[p2p-research] The "Free Market" requires scarcity

[Kevin Carson]

On 4/25/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Kevin,
>
> you write about patrick's source freedom approach:
>
> I repeat, consumer sovereignty is great for the portion of the day
> that you're a consumer.  But for the portion of your life that you
> punch a time-clock and become a serf, it's not so great.  The greatest
>  source of misery in many people's lives is the hours they're working
> under the orders and direction of someone else.
>
> I've said this many times myself, but not lately, and this is why the
> approach is not acceptable to me on the basis of very fundamental
> principles. Any approach which disenfranchises producers of value completely
> is very problematic, and contrary to what I'd like to achieve.

I actually think consumer cooperation might play a significant role in
the larger alternative economy movement, and as a building block in
the post-capitalist economy.  I just don't see the producer-consumer
distinction as that central.  For me, the important thing is the
liberatory effects of imploding capital costs for physical production,
imploding transaction costs resulting from network culture, increased
economic independence of households and individuals, and the closer
gearing of production to consumption in relocalized economies.  And
the style of organization (the organizational style of Paul Goodman
and Colin Ward, vs. that of the Ministry of Central Services in
Brazil) is far more important than who formally owns the organization.
 I suspect the milk-dumping incident Patrick points to has more to do
with market structure, production scale and organizational style than
anything else.


-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html