[p2p-research] excellent contribution on flow money by Martien van Steenbergen
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Thu May 21 17:07:00 CEST 2009
Marc, your question is a direct answer to Michel's, since what you propose
is effectively a perpetual motion machine.
"Game playing" is the process of making decisions. That is why game theory
is fundamental to economics. People make decisions under the pressures of
time. We all have limited time, and therefore must allocate resources as
part of life. In short, we choose when and what to produce.
Fixed input systems are inherently unworkable because no one can determine
ahead demand. Demand changes and preferences change. Marginal utility
changes. People make decisions based on relative positions of their own
situation and those of the marketplace. There can be no "fixing" these
levels because then you doom yourself to sub-optimal levels of consumption.
That is, people don't get what they most want. When that happens, people
simply produce less.
Therefore, raw materials, labor and skill are in a constant price tension.
One cannot "fix" them because to do so is to establish the price of bread
without understanding the factors that change the price of bread which
include not only supply (inputs) but also demand.
So far as the world has determined to date, or at least so far as I am
aware, there are only two possible processes for determining how much of any
good or service to produce: 1) One produces what can be sold profitably or,
2) One produces what one is commanded to produce from a central point.
If one tries to produce a good without profit, then one is attempting to
complete a perpetual motion machine...building something that runs with an
inherent energy imbalance...where the output is continued even though the
energy in is greater than the value/demand out. A perpetual motion machine
violates conservation of energy much the same way running an unprofitable
business does. Money is the energy of an economic function. If you cost
more than the world values your good or service, you cannot run forever just
because your inputs + a profit = some number.
In a nutshell, you've described why labor theories of value are nonsense.
They fix too many inputs and assume irrational assessments of price. Price
isn't determined by the seller/maker of a good, but by the buyer and seller
acting in agreement--by the way, that is a P2P agreement.
Ryan
On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 4:15 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ryan
>
> It's all this game playing that needs to stop You're aware if it and
> describe it well. Why perpetuate it? It's possible that a feast is worth
> exactly the amount of total median energy it takes to produce it (based on
> 'raw resources + labor + skills' costing model for prepared food) plus a
> fixed profit margin (for reinvestment/growth)
>
> I do not find a single correct and complete argument that tells me why it's
> impossible to price things for what they cost in raw resources + labor +
> skills plus a fixed margin of profit.
>
> If you can present a coherent fully logical and logically provable argument
> as to why such pricing model would be unfeasible then that would be a
> surprise for me. I believe it is a lot of tedious accounting but not
> fundamentally flawed to price things at median cost in energy plus some
> margin.
>
> Marc
>
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Martien,
>>
>> 1. Please let me know if you still have mail problems. I don't think I
>> sorted them out.
>>
>> 2. I think your system involves a pricing fallacy. It is that prices of
>> goods and services can be accurately valued. They cannot. We don't know
>> what your blog is worth or what an hour's work building a wall is worth.
>> That's because we don't know what demand is for those things. Much as I
>> would love for something like this to work, it won't.
>>
>> Here is why:
>>
>> A. Money is a dynamic system. The reasons people "own" money is that we
>> store consumption until when it is advantageous. If I offered you a feast
>> immediately after you had a large meal, it is nearly worthless to you. But
>> tomorrow, you may want that feast very much. The makers of feasts count on
>> their own skill at calculated just how many feasts will be wanted today or
>> tomorrow.
>>
>> B. A pure measurement system would always look at fairness from the point
>> of view of a centralized plan. That cannot work because it will not satify
>> point A above. That is, there can be no standard set of "scales" nor any
>> standard "centimeters."
>>
>> C. Money is already a p2p system in the way in spends. It's just not a
>> p2p system in the way money is created. My recommendation to the
>> micro-currency crowd is to focus on money creation--how does money come into
>> the system.
>>
>> Most of he research focus now on this list is on trying to create infinite
>> consumption or infinite earning machines. These are like perpetual motion
>> machines and will not work.
>>
>> The dynamics of supply and demand are very difficult to challenge without
>> coercion. People simply want to make their own decisions when they wish to
>> make them. If you allow those things, then the question becomes one of
>> price.
