[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

Fri Feb 5 03:58:11 CET 2010

I must say I am baffled Ryan.

You say the commons must not be coercive, and I agree in principle (though
in reality, I'm not sure 'absolute non-coercion is possible, there are
always paradoxes, the need to defend the commons from depredation, etc..),

But at the same time, you defend practices like terminator seed, which
destroy the natural cycles of reproduction, lock farmers into total
dependence, and are used by some of the most evil corporations on earth,
whose whole policy relies on coercion and legal attack, up to the absurd
levels of jailing farmers who are simply downstream of GMO fields ...

Such practices have nothing to do with protecting investments, and all to do
with creating permanent monopolies

Michel

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:03 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/4/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Example one,
>>
>> nature is in many ways naturally abundant, for example through annual
>> cycles of growth; biodiversity etc..
>>
>> if you introduce terminator seeds, you destroy this ability for nature to
>> regenerate itself
>>
>
>
> Nature doesn't invest billions in making terminator seeds.  It expects no
> return on investment.  R&D doesn't occur out of the goodness of hearts, much
> as I wish it would.  Even universities funded by the public sell their ideas
> to the highest bidder.  You can disagree with this, but it isn't artificial
> scarcity.  It is protection of investment.  That isn't just semantics.  It's
> the law.  By all means, dislike the law.  Work to change it.  But let's not
> pretend this is not the choice of most people.
>
> Further, it might be protective.  If there is a problem with GMOs, then
> terminator seeds might well limit the damage.  I've read a great deal of the
> anti-GMO lit.  So far I find little of it compelling in any way.  It again
> strikes me as zealotry.  But that is an easy critique of anything where
> people express passion.  As a relatively neutral observer, I am so far
> underwhelmed by the anti-GMO arguments.  I see nothing wrong at all with
> terminator seeds.  I find lots on both sides of the argument.  Just a couple
> of days ago...Inhabitat ran a very pro-GMO article on shelf-life of
> vegetables...hardly a centrist or right wing organization.  I see these
> fairly regularly amongst sites I'd characterize as being open/fair.
>
>
>
>> Example two
>>
>> digital media can be inherently shared and reproduced; and any individual
>> has the right to share what he has purchased ... any technology which
>> artificially destroys this possibility of sharing destroys this abundance
>>
>
>
> Again, this is the simple issue of taking.  Someone invested in gaining
> skills to make a programme, a picture, a book.  Just because it is easy to
> steal it doesn't make it right.  Abundance is capacity--the capacity to
> share.  It is up to the property owner whether they wish to share.  No one
> can be compelled.  I dislike litmus tests as much as the next person, but
> there is a simple P2P litmus test: Can someone be compelled to share their
> ideas?  If they can, I am against it and would fight it for all I'm worth.
> Capacity isn't the right to take.  It is the power to share.  If the item
> had no value of creation, people wouldn't want it.  Clearly someone made
> value.  It is up to them to share it.  It is not up to the consumer to take
> it because they can.  Put any name on it you want.  The politics and the law
> are plain.  Do I have a right of ownership of an idea.  If you say no, I am
> against you.
>
>>
>>
>> Example three
>>
>> Medicines are available which could save millions of live, if they could
>> be produced at the price of production plus profit, but they are sold at
>> 1,000 times this price, thereby condemning people to death
>>
>>
>
> The question is, how to create incentives for R&D when no one gains.  I
> agree that people acting in pro-social ways is a pure good, but it is not
> our social model.  Indeed that social model has failed over and over again.
> I live less than 150 miles from where it fails miserably every day in Cuba.
> Regularly people try to sail away from it to here in little dangerous pieces
> of boat and flotsam because they hate it so much.  They must literally be
> imprisoned and blocked from what they can say and how they can say it, who
> they can vote for, so that authorities may keep them from overthrowing the
> whole thing.
>
>
>
>> These are three examples of artificial scarcity that have very serious
>> negative effects
>>
>
> These are negative externalities of markets in my lingo.  They need to be
> dealt with just like pollution and other forms of negative
> externalities.  It doesn't create the right to take someone's property
> unless the states in charge find compelling reason to do so.
>
> Was it an artificial scarcity for communism to block markets from
> producing enough food for people in China, Russia...causing deaths of
> millions.  What could be more artificial than blocking someone from
> profiting on their labour?
>
> VOLUNTARY!  non-coerced.  Commons cannot exist through corcion.  You cannot
> be forced to share.  It is the bright line test.
>
> It is fundamental that states have legitimacy--from the Latin lex/legus
> just as law is.  That legitimacy comes from the rights of governed.  That
> the governed have due processes for changing rules.
>
> I have said here for 2 years that it all comes back to governance.  If you
> do not have a theory of governance, then anarchy becomes a real alternative
> where Somalia is defended and absurdity is the norm.
>
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