[p2p-research] The Two Biggest Dogmas

[marc fawzi]

Dear All,

In reply to various feedback points on why "free" is not sustainable and why
self-sufficiency does not lead to true autonomy, I've constructed a separate
updated section within the P2P Energy Economy model to address them in more
coherent manner.

This entire exercise is helping me tremendously to understand how to cope
with the existing economy by exposing the various games embedded within it
and allowing me to survive it while working toward an evolving set of ideas
that would ultimately modify it.

I hope you find it useful, too.

Here is the section concerning the two biggest dogmas in current social
theories:

The Two Biggest Dogmas

The two biggest dogmas present in current social theories are:
1. Generalized exchange of goods and services (aka "unconditional barter" or
"gift economy") where those who are naturally inclined to give more than
they take end up supporting those who are naturally inclined to take more
than they give, is a good way to run an economy. 2. Self-sufficiency leads
to autonomy.

These two dogmas are countered in the following two sections that address
fair compensation and increased autonomy.

To summarize the sections below, for the first dogma, the following counter
argument is given:
Getting and giving things for free unconditionally (as in a gift economy) is
unsustainable because of the following reasons: 1. If a given good or
service can be obtained for free then some people may want an infinite
supply of it. For example, if Internet bandwidth was abundant and free
someone had an insatiable appetite for digital content then they may want to
have an infinite amount of it, without compensating those who produce the
bandwidth for the cost of producing and delivering that bandwidth, which is
an unsustainable situation.  2. If there are more people who are inclined to
take more than they give then they will have an unfair allocation of the
available resources than people who are inclined to give more than they
take, which causes the latter population to suffer and ultimately shrink
leading to a dominant majority of people who are inclined to take more than
give, which is an unsustainable situation.

And for the second dogma, the following argument is given:
When it comes to the idea that self-sufficiency leads to autonomy, we can
point to the fact that no amount of self-sufficiency can compete with the
autonomy achieved through increased inter-dependence. For instance, in the
case of North Korea, a fully self-sufficient country that can make nukes
from scratch, the fact is that despite having many educated and capable
scientists and engineers, a hard working population, and many natural
resources (including agricultural resources) they don't have the autonomy
(or power) to achieve the standards of living (including nutrition) that
would be theirs if they were an part of a greater inter-dependent whole. So
if bloggers and youtubers did not produce their own content and did not
re-distribute or remixe content from other bloggers and youtubers, the
Internet (or Web) as a medium would not have had the autonomy that it has
today and the same goes for the bloggers and youtubers, as they would be
dependent on the few producers that existed before the Web was born, e.g. TV
stations, newspapers, etc. Having said that, inter-dependence can easily
turn into dependence when most producers become consumers, redistributors
and remixers of a few original producers. This can happen due to two
reasons: 1. The majority of producers consume far more than they produce.  2.
Certain producers have access to a scarce resource (e.g. insider news in
case of bloggers like TechCrunch and access to huge amounts of video content
in case of youtubers like CBS and other major TV channels) or a higher place
in some established hierarchy (e.g. Washington Post vs. Joe Blogger) use
this unfair advantage to buy out the most successful of the small producers
(Joe Blogger and Joe Youtuber) in order to reinforce others' dependency on
themselves.  The answer to both problems is to assure maximum
inter-dependence in the design of the system. The way the "maximum
inter-dependence" condition is assured in the P2P Energy Economy is by
having producers trade in goods and services based on the cost in work
energy it takes to produce and deliver the given good or service, so that in
order for someone to consume, redistribute or remix another producer's goods
or services they need to pay for those goods or services in joule tokens at
the same amount in work energy it took to produce and deliver those goods or
services, which means that they have to produce their own goods and services
(or produce surplus energy) that they can trade with other producers at the
cost in work energy it takes to produce and deliver the given good or
service, e.g. by using joule tokens. Another way the "maximum
inter-dependence" condition is assured in the P2P Energy Economy is by
eliminating monopolies. When it comes to monopolies, they are eliminated in
the P2P Energy Economy by the following conditions: 1. All industries must
meet the following conditions for sustainable abundance:  a. Efficient,
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)  b. Decentralized, Inter-dependent
Production (which assures there's no dependence on a few suppliers)  c.
Renewable Production (which assures there's no dependence on scarce
resources)  d. Scalable Production (which assures that volume is not limited
by the production process)  e. Open Source Production (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.)  f.
Non-Scarce Qualities (which assures the absence of any scarce qualities that
would justify paying more than the cost of work energy it takes to produce
and deliver the given good or service)  g. Non-Scarce Dependencies (which
assures that there are no dependencies in the cost-of-work-energy
calculation on any goods or services that do not meet the above conditions.)
 h. Fair Compensation (which assures that all producers are paid at the
median cost in work energy that goes into making and delivering their good
or service and based on their efficiency and creativity, not based on their
place in the hierarchy or their access to a scarce resource.)  i. Open
Education (which assures that all peers have access to education at the cost
in work energy it takes to produce and deliver that education.)  2.
Consumers are automatically and anonymously matched to producers based on
the required attributes for the given good or service, the producer's lender
credits (see: Lender and Borrower Credits) and the affinity between the
consumer's and the producer's social, ecological and environmental values.  3.
Producers are required to share their revenue through lending in order to
rank higher as sellers, which assures that in order for a given producer to
empower themselves they have to empower everyone. Full model available at:
http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Energy_Economy

Sorry if I can't answer all feedback. I've just started working on a mobile
software project that takes advantage of these ideas and so my bandwidth is
sort of limited.

Marc
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