>>
>> Price is inherently tied to the supply of money as well as demand. It
>> isn't about measuring production where money is interesting, but in
>> measuring the nature of where money comes from in the first place.
>>
>> Ryan Lanham
>> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
>> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> This contribution seems to have been rejected by the mailing list
>>> software, so I'm forwarding, it's an excellent explanation of what is wrong
>>> with a system based on compound interest.
>>>
>>> I'm really looking forward to seeing the other side of the story,
>>> especially the results of Ryan's research on the topic,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Martien van Steenbergen <Martien at aardrock.com>
>>> Date: Wed, May 20, 2009 at 1:50 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Fwd: [ox-en] No more money trickery
>>> propaganda please
>>> To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: Stefan Merten <smerten at oekonux.de>, p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>>
>>>
>>> To throw some more oil on the already bright fire...
>>>
>>> Compound positive interest is a system wide exponential pump that
>>> increasingly flushes money from the poor to the rich. It compells us to grow
>>> beyond sense. It results in Obsessive Compulsary Growth Disorder, if you
>>> will.
>>> This can be proven by mathematics, simulation and experience (as we all
>>> feel right now).
>>>
>>> Don't get me wrong, growth, development, evolving is good. But only
>>> asymptotinc s-curved growth, not only exponential unlimited growth.
>>>
>>> If you want to destroy a community, introduce a monetary system where
>>> money can be owned (‘saved’) and with compound positive interest. Introduce
>>> it in such a way, that people are willing and able, eager even, to play this
>>> system. Mankind has succeeded in that.
>>>
>>> Our current monetary system is like a cancer with metastasis into the
>>> smallest corners of our system. It cannot be treated. No irradiation, and no
>>> cutting will help. In fact, it will only fuel its self-destruction. Future
>>> monetary crises and crashes will happen more frequent, faster and will be
>>> deeper. The worst has yet to come, Schopenhauer would say.
>>>
>>> Compound positive interest also makes each and everyone extremely
>>> short-sighted. The economy at large warps itself into short-term profits and
>>> utter efficiency. Exact the opposite of sustainability, durability and
>>> long-term wealth (in the non-financial meaning).
>>>
>>> It's extreme focus on efficiency makes the system as a whole brittle and
>>> oversensitive to small changes. Flourishing systems have their dynamic
>>> balance somewhere in the middle between chaos and order—chaordic—with a
>>> slight preference for the chaotic side. Chaos is creativity searching for
>>> order. Likewise, order (efficiency) is destructivity searching for chaos.
>>> The sweet spot is an area (not a point) in the middle.
>>>
>>> This short-sightedness is due to the economist's Net Present Value<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value> calculations.
>>> Suppose you invest €1000 to obtain an annual revenue of €100 during a period
>>> of 15 years, so €1,500 in total you might think.
>>>
>>> An economist however will tell you that €100 in a year will be worth €91
>>> now (with an interest rate of 10%). The €100 in year 2 will be worth €83 now
>>> and in year 3 €75, and so forth. The €100 in year 15 is worth a meager €24
>>> now. All in all, in 15 years, the total Net Present Value of the revenue
>>> will be €761, resulting in a loss of €239. In other words, not a profitable
>>> investment.
>>>
>>> This affects our behaviour to short-term financial gains. Combined with
>>> the interest pump from poor to rich, this leads to an instable and brittle
>>> system.
>>>
>>> Enter ‘flow money’ (a.k.a. demurrage of liquidity tax). Technically, flow
>>> money is a negative compound interest. Using exactly the same calculations
>>> and formulas as our economist did in the previous example and an interest of
>>> –10%, the first €100 is worth €111 now, the 2nd €123 and the 15th €486,
>>> adding up to a total of €3,857 and a profit of €2,857! Break even is during
>>> year 7.
