[p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] Re: [ox-en] All Work is Created Equal

[marc fawzi]

Hi Samantha,

The agile process is what it is, i.e.: raw, partially baked and frequent.

Within minutes after sending that I went in to clarify that the model does
reward creativity and hard work (with had been stated clearly in existing
section on Trading At Cost with Joule Tokens)

I went into further details of how the calculations would be carried out to
account for all inputs.

Having said that, the biggest logical constraints for the model which may
also be the greatest opportunity is that it ONLY holds true for very narrow
category of goods and services, limited by the conditions for sustainable
abundance that I've been able to identify. This makes the model a very niche
model for now, until MORE goods and services meet those conditions. It is
unlikely that ALL goods and services would ever meet all of the conditions.
There is always something scarce in the world, be it a special massage
service (example due to Chris) or some unique and closed invention or
whatever thing that has a scarce quality that justifies paying over cost.

If you care to look at the updated descriptions below for "All Work Is
Created Equal and "Work Only If You Love Your Work," you should see the
model's logic w.r.t. rewarding creativity.

I plan to go through one example calculation (as part of the use case
development) in end to end fashion showing the entire set of inputs (for a
product that meets all of the conditions for sustainable abundance) and how
they contribute to the cost in work energy.

For now, if you see any incompleteness in the argument itself please let me
know.... Thanks

The updated model sections:
All Work Is Created Equal

*If we do not flatten the value of work we will never flatten the hierarchy.
*

For a true peer-to-peer (P2P) economy to exist, there must not be a
hierarchy.

Technically speaking, in the P2P Energy Economy, tokens of the currency
(i.e. money) are created in proportion to the increase in the amount of
electric energy flow from nodes with energy surplus to nodes with energy
deficit, including households, charging stations, electric vehicle grid, and
neighboring communities, which is then converted by those nodes into new
work energy, which gives the tokens a real and absolute work value (in
joules) in spent energy, which enables its use in trading the goods and
services defined under this economy, at the cost of energy it takes to
produce and deliver them.

To restate this in plain English, it suffice it to say that in the P2P
Energy Economy all work energy is equal because all work energy is measured
using the same absolute-value unit, i.e. the Joule, so a dentist's work
energy is not any more valuable than a teacher's work energy, while still
allowing those who work harder (produce more work energy) to get more back.
In other words, it values all work energy equally while allowing people to
work as hard and smart as they are capable of and get compensated
proportionately, with increased sales and/or increased profit through higher
production efficiencies.

The conditions of sustainable abundance, given below, must be met for all
goods and services to be traded under this model. These conditions, when
combined with the currency defined under this model, enable a complete
departure from today's scarcity enforcing economic model by allowing
everyone who wishes to get a given good or service to do so at the absolute
work value of the energy it takes to produce and deliver that good or
service.
1. On-demand production (which permits predictive inventory management so
producers don't have to over produce, which causes waste and inefficiency
and is therefore unsustainable, or under produce which causes shortages and
high prices, which is also unsustainable) 2. Decentralized production (which
assures there's no dependence on a few suppliers) 3. Renewable production
(which assures there's no dependence on scarce resources) 4. Scalable
production (which assures that volume is not limited by the production
process) 5. Open source production and "share alike" licensing (which
assures that the good or service can be produced by anyone, while enforcing
social and moral rights of the originator, not their right to a monopoly.) 6.
Non-Scarce Production (this catch-all condition refers to the absence of any
factors that would justify paying more than the cost of work energy it takes
to produce and deliver the given good or service)

When the above conditions are met, for any given good or service, that good
or service should be available to everyone who wishes to have at the cost of
energy it takes to produce and deliver it.

So if health care (as a service) was to meet the above conditions then a
visit to the dentist should not cost more than what it takes in energy to
render that service.

The hard problem here is figuring out the energy costing models for the
types of goods and services that fulfill the sustainable abundance criteria
given above.

We can know how much it takes in energy (calories) per day to keep a 25 year
old human being functioning, and we can estimate the other costs of living
in terms of the work energy required to maintain living conditions. We can
also know the energy use of various processes used in producing and
delivering a given good or service. Assuming the given good or service meets
the above-mentioned criteria for sustainable abundance, i.e. no dependence
on scarcity economics, we can measure the energy it takes to produce and
deliver that good or service, and, using historical sales data, we can
adjust that eventually to be based on an average volume of production for
that good or service (instead of raw estimate) and then calculate the median
cost in energy it takes to produce and deliver that good or service, per
each instance of that good or service.

