[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

[Ryan Lanham]

On 2/4/10, Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/4/10, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> That is
> > taking.  Taking is stealing.
>
> We disagree about as fundamentally here as it is possible for human
> beings to disagree.  Taking my example above, by your standards the
> person who uses the Star Trek replicator to make free food for his own
> consumption is "stealing," if the state has granted ADM and Cargill a
> "property" in the right to sell food at whatever price they set.  But
> IMO the actual moral state of affairs is the direct contrary:  I have
> a right to feed myself using my own tangible property in any way I see
> fit, and to share the food I produce with anyone I see fit.  And the
> people at Cargill and ADM, or the people who monopolize access to
> proprietary replicators, are thieves who deserve nothing but hatred
> and contemptuous defiance of their despicable false "property rights."



I agree.  This is a fundamental disagreement.  From my standpoint, there is
very nearly zero prospect with my lifetime or that of anyone I know for your
idea of the situation to become fact in even a small subset of the world.  I
would rate the prospect of robots displacing human labor or the merging of
minds and machines as much higher near-term prospects.

I am all for replicators and matter printers.  We should research the heck
out that sort of thing.  And we need to deal with those and their
implications when we have the prospect of them.  For now, we need economies
as technologies.  Economies run on IP.  And for every nation on earth at
present my definition of stealing is clearly what holds.

For now, we have IP.  People who undermine IP are criminals.  Is a a great
felonious crime?  No...not in most cases.  To me, if a college kid steals
Coldplay's latest song, I think...shame on Coldplay for not having better
systems to stop them doing so.  That is what the Apple iTouch is with its
DRM.  Costs are kept low to allow (many) people to do what they want and
artists and industry participants to get returns.  I wish everyone could
afford want they want from it.  But the way to achieve that isn't to force
someone to give away wealth to the poor.  That has never worked.  It isn't
working in Venezuela, it didn't work in Soviet Russia or Maoist China, and
it won't work anywhere else because wealth is an engine...not a item that
can be transplanted like a tree to someone else.  Fools and money are soon
parted.

Again, if the idea os to work toward limiting profit, abuse, violations of
rights, etc. I am plainly for those improvements.

Moreover, I feel the old system of incentives and profits is dying under its
own weight.  I have said that here dozens of times.  To me, that is a threat
and a tragedy, not something to celebrate.  I wish everyone could work to
have what they want and need in a fair system.  It doesn't look like
technoogy is going to allow for that.

I have a fellow who works with me who is a guitarist from Ghana.  He used to
work in the record industry in the UK as an accountant.  He said that IP
theft has ruined thousands of performers who were swept out of being
competitive by people stealing their work.  He holds so fiercely to the idea
that he will not speak to office employees who rip a CD.  He said he has
been in the room when bands lost their contracts and guys had to go work in
steel mills or coffee shops rather than making music.  Sure, they keep
playing a bit on the side, but thier lives and dreams get destroyed.  In
Africa, it can be the loss of a whole path out of despair.  Nearly all of
them played free concerts and gave away copies of their work to children who
couldn't buy them, etc.  Perfect?  No.  But the alterantive is worse.

In a post economic world of easy and free replicators, I agree.  IP is a
waste of time.  For now, it is the basis for sanity.
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