my own take is that a peer to peer economy reverses the equilibrium between competition and cooperation. In capitalism, competition is primary and cooperation happens within the cooperating entities, although mostly in hierarchical ways\ in a commons oriented society, the cooperation within the context of a commons is primary, and competition, between market (but not capitalist) and non-market entities (say between joomla and drupal), happens within that context of cooperation marvin brown makes the crucial point in civilising the economy that it is the citizenry that decides on provisioning systems, which may, or may not, involve market mechanisms ows is a good example, the general assembly decided on food provisioning, through vermont organic farmers, which provided for free, but in order to preserve the livelyhoods of the food vendors, decided on fundraising to buy from the vendors whether to use a market or non-market mechanism is secondary to the necessity of having a system which guarantees social reproduction ... (the vermont organic farmers would not be able to socially reproduce their own activities if giving away without reciprocity were there only activity) On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Karl Robillard <[email protected]>wrote:

On Wednesday, December 07, 2011 01:43:25 AM [email protected] wrote:

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism

"Ordoliberal theory holds that the state must create a proper legal environment for the economy and maintain a healthy level of competition (rather than just "exchange") through measures that adhere to market principles." "The concern is that, if the state does not take active measures to foster competition, firms with monopoly (or oligopoly) power will emerge, which will not only subvert the advantages offered by the market economy, but also possibly undermine good government, since strong economic power can be transformed into political power"

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Requiring competion is a bass-ackwards way to build a humane economy. This solution is like trying to fight fire with fire. Competition is about the capture of scarce resources and the suppression or elimination of those that cannot get them. Rather than perpetuate a system you know leads to bad outcomes maybe people should try another system.

The focus should be on sustained *diversity* not on any process of elimination. You want to keep all people involved in the economy, not drive the less capable into the dirt.

It seems to me that the concept of competition is often used where it's not appropriate. In free software we have all kinds of graphical desktop environments and most people would say they are competing with each other. In this case there is no scarcity as users may use any or all of these interfaces and developers are free to mix and match ideas between them. The dynamic between these projects is much more symbiotic than competitive.

To put an end to scarcity we must attend to systems of abundance, not pretend that systems of scarcity management (e.g. money and markets) are going to trancend themselves. Ha ha! There's a slogan for you: "Attend, not pretend!"

-Karl

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On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Paul Hughes <[email protected]> wrote:

Based on my understanding of Kevin Carson and company's writings, this argument seems wrong.  How could a company obtain monopoly power without it's ability to use the *state* legal system to enforce its monopoly?  Minus onerous (and unenforceable) patents and copyrights, it seems that a genuine free market of highly diverse and decentralized players would all be playing economic games with each other. Without patents or copyrights being enforced through force (by the state or nakedly by wanna-be oligarchs or neofedualists), cooperative peer production would (ironically) out-compete mere "competition".  I can see no way that any state, no matter how well intentioned, can't be captured at some point. The result is a modified legal code that favors certain players over others, eventually reaching the end-state of a unified corpocracy.

From what I've seen, the overwhelming bulk of state regulation has been to foster monopoly rather than break it up. Even when fairly liberally pursued, antitrust law has only been used to make sure oligopolies don't turn into monopolies. But the regulatory cartels that make oligopoly itself feasible are fostered by the state. There wouldn't even be national manufacturing companies serving a nationwide market, most likely, if not for the role of the railroad land grants in creating a unified single market. Consider the role of patents -- the pooling and exchange of them -- in cartelizing industries. According to Gabriel Kolko, the primary motivation behind the so-called Progressive Era regulatory state was a desire by the regulated industries themselves to suppress competition. The Clayton Act's "unfair competition" provision actually made oligopoly markets fairly stable and secure for the first time, by outlawing destabilizing price wars that undermined cartels. The FTC's body of rulings through the 1930s actively encouraged price signalling devices like the price-leader system, by classifying below-cost pricing and dumping as unfair trade practices.

-- Kevin Carson Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com Desktop Regulatory State:  The Countervailing Power of Super-Empowered Individuals http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html