[P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson")

Thu Dec 1 19:13:03 CET 2011

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 <
xekoukou at gmail.com> 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 <mp at aktivix.org>
>
>>
>> i agree
>>
>> On 26/11/11 04:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>> > On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <mp at aktivix.org> 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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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
>
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
>      Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
>
>
>
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