[P2P-F] Worker Ownership, Scale of Production, and Use Value

Fri Mar 18 22:11:27 CET 2011

Joe Rinehart wrote:
> you are mistaking the "product of labor"
> for the "means of production."

Yes, I see what you mean.  I've made some
mistakes here, and I'll be more careful.

But there are examples that show the point,
and I think the Olive tree still holds.

> the worker who picks the olives should
> certainly own some/many of the olives.

We could pay them with part of the "Product
of Labor" if that is what they want.

But that is a separate question from whether
they need ownership in the Means of Production.

I am asking if the worker should gain ownership
in a tree when he works on it, even when that
tree is co-owned by a few neighbors that will
be using the product without selling any of it.

> theories would say that an individual should
> not own 100 olive trees.

Just to be clear: I am not suggesting a single
individual should own 100 olive trees.  I am
talking about co-ownership of 100 olive trees,
with the amount of owners determined by how
much product they predict they will actually
use for themselves.  100 trees might be owned
by 150 people, for example, if those people
don't eat much of that kind of product, or 100
trees might be owned by only 75 people when
those users intend to use alot of that kind
of product.

The idea is to help users to gain exactly as
much of the Means of Production required to
produce the amount of product they intend to
consume within the next round-of-production.

Actually, I think it would be even better to
help them co-own just slightly more than they
predict they will need, so variance in output
will not leave them in the position where they
will need to buy the product from somewhere
else - thereby suffering the payment of profit.

In cases where the output is more than that
owner can use directly, they should be able to
do whatever they want with that extra product,
even including *selling* it to users who do
not yet have enough ownership.

> It is a fallacy to suggest that something
> that works on a small scale (private
> ownership of capital for personal use) will
> work on a large scale.

Maybe it is a fallacy to suggest the opposite.

Some things can scale, while others can't.

Making the solution scalable is fundamental
to it being a real alternative.

Capitalism scales to some degree, but then
begins to deteriorate quickly because of the
concentration of wealth caused by treating
profit as a reward for the current owners.

Treating profit as an investment from the
payer will allows the organization to grow
while auto-distributing ownership to the
agents who paid for it.