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<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV>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.
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=michel@p2pfoundation.net
href="mailto:michel@p2pfoundation.net">Michel Bauwens</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:13 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org
href="mailto:p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org">P2P Foundation mailing
list</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was:
"corporateperson")</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">natalie:
ideology aside, do you have any evidence for the efficient allocation of
resources,<BR><BR>are you aware of the damage being done to the environment, on
rising inequality, on persistent povery and hunger in the world?<BR><BR>in
actual fact, corporations are the engine of systematic misallocation of
resources, and precisely because of the profit maximisation logic,<BR><BR>I
recommend reading peter barnes' capitalism 3.0 (but especially his new upcoming
book), and kelly's divine right of capital,<BR><BR>Michel<BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:48 AM, Natalie Golovin <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:10natalie@cox.net">10natalie@cox.net</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
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class=gmail_quote>As to examples..I believe Kaiser Permanente is a model for
cost-savings in<BR>the health care industry and also highly rated in patient
outcomes It's<BR>essentially a not-for-profit Co-op of Doctors.<BR>As to
general corporations, I don't see anything wrong with profit as a<BR>concept
that motivates efficient allocation of resources. The problems arise<BR>from
the time horizons & how the profits are dispersed.<BR><BR>-----Original
Message-----<BR>From: mrc<BR>Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 11:07 AM<BR>To:
P2P Foundation mailing list<BR>Cc: Patrick Anderson<BR>Subject: Re: [P2P-F]
Product Maximizing Corporations (was:<BR>"corporateperson")<BR>
<DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=h5><BR>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<BR>Hash: SHA1<BR><BR>On
11/23/2011 05:30 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:<BR>> Michel Bauwens
wrote:<BR>>> much better is to change the DNA and<BR>>> not make
them profit maximizers<BR>><BR>> It *is* possible to change the DNA (or
'goals')<BR>> of corporations<BR><BR>do you know any who'd let their legal
advantadges derived of their<BR>"corporation" status ?<BR><BR>(i'd like to
know more about in comparision with the cooperative or<BR>association status
for example) some examples<BR><BR><BR>i.e. get to use an account from our bank
accounts sharing world network<BR>for fundraising for your
project.<BR><BR>i.e.2.<BR>get to use our legal number for doing your
construction work if you<BR>invest what you get from that job in a 'nice'
project (aproved without<BR>too much burocracy by us) (we won't tax you
much)<BR><BR>i.e.3.<BR>is there an activists' activities insurance
'bigsomething' ? one that we<BR>could use for granting projects developments
(i.e. some works for the<BR>state i.e. software implementations in the public
administration is<BR>taken by i.e. novell(SUSELinux) and then passed from
them, after taxing<BR>it, to a local subcontracted companies because the state
papers asks you<BR>for having a big economic activity and insurance)<BR>(that
was a real case that happened to 'me' while trying to get those<BR>jobs for
other more free local free software communities. ended with:<BR>novell getting
the job, people at schools misusing opensuse linux, it<BR>could go wrong so
probably after no more free software proposed by the<BR>local goverment
)<BR><BR><BR>i.e.4. flash moneylender (i.e. at some cases you need to show you
have<BR>5000 $ for setting up a cooperative, you could withdraw that money
the<BR>day after, but you need to show that)<BR><BR>-----BEGIN PGP
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