The Origin of Profit and the Purpose of Production
Carsten Foertsch at http://DeskMag.com/en/how-profitable-are-coworking-spaces-177 writes:
Everyone should earn a profit for their work
Profit is never the result of work! Profit is the difference between the Consumer_Price and Owner_Costs. Wages are paid for work. Wages are a *cost* of production. Owners receive profit when the charge consumers more than the actual costs of production (where wages are one of those costs). Profit measures the consumer's lack of Ownership in the Means of Production, and falls to 0 (actually is *undefined*) when the consumers co-own the Means of Production and accept the outputs of that production (the product itself) as their return for those investments. This variant of Wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent is a short-circuit across the market that *eliminates* the final transaction and so there is no sale and no chance for profit and even no chance for taxation! Under this model, each consumer owns the same % of the product as they co-own the Means of that product - even before it is produced (you might say they each the own the entire potential of those productive assets). For example, each co-owner of a milk dairy must pay all the costs of production (including wages), but would then just come to collect their portion of the milk that they *already* own. Of course the owners of a productive asset do not buy the outputs, but we don't usually think of the consumers co-owning for Use Value, and so we believe buying products and paying profit are necessities. But buying products and paying profit are NOT necessities, and can easily be proven by considering neither occurs when the Consumer owns the Means and uses some of those products directly. During Imputed Production, the co-owners are also the Consumers of those products in intend to own exactly the amount needed to achieve the production required for the products they want. Owners who use the product directly must still pay all the Costs of Production, including any Wages, but CANNOT pay Profit - for who would they pay it to? So to say Profit is a necessity is to be very confused about the orginal purpose of Production. Production should be for Use Value, not for Exchange Value. This is guaranteed when the Consumers co-own the Means of Production for the purpose of using those products themselves.
participants (1)
-
Patrick Anderson