[p2p-research] abundance and scarcity in second life: market vs. other incentives

[marc fawzi]

>
>
> <<
> Do you have any restrictions or requirements about what a 'producer'
> (does that mean 'owner', or 'worker'?) do with any profit he is able
> to aquire?  Will it be treated as his reward, or will the consumer be
> considered?
> >>
>

As the model moves from physical goods/services to digital goods/service,
money as energy becomes a means for enabling production and delivery, not a
means for enabling to ownership.  It can be argued that the model does not
apply to most physical goods (it only applies to those physical goods that
do not physically depreciate with time, e.g. diamonds?) So it is a natural
step forward to move the model into the digital realm so as to avoid
reinventing the world (the kind of calculations that take physical
depreciation into account would involve a great deal of statistical analysis
and the project would fail before it can prove itself, so its better to
start in the digital world where goods do not depreciate, i.e. a digital
model of a building will remain the same across time.. its just data)

So there is really no concept of "owner" once the model is moved to the
digital world.. In the current physical world version there is the concept
of "owning the use of some good" by paying for it and owning the ability to
resell it at cost (for goods that can be produced in abundance and that do
not physically depreciate over time) but it's not "ownership" as in having
right to prevent others from replicating it and reselling it at the median
cost in energy it takes to replicate and deliver. In other words, the model
was trying hard to break out of the physical world and while in that state
it had fuzzy lines around the definition of ownership. As it moves into the
digital world, there is zero ownership. The model will have to be adjusted
for that.

I have to correct a line in my previous response to this thread: a person
downloading some content produced and deliver by another person pays for
that content at median cost in work energy it takes to produce, replicate
and deliver it. That person can then resell that content at the same median
cost in work energy, so if they happen to have less costly way to replicate
and deliver it then they make a profit but so can the originator.

So again, money, becomes a means for enabling production and delivery, not a
means for enabling ownership.

When it comes to profits, the only type of profit that I found to be
abundance sustaining is profit that is due to increase in production
efficiency (relative to other producers of the same good or service)

Any other type of profit would create scarcity.

In an over simplified example based on the model, if every day I get 1
trillion joules from my solar generator and I spend 1 thousand joules per
day on average in maintaining and upgrading it, then every day I have 1
billion joules of renewable energy to make food with and produce goods and
services, i.e. grow, so why do I need to make a profit to grow? The sun is
my profit. Anyone and everyone can make a profit from the sun. Why make
profit from other people?

So again, the only type of profit that does not create scarcity, i.e. that
which is derived from higher production efficiencies relative to other
producers of the same good or service, is the only profit that one should.


Marc


>
> > Can you elaborate on "trading at cost except for decentralized growth" ?
>
> I'm saying that growth only results (not strictly, but generally) when
> "price above cost" is collected, for otherwise, if only the costs for
> the previous round of production are collected, what would be used for
> growth.
>
> In other words, collecting profit can actually be *good* in that,
> without it, we cannot grow.
>
> In comparing centralized to decentralized I am referring to the
> difference between regular Corporations (whether for-profit or
> non-profit) and the new ... uh 'Cooporations' we need.
>
> When traditional Corporations re-invest profit, the entity grows, but
> that growth (those investments) are the property of those current
> owners.
>
> So, while this treatment of profit does cause growth, it also causes
> that new Capital to accumulate into the hands of those originating
> owners.
>
> As this cycle continues, the current owners aquire more and more Means
> of Production, while the non-owning members (or Consumers) fail to
> ever gain any ground of their own, and so finally find themselves in a
> position of begging for proper treatment.
>
> A Cooporation would need to treat profit as an investment from the
> person who paid it (the non-owning Consumer who paid a price above
> cost) so that each member gains as much ground as they overpay for
> until they finally own enough property that they can simply do as they
> please without asking anybody at all except in cases of border
> disputes and for Means of Production that cannot be meaningfully
> subdivided - and so require consensus of those other peers (and only
> those other peers) involved.
>
>
> Patrick
>
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