[p2p-research] Blog on Political Economy of P2P

[Ryan Lanham]

Schumpeter famously described capitalism as creative destruction.  He meant
that it is so hard to stay on top that innovation constantly destroys the
less than sharp.  It is probably true.  Wealth management allows people to
stay rich, but their productivity must come from investment.  Now that cash
flows are difficult (long-term) that is even becoming extremely hard.

The best answer to economics is education.  Smart, scientifically educated
people win.  Asia is winning.  Africa will win next.  The key for poor
countries is to eliminate the incredibly high costs of corruption.
Corruption destroys far more wealth than anything else on the planet--far
more.  A country like Jamaica which was exceedingly promising has been
completely destroyed by corruption--so too Burma, Kenya, Zimbabwe, etc.  If
you hate poverty and inequality, hate corruption.

But monopoly power is unlikely in a framework where you don't have corrupt
power because systems innovate vastly more quickly than they did in Marx's
time.  Just look at PCs and software which change almost daily.  Innovation
is the friend of the smart and the fair...and the commons must continually
innovate to stay relevant...another strength of P2P.

Here is a stunning statistic from a leading venture capitalist (I can give
the exact source if anyone needs it but I don't have it at my
fingertips...)  $27 Billion USD have been invested in Web 2.0 firms.  Guess
how much has been realized from either profit returns or IPOs so far?
Zero.  Zilch.  Not one penny.  That is devistating to capitalists...even
they don't understand it...but it appears that firms like Facebook and the
whole raft of Web 2.0 firms are effectively operating as non-profits.  Very
odd times for the market economy.

Ryan


On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Tomas Rawlings <tom at fluffylogic.net> wrote:

> I've always felt this is a major hole in capitalism; that all companies aim
> for monopoly, which destroys competition.
> In addition while competing against other companies using better products,
> price and services is one method to achieve this monopoly (and the one in
> theory companies are supposed to use), once a company reaches a certain
> size, other options become open to it; competing using legal and financial
> muscle, so 'buying' legal influence to alter the business environment to
> favour you and disenfranchise your competitors, buying then closing
> competing companies and dramatic temporarily price wars to knock the
> competition out of the game.
>
> In a post-capitalist economy where much of the wealth resides in a commons;
> I guess it could be the commons that has the monopoly position, thereby
> fixing this problem?
>
>>
>> Monopoly is a major problem in capitalism.  It necessitates regulatory
>> workarounds.  Socialism assumes government or "people's" monopolies also
>> leading to various problems.  In those cases, there is no one to regulate
>> the state.  My own view is that state monopolies make good sense where
>> service-provider commitment is essential or where equality of output is
>> valued above all.
>>
>> Certain functions, I believe, are ideally fulfilled by the state--national
>> defense, policing, certain banking functions, certain social service
>> functions, public health functions, certain basic health services, some
>> types of insurance services, prisons, etc.
>>
>> What I think is emerging is a poly-system of modes where various
>> production
>> mechanisms are optimizing to fit the ecosystem--economies are evolving to
>> be
>> more than one thing at once--capalist/socialist/anarchist/polyarchist,
>> etc.
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tomas
>
> -----------------------
> Tomas Rawlings
> Development Director, FluffyLogic Development Ltd.
> web: www.fluffylogic.net
> tel: 0117 9442233 -
> Also see:
> blog: www.plugincinema.com
> tweet: www.twitter.com/arclightfire
>
>
>
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