>>>
>>> Together with the effect that your balance trickles away (into a larger
>>> commons fund), this affects our behaviour in such a way that we will:
>>>
>>> 1. tend to spend our money sooner rather than later (since our buying
>>> power now is greater than tomorrow), resulting in a lot of employment
>>> opportunities, no more unemployed; and we'll chop the forest later rather
>>> than now, since we don't want the money now as it will seep away;
>>> 2. prefer sustainable, durable, resilient an dlong-term projects over
>>> short-term ones; it gives all of us vision; we can see clearly now;
>>> 3. closing the gap between the rich and the poor; in fact there are
>>> only wealth people and som very wealthy people; and our planet replenishes
>>> itself too.
>>>
>>>
>>> If we can also get rid of the capacity to ‘own’ money, and we only use
>>> money for payment and measuring products and services, than no one is poor.
>>> Use money just like we use centimeters. We're never short of centimers (or
>>> inches or lightyears for that matter). Everyone is as wealthy as their
>>> activity in the community, small and large.
>>>
>>> Your monetary balance does not matter anymore, since it is of no value to
>>> own money; you can't even own it. What does matter is the number of times
>>> you touched zero when trading (either or not changing sign), since at
>>> precisely that moment you have contributed to the community the exact amount
>>> as the community contributed to you. You are in balance with your
>>> environment (that serves you so good and abundant).
>>>
>>> Every time you touch zero, your ‘trustwidth’ increases, since you just
>>> proved to balance your consuption woth your contribution. The trustwidth is
>>> parameterized by your turnover until now, a (damping) factor and a
>>> connectivity index (derived from the relative number of others you traded
>>> with; to avoid kartel and free riding). Just like with flow money, your
>>> trustwidth diminishes, decays, over time. So you need to stay active and add
>>> value to your environment to keep up your trustwidth.
>>>
>>> The trustwidth (like bandwidth) are the ‘credit’ and ‘debet’ limits for
>>> safe trade. Of course, if you like risk, you can go beyond someone's
>>> trustwidth, but you know that you risk losing your extra investment.
>>>
>>> It's just like scaling up micro credit to meso and macro credit. With our
>>> current technology level, it is a relative pievce of cake to implement a
>>> global digital chartal spreadsheet system (which is all we need;
>>> mind-boggling cheaper than all these expensive banks and their emplyoees who
>>> don't even understand their own products anymore).
>>>
>>> This (non-monetary) balance is essential on all scales as well. Just as
>>> the individual needs to balance receiving and giving to the community, the
>>> import and export of countries should enjoy a dynamic (chaordic) balance.
>>> Overshooting in either direction destroys your credibility als a good
>>> citizen or global player. Too much import increases your ‘debt’ to other
>>> countries, your promise to do something back. Too much export hoards
>>> employabilty, depriving other countries from adding value and wealth to the
>>> world at large.
>>>
>>> The balance and trustwidth are similar to energy economics (a topic on
>>> this list some time ago if I recall correctly).
>>>
>>> My quest is to find:
>>>
>>> - the extremely elegant formulas that take any financial transaction
>>> log and calculate the trustwidth between which a player can safely trade;
>>> - how to connect two ecowebs that have so far been developing
>>> independantly and suddenly touch;
>>> - design an immune system that keeps the system as a whole healthy,
>>> even when (severely) attacked;
>>> - the distributed, decentralized, peer-to-peer layers of
>>> infrastructure and humanstructure that make it feasable and completely
>>> self-everything (organizing, healing, supporting, etc).
>>> - the way to have a holarchy emerge that use a cascade of flow money
>>> for ever larger commons activities, up to the global level, while
>>> embellishing local wealth and unfolding.
>>>
>>>
>>> Succes en plezier,
>>>
>>> Martien.
>>>
>>>
>>> P.S. I've been plannig to write this up for a long time; I just now took
>>> 30 minutes or so to flow it out of my head into typing; so it's still quite
>>> rough.
>>>
>>> On 19 May 2009, at 09:22 , Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>>
>>> Stefan,
>>>
>>> you persist in wanting me to say that a cushion produces interest,
>>> obvious nonsense
>>>
>>> again, I do not want to enter in that game,
>>>
>>> obviously, if you had read the sentence as it was intented, in context
>>> and given the long previous arguments, you would have understood that
>>> keeping meant, keeping in the bank, in order to get interest, in other words
>>> the opposite of your nonsensical misinterpretation, which for some
>>> mysterious reason, you want to hold on to, even after repeated denials and
>>> explanations of my part. Assuming that you misread it once, what can be a
>>> possible explanation for holding on to that misinterpration after so many
>>> corrections????
