[p2p-research] excellent contribution on flow money by Martien van Steenbergen

[Patrick Anderson]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

What about producing for your own consumption?
The product is not sold and you are your own commander.

Is that case not worth consideration?


> If one tries to produce a good without profit,
> then one is attempting to complete a perpetual motion machine
> ...where the output is continued even though the energy in
> is greater than the value/demand out.

Are you saying Profit is used to pay
for the Costs of previous production?

I thought Profit was the difference between
the Price a consumer pays for a good,
and Costs the owners paid for that production.

I thought Profit occurred when the owners
received MORE than the costs of production.


Profit is important for growth, but growth should not be perpetual.

Production can be perpetual when Costs are recovered.

Profit is not a Cost, it is a payment *above* Cost brought about
by the payer's lack of ownership in the Means of Production.


> If you cost more than the world values
> your good or service, you cannot run forever

But what would happen if the world valued your good
or service at *exactly* the Cost of it's production?

I understand Profit is currently considered necessary
because we don't know what to otherwise pay the investors.

But what if the investors were the very people intending
to use or consume those goods or services?

They would be compensated with "at-cost" Product alone,
while avoiding the scarcity-seeking that Profit requires.


Would you pre-pay for "at-cost" internet or cell-phone service?
How about organic produce or righteous, raw milk?
 [CAUTION: Cow-sharing is illegal in some US States]

If we could get a large number of people to pre-pay for such a thing,
then *they* (the consumers) would be the owners, and their 'return'
on that investment would be a drastically reduced price.

All those consuming-investors wouldn't necessarily need to be workers in that
exact industry (and in fact there wouldn't be enough jobs to fill).

The important point is that they are the Owners,
for when Owners and Consumers are the same, Profit is undefined.

That is a case of production without Profit, but is it worth considering?


Patrick