[p2p-research] higher transportation costs can reverse globalization

[Patrick Anderson]

> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:

>> What causes efficiency to be a 'problem'?

> If you are greedy, and want to control everything, then it's not good to
> have a gaggle of local people, that everyone locally knows and loves, and
> that cater to local needs and offer a superior product, and who can
> out-compete you.

By "out-compete" do you mean "offer the same quality at a lower price"?

If so, then would you say "offering the same quality at *cost*" would
be the ultimate in efficiency?

If so, then "at cost" is a problem for current Capitalist owners
because it eliminates profit, but is it bad for the workers of for the
consumers?

>> Will efficiency also be a 'problem' for local food systems?
>
> Yes.

How very sad.  Must we perpetuate poverty to insure profit?

If you and some other people collectively purchased a small farm for
the sole purpose of your own benefit, would the efficiency of others
be a problem for you?  Why or why not?

>
>>
>> Is efficiency a problem for the lone islander?
>
> Depends on who the loan islander is.... ;-)

I don't understand your response.  The idea of efficiency being 'bad'
is based on the idea of keeping prices above costs, but the lone
islander has no need to keep price above cost, as it doesn't even make
sense.  If a ship dumped a load of wheat on his island during the
night would it hurt him as the dumping of low-price product on 3rd
world countries currently hurts the suppliers there?

If he found a way to eliminate jobs (lower employment), would he
celebrate or cry?

Abundance and efficiency are always good when the owner of the
productive sources is the consumer of that product, but we have
somehow missed or tend to disregard this case.

>
>>
>> What Mode of Production can withstand (Local? added by Sam) efficiency?
>
> Lying, and appealing to base emotions, coupled with whatever mode of
> production you'd care to choose, seems to have trumped modes of production
> that were simply efficient for a while now.

What I meant to ask is "In what case (in what arrangement of property
ownership) is abundance and efficiency always good?".

If you own an apple tree and eat all the fruit thereof, do you care if
someone else is offering apples at a low price?  Does the efficiency
of others hurt you?  What if each apple consumer had just enough
ownership in apple trees to supply them with all the apples they need
(while some of those owners may be paying others to do that exact work
with money they had earned doing something they are good at)?  That
would be bad for Capitalists, but would it be bad for society?

Would those owners be troubled by efficiency?  Would they dream of
destruction and scarcity?  Using profit as a reward for non-consuming
owners incents antisocial, even warlike behavior.