>>>
>>> (the reaction of a normal person would have been: "sorry to have
>>> misinterpreted your phrase and having gotten into a irrational fit, I
>>> apologize, now let's move on and learn from each other's arguments")
>>>
>>> so let me repeat, perhaps this time in very simple terms, what the
>>> essential argument is, about the role of interest
>>>
>>> So, let's assume we have a negative interest rate, as was the case for
>>> the Worgl shilling, in the first renaissance of high middle ages, or in
>>> ancient Egypt.
>>>
>>> What happens for example in egypt is that you bring your rice to a depot,
>>> you get some 'vouchers' in return, but they loose some of their value every
>>> year, because of the price of stockage, and also, a certain profit for the
>>> mediator. In the middle ages, if I recall correctly, every four years, you
>>> had to change five coins for four. Same principle.
>>>
>>> In this context, hoarding money makes no sense, because it loses value
>>> over time, it 'rots', just like real commodities do. Historically what
>>> people would do is to re-invest in the productive economy, and the high
>>> middle ages are known for their high rate of technical innovation i.e.
>>> sometimes called the 'first industrial revolution', relatively high living
>>> standards such as a five day working week with extra 'blue monday' as day
>>> off for the family, long skeletons in cemeteries indicating good heatlh,
>>> etc.., a doubling of the population in 3 centuries, reclaiming and expansion
>>> of large swaths of formerly unproductive land). This system puts a break in
>>> the accumulation process, because accumulation loses value. The market is
>>> kept in check and does not outgrow the rest of the economy. Since your money
>>> is worth more today than say in ten years, you invest it, and this is in
>>> part the explanation for the crowdfunding of the Gothic cathedrals. This is
>>> actually what good money is intended to do, not to be used in speculative,
>>> non-productive activities, but to be used in the process of production
>>> itself, to enhance the living standards of all.
>>>
>>> Now say you replace this system with centralized royal money, with a
>>> positive interest rate. It now becomes interesting to keep your money, to
>>> hoard it, not in a cushion of course, don't be silly, but in the bank; or
>>> better yet, to become a banker yourself and to lend the money out. This way,
>>> without working yourself, you are getting rich while those that work have to
>>> pay a rent to you. This system strenghtens the tendencies for accumulation,
>>> created the conditions for increasingly centralized royal power, and created
>>> the deteriorated social conditions that started in the 14th century.
>>>
>>> But the systemic effects of compound interest are wider than that. If you
>>> lend out that money, and I have to pay your back approximately double in
>>> twenty years, which is about the going rate for buying a house now (or at
>>> least it was when I bought mine), even with inflation, you are going to need
>>> substantially more money than you have now. The result is that it destroys
>>> any possibility for a balanced growth economy, since that extra money has
>>> only two possible sources:
>>>
>>> - either you get it from people who have it in a static economy, in which
>>> case you create absolute poverty
>>>
>>> or:
>>>
>>> - you create a growth economy, i.e. capitalism, in which noboby can stand
>>> still, and so, you get the extra money from the ever-growing pie.
>>>
>>> Please, PLEASE, do not start now talking again about your cushion, and
>>> read again the section about keeping, without taking it out of context,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Stefan Merten <smerten at oekonux.de>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Michel!
>>>>
>>>> Now I am really upset!
>>>>
>>>> 2 days ago Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>>> > read the sentence again, use your brain,
>>>>
>>>> I find it ludicrous that *you* ask *me* to use my brain. Obviously you
>>>> stated nonsense and now *I* shall use my brain? COME ON!!!
>>>>
>>>> > and use the full context of the
>>>> > dialogue to understand that interests makes it indeed interesting to
>>>> keep
>>>> > your money in the bank.