Such calculation involves building realistic energy costing models (for the
various goods and services that meet the sustainable abundance criteria,)
and when it's automated it via cost estimation software (as part of the P2P
trading application) it offers us the opportunity to understand the real
cost of production to ourselves and the environment.

When it comes to rewarding those who work harder and smarter, the model
fully supports that through two different paths:

1) Those who invest work energy in increasing the efficiency of their
production processes get to have a profit margin (because their good or
service costs less than the median cost in work energy to produce and make,
so they get to keep the difference.)

2) Those who invest work energy in improving an existing good or service get
to sell more of that good or service if they select the right improvements
(but also get to lose if they select the wrong improvements, so this second
path involves educated risk taking.)
[edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Energy_Economy?title=P2P_Energy_Economy&action=edit&section=8>
]
Work Only If You Love Your Work

The result of trading in goods and services at the cost of work energy it
takes to produce and deliver them is that, unless one manages to produce and
deliver the good and service with less work energy than other producers of
the same good or service, producers will get back the same amount of work
energy in joule tokens as they put in. And since people can sell their own
produced energy, goods or services for joule tokens at the work value of
energy and at cost in work energy it takes to produce and deliver those
goods and services, respectively, and use those joule tokens to get the
goods and services they need at the cost in work energy it takes to produce
and deliver those goods and services, they can go on living indefinitely
without the need to generate 'profits.'

Therefore, the thirst for artificial motivation in the form of profits (i.e.
greed) is out of the picture, which means that people will only do the work
(to produce and deliver a good or service) if and only if they love the
work.

It also means that, since no one has to work unless they love their work, no
one will need -or have any incentive- to work for another person, which
means that most people will be both consumers as well as producers of goods
and services, or "prosumers.






On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> marc fawzi wrote:
> > Here is the latest added section in the "Introduction to the User
> > Manual" for P2P Energy Economy in case anyone is interested in the topic:
> >
> >
> >       Work Only If You Love Your Work
> >
> > The result of trading in goods and services at the cost of work energy
> > it takes to produce and deliver them is that, unless one manages to
> > produce and deliver the good and service with less work energy than
> > other producers of the same good or service, producers will get back
> > the same amount of work energy in joule tokens as they put in. And
> > since people can sell their own produced energy, goods or services for
> > joule tokens at the work value of energy and at cost in work energy it
> > takes to produce and deliver those goods and services, respectively,
> > and use those joule tokens to get the goods and services they need at
> > the cost in work energy for delivering those goods and services, they
> > can go on living indefinitely without the need to generate 'profits.'
> >
>
> Since I presumably had enough energy to produce the goods and I got back
> only what I had to begin with exactly where was the additional work of
> inventiveness, creativity, care, time etc repaid?   If all the
> non-energy portions are never compensated or judge to have any real
> value then why would anyone expend those at all?    Is it somehow ideal
> to judge those very desirable values  as worthless?  I am not seeing it.
>
> > Therefore, the thirst for artificial motivation in the form of profits
> > (i.e. greed) is out of the picture, which means that people will only
> > do the work (to produce and deliver a good or service) if and only if
> > they love the work.
> >
>
> To profit is to create some value that produces a net gain of the amount
> of value in the world and thus in the amount of value you can produce in
> the future.   Otherwise all economics is a zero sum gain and their is no
> progress.   I don't think you want to live there.
>
>
> > It also means that, since no one has to work unless they love their
> > work, no one will need -or have any incentive- to work for another
> > person, which means that most people will be both consumers as well as
> > producers of goods and services, or "prosumers."
> >
>
> In the world outlined very few would wish to produce anything since you
> only allow them to produce at a net loss since all values input to the
> process are not compensated.
>
>
> - samantha
>
>
> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Open Manufacturing" group.
> To post to this group, send email to openmanufacturing at googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> openmanufacturing+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com<openmanufacturing%2Bunsubscribe at googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090201/f7ed9c00/attachment-0001.html>