[p2p-research] against human rentals

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Alex,

I'm selecting a part of your response to Patrick, see below,

Though it is a complex issue and necessarily uses complex language, I think
what you are hinting at is really the key issue for p2p in the physical
economy, i.e. in the realm of rival goods, equality has to co-exist with
diversity, conditional returns, and merit-based allocation as well as equal
share, at least for a foreseeable future.

Could you perhaps write an extra into paragraph, for publication in our
blog, otherwise, I can think of one,

I do have an issue with the idea of a unified commons,

I think that people still have widely different worldviews, and so there is
the isssue of realization, but also of social acceptance,

this is why I always see the commons in the context of a pluralistic economy
with plural modes of governance, even while wishing the commons would be the
core of it,

I think this is also expressed in the Trias Internetica page by Jaap van
Till, http://p2pfoundation.net/Trias_Internetica

Another way to express it is that is imaginable that even p2p becomes a
totalitarian mode without checks and balances and that a plural economy and
governance would provide it .. of course that doesn' t mean that the vision
or expectation is not attractive, but it has its dangers

Michel




quote:

For example, if consumers own a common resource, under what agreement
could they simultaneously operate as common equal-share
equal-authority governors, and yet still individually derive differing
amounts of asset-based value units from the same common pool?  If this
was possible it would mean that each owner can somehow make a play to
gather more asset-backed value units from the operation than another
owner.    Let's call this asymmetric gain, for short.  Because the
attempt to derive asymmetric gain is subject to the common-governance
of the equal-share equal-authority owners group, let's say, for short,
that the means by which co-owners decide the rules by which asymmetric
gain is derived is called the owner protocol.
So, to restate, what is the text of the owner protocol that would
allow an owner to derive asymmetric gain?
If you can answer this, then what is the reason for adding an
additional stakeholder group for workers to the mix?
The short "solution" (is it incomplete?) might be:
Owners and workers operate as common equal-share equal-authority
governors under owner protocol.   An owner wishing to derive
asymmetric gain is subject to owner protocol.  Additionally, workers
who wish to engage in the trade of asset-backed value units may do so
subject to owner protocol in as much as they wish to derive gain or
asymmetric gain from the common resource in order to trade the
asset-backed value units for other, different, asset-backed value
units.  Once in possession of asset-backed value units owners may
trade these as they wish.
The difference is that workers are not always interested in the direct
asset-backed value units that are produced by a certain resource.  In
some cases workers are interested in the trading value of the
asset-backed value units, or the use of units as leverage.  All
workers have needs, and some workers have skills that are necessary
for the operation of many different forms of common resources.  All
owners have needs, and from the perspective of a global commons they
have a stakeholder interest in all productive assets.

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Patrick's understanding of profit is rather nuanced.  Patrick I
> applaud your efforts at creating stories and analogies that help us
> all to understand the nuances that you have discovered.
>
> I am under the impression that many folks would agree that it would be
> really neat if all the planet, all the material resources, were a part
> of a single unified commons where every human (and perhaps even all
> sentient) beings was considered a stakeholder.  This would mean, at
> the very least, that each stakeholder would have a say in things.
>
> If this was the case, this would be a window into a situation where
> all users where owners.
>
> >From this point on, things get more complicated.
>
> >From talking with Patrick on another thread recently, we found a line
> of inquiry where we were looking at what the reasons were for worker's
> and owner/users(hereafter owners) to set themselves up as separate
> stakeholder groups.
>
> The obvious answer is not so obvious.  It's a complex diagram already
> with at least 3 perspectives - owners, workers, and a commons of some
> sort that contains productive resources.
>
> If you add multiple currency commons on top of this, it gets more
> complicated yet.  For example, sovereign currency and "asset backed"
> currency like "milk units" or something.
>
> One rationale for workers and owners to have separate groups is:
>
> They want different things.
> Workers want ... more milk, and owners want less.
> Workers want one currency type and owners want another different type.
>
> The recent discussion about protocol and networks that was blogged
> about brought up some of the reasons why, for me, P2P is a great set
> of tools and understandings for picking apart this set of
> relationships.
>
> That said, the "solution," if there is such a thing, might include
> quite a bit of diligence and definition.
>
> For example, if consumers own a common resource, under what agreement
> could they simultaneously operate as common equal-share
> equal-authority governors, and yet still individually derive differing
> amounts of asset-based value units from the same common pool?  If this
> was possible it would mean that each owner can somehow make a play to
> gather more asset-backed value units from the operation than another
> owner.    Let's call this asymmetric gain, for short.  Because the
> attempt to derive asymmetric gain is subject to the common-governance
> of the equal-share equal-authority owners group, let's say, for short,
> that the means by which co-owners decide the rules by which asymmetric
> gain is derived is called the owner protocol.
>
> So, to restate, what is the text of the owner protocol that would
> allow an owner to derive asymmetric gain?
>
> If you can answer this, then what is the reason for adding an
> additional stakeholder group for workers to the mix?
>
> The short "solution" (is it incomplete?) might be:
>
> Owners and workers operate as common equal-share equal-authority
> governors under owner protocol.   An owner wishing to derive
> asymmetric gain is subject to owner protocol.  Additionally, workers
> who wish to engage in the trade of asset-backed value units may do so
> subject to owner protocol in as much as they wish to derive gain or
> asymmetric gain from the common resource in order to trade the
> asset-backed value units for other, different, asset-backed value
> units.  Once in possession of asset-backed value units owners may
> trade these as they wish.
>
> The difference is that workers are not always interested in the direct
> asset-backed value units that are produced by a certain resource.  In
> some cases workers are interested in the trading value of the
> asset-backed value units, or the use of units as leverage.  All
> workers have needs, and some workers have skills that are necessary
> for the operation of many different forms of common resources.  All
> owners have needs, and from the perspective of a global commons they
> have a stakeholder interest in all productive assets.
>
> Our current economy puts us in the poorly defined middle ground most
> of the time.  We use sovereign currency units to trade value between
> small owner-stakeholder groups.
>
> A
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:25 AM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 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.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > p2presearch at listcultures.org
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
>
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>



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