Re: [ox-en] Free market and the Internet

• From: oekonux phk.at
• Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 00:27:54 +0100

Thought I might add my 5 (Whuffie) cent about scarcity.


Our ability to produce apples is limited. 
While scarcity may become less and less of a problem it won't cease
to exist. And the trend could reverse as well (oil/water etc.)

And there are other areas of scarcity besides food and information:
medical attendance, front row places at a soccer match, villas in south france,
stuff like that.


Those might not be as important but they are and will be the source of rivalry
and therefore things that need to be handled by society and its economic system.

Other things that will very likely stay scarce:
	attention, reputation, respect etc.

I don't know if it has been mentioned on this list but this seems like a good
time to refer to "Down and out in the Magic Kingdom", a book by Cory Doctorow
licensed under a Creative Commons license. It's about a society that
is based on an attention currency. Interesting read.
And imho rather relevant in regard to the way the Free Software community 
works.

The book: http://www.craphound.com/down/download.php
German telepolis article: http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/buch/13956/1.html

ph

P.S.: Although not quite as relevant, another free as in beer book:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ ... how scarcity might end.
I'd recommend to take the "easily offended" disclaimer serious.


On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 09:50:11PM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Stefan Meretz wrote:

On Saturday 01 February 2003 21:27, Russell McOrmond wrote:

  The fact is, however, that if I eat an apple, you can't also eat that
same apple.  We need to arbitrate this rivalry -- sharing (or simply
not hoarding) is one method, and the method I believe in, but the fact
I believe in sharing doesn't change the rivalrous nature of physical
things and the non-rivalrous nature of information.

Humans are continously producing their lifes, they cannot live in other 
ways (like animals which just "find" food and others means). Producing 
lives is as non-rivalrous as information is. The apple is not found, it 
is produced. It is not necessary to share if we can produce another one.

Only if you do production in form of commodities, then you produce 
"rivalrousness" (rivalry) - a property not by nature but of society we 
live in (yes: free market). The nature of physical things only make it 
simpler to keep them scarce compared to information, however, being not 
scarce in the sense of always being produced is common.

Ciao,
Stefan

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/

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