that Profit as a "For Product" investment from the consumer who paid it. _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Natalie Golovin wrote:
Govts don't have to be owned and operated by Corporations. Its up to an educated and responsible citizenry to maintain sound govt or democracy will fail.
Corporations routinely purchase legislation and favors from those we 'elect' using the Profits that we, the consumers, pay to those bodies. We, as individuals, cannot afford to pay politicians in this way unless we become as productive as the corporations we blindly support.
Yes, Co-Ops are wonderful-wish there were more of them.
Stop brushing me off as yet another proponent of Co-Ops. Co-Ops have not replaced Capitalism because they are actually Capitalistic at their cores. Co-Ops DO NOT do what I propose. Look at the Consumer Cooperative REI for example. The consumers pay up-front and supposedly become co-owners, yet they still purchase the product from the group for Price above Cost (they pay Profit). This is extremely inefficient and eventually concentrates power into the hands of the originators. Imputed Production is more similar to bulk-buying - where consumers pre-pay for Products which they then fully OWN (according to the % of the Costs they paid) - without needing to buy those Products back from the group yet again. In this case, Price and Cost are the same and Profit is undefined because the final transaction is missing.
Suggest you undertake more rigorous study re scarcity-marginal costs-risks etc.
I suggest you read my analysis more carefully and reconsider the origin and purpose of Profit instead of repeating the same old story that got us into this mess in the first place. Profit arises from the consumers lack ownership in the Means of Production, and disappears completely when the consumers have sufficient ownership in the Means of Production. Profit measures the consumer's willingness to grow the corporation, and so should be treated as an Investment from that Payer - so that all consumers incrementally gain co-ownership in the Means of Production needed to eliminate their need to pay tribute to others.
Yes-Congress needs to be held accountable-that's the point. I wouldn't consider REI an authentic co-op. It allows the public in and advertises. -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Anderson Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 10:52 AM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson") Natalie Golovin wrote:
Govts don't have to be owned and operated by Corporations. Its up to an educated and responsible citizenry to maintain sound govt or democracy will fail.
Corporations routinely purchase legislation and favors from those we 'elect' using the Profits that we, the consumers, pay to those bodies. We, as individuals, cannot afford to pay politicians in this way unless we become as productive as the corporations we blindly support.
Yes, Co-Ops are wonderful-wish there were more of them.
Stop brushing me off as yet another proponent of Co-Ops. Co-Ops have not replaced Capitalism because they are actually Capitalistic at their cores. Co-Ops DO NOT do what I propose. Look at the Consumer Cooperative REI for example. The consumers pay up-front and supposedly become co-owners, yet they still purchase the product from the group for Price above Cost (they pay Profit). This is extremely inefficient and eventually concentrates power into the hands of the originators. Imputed Production is more similar to bulk-buying - where consumers pre-pay for Products which they then fully OWN (according to the % of the Costs they paid) - without needing to buy those Products back from the group yet again. In this case, Price and Cost are the same and Profit is undefined because the final transaction is missing.
Suggest you undertake more rigorous study re scarcity-marginal costs-risks etc.
I suggest you read my analysis more carefully and reconsider the origin and purpose of Profit instead of repeating the same old story that got us into this mess in the first place. Profit arises from the consumers lack ownership in the Means of Production, and disappears completely when the consumers have sufficient ownership in the Means of Production. Profit measures the consumer's willingness to grow the corporation, and so should be treated as an Investment from that Payer - so that all consumers incrementally gain co-ownership in the Means of Production needed to eliminate their need to pay tribute to others. _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Nothing has to be, but what do you mean by "educated and responsible citizenry" - how does that come about? - and what do you mean by "democracy" - what is that? Is not the very concept of modern/capitalist democracy a system to prevent the citizenry from influence and maximise capital interests? On 25/11/11 17:50, Natalie Golovin wrote:
Govts don't have to be owned and operated by Corporations. Its up to an educated and responsible citizenry to maintain sound govt or democracy will fail. Yes, Co-Ops are wonderful-wish there were more of them. Suggest you undertake more rigorous study re scarcity-marginal costs-risks etc.
-----Original Message----- From: Patrick Anderson Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 8:16 AM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson")
Natalie Golovin wrote:
That's where Government comes in..the role of referee/umpire.
But governments are owned and operated by the corporations.
And why are the corporations (and governments) against us?
Because they seek too keep Price above Cost, which requires scarcity, and in the end, even purposeful destruction.
For example: ""Belgian farmers dump milk in massive protest"" -- http://YouTube.com/watch?v=pDAjMcDWDZ0
Profit cannot survive during abundance, and so it is easy to see why we do not get very far - with corporations pretending to want to solve problems, but simultaneously being required to pay their investors with Profit which can only remain while the consumers are being subjugated and permanent solutions withheld.
This paradox can be resolved by choosing consumers to be the investors, and to compensate that risk with the Product itself. This would allow such corporations to truly solve problems and they would be on 'our' side because 'they' and 'we' would be one and the same.
When the owner of a milk-cow intends to sell the milk, then he hopes all other providers are destroyed, for then Price will be far above Cost.
But when the owner of a milk-cow intends to use the milk, then it does him no good if other providers are harmed.
The same is true if a milk dairy is co-owned by 1,000 people.
We can solve these internal conflicts and the drive for artificial scarcity by choosing investors who can accept Product as ROI while only selling any Surplus for a Profit and treating that Profit as a "For Product" investment from the consumer who paid it.
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On 25/11/11 17:50, Natalie Golovin wrote:
Govts don't have to be owned and operated by Corporations. Its up to an educated and responsible citizenry to maintain sound govt or democracy will fail. Yes, Co-Ops are wonderful-wish there were more of them. Suggest you undertake more rigorous study re scarcity-marginal costs-risks etc.
I don't understand this? Isn't it precisely this paradigm of economistic thinking that has landed us in this mess, because it has been detached from political economy and moral philosophy and presented as a science?
Michel Bauwens wrote:
we need a new type of structure, market-oriented, profit-making, but not profit-maximising.
Profit is only necessary (should only occur) during Growth - for it measures the Payer's lack of ownership in the Means of Production, and can be 'balanced' by treating that overpayment as an investment from that Payer toward even more Means of Production - so that each User gains the Use-Value property needed for them to finally stop buying Product, but instead be paying (whether with Sources or Skills) the Costs of that Production "up front" while avoiding that usual final transaction of purchase. This causes Profit to be not just zero, but actually UNDEFINED since each User/Owner does not need to buy what he already owns.
participants (7)
-
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis -
Devin Balkind -
Michel Bauwens -
mp -
mrc -
Natalie Golovin -
Patrick Anderson