[p2p-research] against human rentals

[Patrick Anderson]

Samuel Rose wrote:
> If a worker cannot accumulate what they earn,

Nobody can 'earn' Profit!

Profit only occurs when Consumers lack ownership.


Consider this scenario:

Let's say I'm good at jack-hammering, but am sick
and tired of my boss being paid more than it really
costs him to supply the tools and to pay my wage.

After many years of saving I finally have enough to
buy my own jack-hammer.  So I quit my job as a
wage-slave and advertise my services as an
entrepreneur.

Soon I have many clients and things are going quite
well.

One day a wealthy so-and-so suddenly decides he is going to open a
tool-rental business with a strange goal:

The terms of operation for this business is to "Break even, but do not
charge enough to Profit."

So now everyone in the area is able to rent jack-hammers and pay
exactly the same amount it
costs me in oil, repairs, extra parts, etc.

Now whenever someone needs such work done, I
can only charge the real Costs plus Wages - where
Wages are determined on the "open market".

This, by definition, means I will no longer be able to
collect Profit because competition in that field is now
under perfect competition.

In other words, competition reduces Profit and perfect competition
*eliminates* profit.

The reason for this is that before the tools were available
to the Consumers "at cost", I was able to keep other
workers from competing against me because the
barrier-to-entry was the initial expense of the Means
of Production (the jack-hammer).

This shows that Profit has nothing to do with Work, but
is only a result of Consumers lacking at-cost access
to the Sources of Production - and where the *ultimate*
guarantee of at-cost access is through real ownership.