[p2p-research] Blog on Political Economy of P2P

Sat May 23 08:35:47 CEST 2009

Hi Ryan,

Could you flesh out the the source of that paragraph?

As you know, this feeds our (with Adam in cc)  'crisis of value' hypothesis

i.e.

On 5/22/09, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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>>
>
>
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