>>>>
>>>> If you give money to the bank then you do **NOT** keep it. This very
>>>> sentence you wrote just makes no sense. It's nonsense again. And it's
>>>> propaganda again because it is only said this way to invoke a feeling
>>>> of injustice in simple-minded people. It hides facts to make a certain
>>>> ideology look more logical and "just". It may not be your intention -
>>>> and frankly I hope it is not your intention. But it is the intention
>>>> of those you have this propaganda from.
>>>>
>>>> If you give your money to the bank in fact you may get your money back
>>>> *under certain conditions* being part of a contract. If you are in bad
>>>> luck you may even not get it back at all, however - as people learned
>>>> during the latest financial crisis once again.
>>>>
>>>> If I *keep* my money there is no such risk. I just keep it.
>>>>
>>>> It is very easy to see that there is a major difference here. In fact
>>>> it is the difference between a pre-capitalist fortune keeper - who
>>>> really keeps her fortune - and a capitalist - who applies her fortune
>>>> by giving it to others to make profit.
>>>>
>>>> > Explain to me how you would get interest under your
>>>> > cushion, I would be very very curious.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, it was *your* claim that keeping money raises interest. If this
>>>> would be true then I can keep it under my cushion with the same
>>>> effect. I'm just taking your statements serious.
>>>>
>>>> Taking statements serious is a simple necessity in a scientific
>>>> approach. To think about what a statement actually means is a very
>>>> simple test of an assumption against reality. It is basic scientific
>>>> work - by which you are obviously shocked.
>>>>
>>>> > I'm trying to put the conflict behind,
>>>>
>>>> I have no conflict with you. To me all this feels very much like
>>>> shadow boxing on your side.
>>>>
>>>> > but if you descend to such levels of
>>>> > ridiculousness, it makes it very difficult.
>>>>
>>>> I'm really sorry Michel, but that it all but ridiculous. The question
>>>> whether you can keep your money or need to give it to someone else -
>>>> usually mediated by a bank but also in the form of shares - to get
>>>> interest is the all-or-nothing question here.
>>>>
>>>> > Please, let's put that behind
>>>> > thus.
>>>>
>>>> You are free to correct your statements so they make sense and - at
>>>> best - match the observable reality. It would be far better than to
>>>> leave the community just because someone says you are preaching
>>>> nonsense.
>>>>
>>>> Frankly I'm curious how long it will take that you at least agree that
>>>> you can *not keep* your money and get interest for it. In science that
>>>> would be simply to recognize the observable reality and modify your
>>>> basic assumption according to it. As you wrote above you are still not
>>>> ready to modify your basic assumption - though you are now replacing
>>>> your basic assumption with sentences which are inherently
>>>> contradictory.
>>>>
>>>> With a scientific approach the next step would be to question what
>>>> happens with the money you just gave to others. That would be the
>>>> research step. And it would be easy because it is well-known that
>>>> banks give money to capitalists in the form of credit. In turn the
>>>> capitalists then apply it to labor force and machinery to produce
>>>> products they can sell for a higher price than they had themselves for
>>>> the input. The logical conclusion is that interest is a share of the
>>>> profit of a capitalist. The amount of interest is directly coupled to
>>>> the amount of expected profit and the risk involved to actually make
>>>> this profit [1]_. In other words: What you are trying to accomplish
>>>> with your [named above] stuff is what actually happens in capitalism
>>>> all the time. It's in fact the very core of capitalism.
>>>>
>>>> .. [1] Of course in a fully expanded exchange system at the end of its
>>>> life cycle like contemporary capitalism it is a bit more
>>>> difficult. It's a interesting task to research that. But the
>>>> general principle stays.
>>>>
>>>> I, Christian and others explained all that over and over again and it
>>>> is really not hard to understand. In fact it needs no theory at all.
>>>> It's all observable reality. But you constantly ignore this. Feel
>>>> free. But don't be shocked if others call this nonsense or - when
>>>> combined with an attempt to evoke certain feelings in simple-minded
>>>> persons - even propaganda.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Grüße
>>>>
>>>> Stefan
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>
>>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>
>>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>>
>>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>>
>>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
>
> Marc Fawzi
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi
>
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