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Re: [ox-en] Re: No-trade society (was: Re: herrschaft)



hi!
it's late, just a few remarks.

水曜日 14 1月 2004 20:55、Robin Green さんは書きました:
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 09:54:14AM -0500, Graham Seaman quoted:
The key question is: How can a free society be self/organized, if
there is no invisible hand at all (no exchange, no money, no market,
no state)?

Woah, I recently joined this list, and I didn't realise it was going to be
some kind of anarcho-communist list! You should put up some kind of warning
sign for the unwary!

Just kidding ;-)

It's a good question, but I think a better question is, how are you going
to have no exchange in the first place? My aunt is a sculptor and she makes
very nice minature 3D caricatures. Let's assume that I would like to
commission a particular piece, and let's further say that she is willing to
produce works to order. Maybe I am also an artist, and she would like for
me to do a piece for her in return. That's trade, is it not? How can you
call it anything other than a trade? In what kind of society would such
arrangements never arise?
i think, this is a good example. - art. don't You think in a Free Society
there would be different "reasons" why You want something, why You want to
give something to somebody. i believe people would loose the false "interest"
in art, when it's not a mater of money or prestige.

I would go further and say that in any case where money is "abolished" it
would be quickly reinvented (through barter, if money were in some way
actively repressed).
why do we need money? what does it represent? i also think that it makes no
sense to "abolish" money, or anything we believe is wrong. because it goes
beyond the question of right and wrong. a Free Society does not know good and
bad or right and wrong. it's about needs, about understanding. if you study
history you will understand why we have money, this is not a question of
right or wrong. the question is: does money meet our needs. and as You
pointed out, some people - maybe many people - depend on money, because we
live in a society based on fear. and so we are influenced and led by shame,
punishment, rewards, guilt and so on... but i would say, these are NOT basic
needs! i think a change towards a Free Society can be done from two points:
1. strategies we develop to meet our needs become problems. this happens more
and more. and we recognize through these problems that something is wrong.
Very useful - for me: Nonviolent Communication.
2. there is something that shows us how to "directly" meet our BASIC needs.
And this (maybe) is Free Software.

Perhaps you are groping towards the notion of no _compulsion_ to trade to
meet basic needs (which is my current focus). But that's of course a _very_
different kettle of fish. That could in principle be met by a Basic Income,
without getting rid of capitalism at all (that's assuming a Basic Income is
sustainable under so-called "global capitalism" - I think we will soon find
out, when Brazil introduces it, as a recent law they've passed mandates
them to!)
of course it's a problem, if many people don't have enough money to live. but
do You really think if they had enough money everything would be fine?  no
problems, no illness, no polution, no wasting of ressources, etc.?
basic income: how many people live in Europe? how much money would you need to
give everybody enought to live? (min.). from where do you want to take the
money? how will the system react? INFLATION? or BOMBING (don't forget
Yugoslavia: people did not get paid for months, there were a lot of
demonstrations and the government decided to print more money to pay the
salaries.... and then came the bombing.)
money makes no sense if everybody has the same. as you say the change can be
very difficult, but -  no way- there is no alternative INSIDE this system.



Or perhaps you are groping towards trade being marginalised, but far from
eliminated, the opposite of today where human generosity is increasingly
marginalised (except in some contexts like Free Software!) Even then, I
find this highly implausible. Trade/money can be, but in very many ways is
not, a proxy for some kind of measure of the social usefulness or social
appreciation for a person's work. Even considering how laughably detached
today's distribution of wealth is from such a goal, I don't think the idea
should be dropped. I don't think the typical hairdresser or night bus
driver or miner wants to drop it, either. They would like to remain
_rewarded_ for the work they do, not just given the same as everyone else,
I suspect.

To summarise, I believe in a basic income, but I also belive in significant
rewards over and above the basic income (i.e. wages and payments) for
socially useful work done.
1. where is the difference to our system?
2. how do "rewards" and "socially useful work" fit together? if you know it is
useful, why do you need rewards? but if you think you can educate people by
rewards, again it's the same we do now - and it does not work. worse: you
need fear, without fear people would not be interested in rewards. but
without fear people can stay in touch with their needs and feelings and they
will know what kind of work is "socially useful".

(Of course, the "over and above" is a bit
redundant - if the rewards are completely clawed back by the state then in
effect they are not rewards and the basic income is not a basic income,
because a basic income must be unconditional by definition, unlike today's
means-tested unemployment benefits.)

I agree in general but I'd put it a bit differently: How *does* a Free
Society organize itself.

I always used to be very against libertarianism. Now I'm finding the
logic of my own positions is pushing me in that direction. I'm not happy
about this, so would gladly be told why the following suggestion is
wrong:

There is an 'invisible hand' in a free society. It doesn't work
through the medium of money, but directly through need. If I (for large
enough values of I) need some software, but that software doesn't exist
in free form, I will write it. If the software already exists in just the
form I want it, I won't bother. The supply of programmers for particular
types of program is regulated by need: this invisible hand is the hand
that scratches your own itch...

For large enough values of I? What about too small values of I? The supply
is then regulated incorrectly, is it not?

Or what about (cases exist today!) very large values of I, but none of them
have both the ability and the time to devote to writing the code / doing
any necessary prerequisite learning? Because they have more important
things to do, you see. That doesn't mean the need doesn't exist, it's just
not important enough on their scales (compared to, say, getting fed).

Libertopians would say the need doesn't matter then, but that's nonsense.
"I can't afford to do it / pay for it" DOES NOT mean "I don't care about
it", as any fool knows.

Two possible problems with the revised 'invisible hand' (only 2?? ;-):

a. Nobody finds working in a sewage farm fulfulling. Then people will
have to get together and find alternative ways of dealing with sewage
that don't require sewage farms. But maybe in some cases there are no
alternative ways?

I think you're right, there will be such cases where TINA (There Is No
Alternative). At least for some period of time.
there is always an alternative. TINA means thinking in the way the system
does. the necessary changes are much deaper. we cannot speak about a new
society in terms of the old. i'm sure there will be a different form of
handling sewage, even more: of producing - or not producing - sewage. there
will be a different medical system, and so on. but the change is difficult,
the steps to be taken are small, so lets think about the next step, and not
speculate about how it will be when it is finished (what could be also
interesting). we are still talking about a "germ-form" (?)  ;-)


b. There is a shortage of doctors. No problem, lots of people would love
to be doctors. But it takes 10 years to learn to be a doctor...
ie. the invisible hand is, in general, incapable of planning ahead.

Right. That is why we have farm subsidies and tariffs. Seriously.
I wish both this were more appreciated amongst both the left and the
libertopian right. Whether you're talking about Smith's invisible hand
or your apparently unmediated "hand of need" it's equally true.

OK, apart from those two objections, is this idea too absurdly simple to
be possible? Like Adam Smith's invisible hand  turns out to be more
ideological wishful thinking than anything else, does this version too?

Sorry, yes.
sorry for my bad english.
ciao,
franz
--
http://www.widerspruch.at
http://www.oekonux.de
=============================================
another world is possible!
もうひとつの世界は可能だ。




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