Re: [ox-en] Re: "At Cost"
- From: "Patrick Anderson" <agnucius gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:48:55 -0600
On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
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Hi Patrick!
Last week (8 days ago) Patrick Anderson wrote:
This is my pattern for a public utility.
. The collective owning consumers are "we the people".
. Each owning-consumer pays his portion of all his real costs incurred.
. Each non-owning-consumer pays his portion of all his real costs
incurred and also pays profit which is invested for him in MORE
sources of that kind of production.
That really sounds to me like just another attempt to modify
capitalism a bit instead of overcoming it. In fact your model reminds
me very much of state socialism - may be more the Yugoslavian variant
thereof.
But this would be self-organizing groups of users, not a faceless state.
Are you saying a small factory or farm owned by a group of consumers
would create the same dynamic as when that ownership is concentrated
at a national level?
The basic problem of your approach like every approach based on
abstract capitalism is that you use capitalist concepts like scarcity.
What do you mean by "use capitalist concepts like scarcity"? I
recognize that scarcity is currently a real and troublesome issue, but
I don't want to perpetuate it like the Capitalists - I want to
incrementally minimize it (or in other words, to maximize abundance).
We must co-exist with the Capitalists for a very long time. My
proposal of treating profit as an investment from the consumer who
paid it creates a kind of economic 'border' between we the consumers
and the current Capitalists. Think of it as a cell-wall for the germ
form.
Yes, cost makes only sense under conditions of scarcity.
Why should I think about costs if I have ampleness?
What do you mean when you use the word "cost"?
I am talking about the real costs of production that occur even for a
lone islander, and that we will never be able to fully eliminate.
Here is a list of some of those costs:
Exclude: The cost of disallowing other solutions in the same space or
time, or the costs of disallowing other users.
Invest: Capital is expensive, and must be purchased or constructed.
Some Consumers are willing and able to pre-pay.
Insure: Done once we have gathered the "replacement cost".
Install: tools, materials, labor
Maintain: tools, materials, labor
Operate: tools, materials, labor
Pollute: noise, smell, poison
Risk: Any attempt at production may fail
Secure: locks, cameras, labor
Store: size, shelter, temperature, sun, soil, ventilation, bedding, labor
Work: This is calculated as "wage" when working for another.
Peer production, however, is based on different basic principles -
namely Selbstentfaltung and openness. You can do away with your mind
games if you take that into account.
Mind games?
Why do you say that a specific destination for profit is a mind game?
Are you saying the treatment of profit has no significance?
If not I'd suggest that we just
stay with capitalism because on your principles it is already the best
system.
Capitalism treats profit as a reward for the current owners. I do not
subscribe to that system because it perpetuates profit while incenting
scarcity and destruction.
Patrick
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