[p2p-research] [p2p energy economy] Re: excellent contribution on flow money by Martien van Steenbergen

[Patrick Anderson]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 3:11 PM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Price manipulation is what I'd like to eliminate.
>
> 1. Goods/services can be dumped below cost to eliminate competition

Dumping is not a problem for consumer-owned enterprise,
in fact it is perfectly in-line with their goal of product abundance.

But dumping will continue to be a problem for those who intend
to keep price above cost, for profit requires scarcity.



> 2. Goods/services can be made scarce by a monopoly to raise price way above
> cost and extract more profit over longer period

P2P can break production monopolies by purchasing the
Means of Production for that industry and then treating profit
as a payer's investment.

Treating profit as an investment from the consumer who paid it
causes monopoly to approach zero as competition (in ownership)
approaches perfection*.


(*)Competition may be perfect for some peers for very brief periods
of time, but this perfection is not static since changes in consumer
needs and wants will cause those peers to have insufficient
ownership in the Means of Production for the NEW goods or services
they want while having excess ownership in the Means of Production
for things they no longer want or need.

This dynamic requires the 'fix' to be self-balancing so the peer should
slowly lose ownership in the Means of Production for goods or services
he no longer desires, while slowly gaining ownership in the Means of
that which he does desire.

Gaining ownership is accomplished by treating profit as his investment.

Loosing ownership is accomplished by treating a lack of 'payment' for
the upkeep of the Means of Production (failing to cover the costs of
maintenance and production for that resource) as a request to
"sell off" part of those Means for the purpose of maintaining what
smaller amount remains as his property.

For example, let's say I like Peaches so much that I am willing to pay
price above cost for that good.  If that profit is treated as my investment,
then over a period of time I will eventually have enough ownership in
a consumer-owned Peach orchard and storehouse that all I pay is the
real costs of wages and other physical inputs needed to maintain
that production (including things such as water-rights, taxes, etc.).

But after a while I may begin to get bored with peaches, so I decide
to stop paying into that production ~ or maybe just pay less since I
know I won't be needing as many in the future.  I can also sell any
Peaches I currently already own, but must treat any profit as an
investment from the consumer who paid it.

Now, when the other Peach orchard co-owners fail to receive my
annual or monthly payment for my portion of the orchard, they will
take that as a signal that I want a % of my ownership to be sold
to someone else (a new consumer who just recently paid profit
while purchasing some peaches for example) to cover the costs
of maintaining the remaining portion of the orchard that I still own.

If I continue to fail to cover those costs, my ownership in those
Means of Production will taper toward zero - as they should.