[p2p-research] "Pennsylvania pie fight," etc.

[Kevin Carson]

On 4/16/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm republishing this on the 19th, with the following intro, which I would
> like you to address:
>
> I find this argument addresses one of the elements of the dynamism of East
> Asia, where in many countries, these regulations either do not exist or do
> not apply. In a country like Thailand, where I live, this gives nearly
> everyone a job with a living wage (or nearly so), though at the same time,
> wherever it is applied, it is impossible to protect higher living standards
> for any professions based on monopoly rents, making the system not
> attractive for any country where a professional middle class exist thanks to
> such protective regulations. It insures that there are many taxis, but none
> of the taxi drivers are able to make a good living because anyone can join
> their ranks, bringing any market prices down to the lowest possible level.

Thanks, Michel.

I don't know enough about social and economic conditions in Thailand
to analyze the situation there.

But generally speaking, the elimination of occupational licensing and
scaling back of zoning and "safety" codes would work best in synergy
with a removal of similar constraints on subsistence production for
home consumption, and on microproduction for a barter network
organized as a community of producers.

Everything I've said about removing licensing and regulation as an
imposition of minimum overhead levels on microenterprise assumes that
commercial microenterprise in the money economy would coexist with
full freedom to produce in the household economy, or for informal
exchange with other producers via barter networks.

The primary context of all my discussions of low-overhead
microenterprise is the general goal of removing barriers to direct
production for use, and all barriers to free production for exchange
in the social economy of networked producers.  The general idea is to
enable people to meet as many of their own needs as possible, and
thereby to remove dependence on wage employment as much as possible.

That would assume, in particular, a society in which small-scale
ownership of housing and land predominates.  In a society where most
people are landless, urban proletarians living in shantytowns, the
balance of power would be altered so that those engaged in
microenterprise would be dependent on it as their primary source of
sustenance, and selling their labor in a buyer's market.  My goal,
rather, is a society in which 1) people meet as many of their needs as
possible by producing for themselves or for barter using their own
land and property, 2) sale of one's services in the larger commercial
economy is a source of discretionary, supplemental income, and 3)
informal and household production provides a fulcrum for bargaining
power so that people can hold out for the most advantageous terms in
participating in the large money or wage economy.

It's a fairly common rule that if only one form of monopoly is
eliminated, the remaining forms of monopoly will shift the overall
bargaining power of classes so that the nominal elimination of
monopoly is actually twisted to the advantage of those who retain
possession of the remaining monopolies.

Perhaps you can elaborate on how elimination of occupational licensing
and the like fits in as part of an overall package deal in Thailand.

Best,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html