[p2p-research] A basic income guarantee versus peer production

[Patrick Anderson]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Paul D.
Fernhout<pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:

> It still seems to me thatt libertarians and Republican fiscal conservatives
> make a similar argument for unchained capitalism being "hyper-productive"
> potentially and thus bringing abundance to all.

Capitalism can *never* bring abundance to all, for Capitalism requires
perpetual profit, while profit requires scarcity (real or artificial)
of Objects and ultimately a scarcity (real or artificial) of Physical
Sources.

Capitalists will begin closing their doors and declaring failure if we
ever cause abundance, since their only stated purpose for production
is to keep price above cost.

An auction proves a consumer will raise price above cost during real
or perceived scarcity because he is admitting he has no other way to
that objective.

So consumers are willing to pay for growth, but Capitalism causes that
growth to become the property of the current owners instead of being
the property of the actor who paid it.

Treating profit as a reward for investors who took risk causes those
owners (or the managers they hire) to make decisions that insure
scarcity remains.  Examples of such decisions would be funding
politicians who will vote for measures that keep prices high through
straight-forward attacks on abundance such as the US Farm Bill which
once again pays farmers to NOT grow.

But there is another reason to invest that we tend to overlook.

When you buy a lawn-mower for home use, you are not investing for
profit - you are investing for *product* (a mowed lawn).

When you buy an apple-tree for your own place, you are not investing
for profit - you are investing for *product* (apples, smoke-wood and
shade).


We could collectively do the same for larger purchases, but we must
then face the difficulty of co-ownership and really understand what
should be done with the overpayment that outsiders willingly pay.

We cannot see this exit only because we refuse to reconsider the
meaning and purpose of profit while ignoring the much more important
reason (and ultimately only real value) of investment: product.


> profitability without strong economic coercion. One could moot a strategy
> where gift economy starts out in a little corner and colonises the whole,
> but Offe and Przeworski would suggest that this would impact profit margins
> - beyond a certain point, the transition has to be "all of nothing"."

A "good economy" can allow participants to pay each other for skills
they trade because *that* is not the transaction that further
concentrates wealth into the hands of the wealthy.

The root cause of "Primitive Accumulation of Capital" is the
mistreatment of the overpayment made by a Worker when he buys
something while acting as a Consumer.

A 'righteous' economy will have a "Freedom Trade Agreement" (which
could be enforced as a Terms of Operation through regular
private-property) requiring "price above cost" be handled as an
investment from the consumer who paid it - so the amount he overpays
(in profit) will taper toward zero across time as he eventually
becomes sufficient owner in the Physical Sources of that production
*even if* he does not happen to have the skills to operate or repair
that Capital.

Wages have nothing to do with this.