[p2p-research] Profit Measures the Payer's lack of Physical Source Ownership

[Ryan Lanham]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>> Thanks.  And I accept your corrections.  I would still like to see
>> Stallman answer the question...is he a Marxist?
>>
>> I personally don't see where you derive that Smith had a labor theory of
>> value.
>>
>
> see the fount of all truth, the wikipedia: "Various labor theories of value
> prevailed amongst classical economists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_economics>,
> including Adam Smith <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith> and David
> Ricardo <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo>, culminating with the
> socialist theories of Karl Marx <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx>."
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value)
>
> and please note how some (post)Marxists, like Negri and I believe Carlos
> Castoriadis, also reject the labour theory of value
>
>
To call what Smith wrote a labor theory of value is clearly a miss reading
in the sense Marx meant.  Smith understood supply and demand.  He did not
work out that S&D would be self-regulating (which it isn't), but he saw
price and value as elementally driven my the market, not by cost or inputs.
Of course there is a relationship...but it is only half the relationship (at
best).


>
>  He clearly understood markets.  I've meandered through Wealth of Nations
>> more than once...but I'll put the question to Gavin who is certainly the
>> authority...and a decently trained economist as well as historian.
>> http://adamsmithslostlegacy.com/
>>
>
>
> Smith may have understood markets well , and many smith scholars insist
> current markets have nothing to do with the original version of smith, since
> he clearly saw them embedded in socially friendly structures (his earlier
> work on the ethical economy)
>
>

Sadly, I could not post on Gavin's comments for some reason...my Google
account was not recognized.  I've traded emails with him before...but he
doesn't list his email on his blog.

I do agree that what people call capitalism now was not the intent of Smith
who was arguably a modified localist.  He believed in free trade but that
was mostly in response to mercantilism.  To my mind, his moral sentiments
were far more developed and coherent than Marx's.  To my mind Adam Smith is
far more relevant to P2P than Marx could ever be.  But Smith is merely
moral; he isn't rebellious.  As such, he doesn't have Public Enemy cache for
the alienated.  What I think both did, one far more successfully than the
other, was to paint a vision of how "forward" might look.  In a sense, they
were both futurists.  One succeeded in painting a stable and workable world,
the other succeeded in painting a utopia that has inspired countless
personal and national disasters.


>
>> As to profit, the big boogeyman of this list, I'd love to see someone
>> define it and categorize it without a cost theory or labor theory of value.
>> I'd also love for someone to advance a moral theory as to why profit is
>> definitively inefficient, immoral or otherwise detrimental or when and under
>> what conditions it might be so.
>>
>
>
> Profit is not the bogeyman, but profit as the sole guide for a society's
> functioning, with complete disregard of any , a and social externalities,
> clearly should be
>
>

I agree tthat there are people obsessed with profit...and with growth.  And
there are people obsessed with equality too.  Both obsessions are dangerous
in my opinion.  I agree completely on externalities, as, I'd guess, would
Smith.

The reason to have regulation, law and governance is to manage
externalities.   What P2P allows is to minimize governance to a set of rules
mutually enacted.  But the commons still requires protection, order,
structure and "artificial" mechanisms to exist.  There is no dissolving the
state or classes (which of course don't really exist anyway outside of a
social model) and then having some residual order and sustainable outcome.
Justice is a social construct.  We attain (or approach) social construct
ideals through artificial means of implementing governance.  There are no
final solutions, ultimates, fiat utopias or steady-state economies.
Fundamentalism is not compatible with P2P...not market fundamentalism, not
equity fundamentalism, not religious fundamentalism.  Indeed, the boundaries
and barriers of the fundamental are antithetical to the commons which must
be inherently dialogic and practical.

Regardless, I think Marx is really a charade with nothing to offer except
rebelliousness.  There is no "truth" to any of it as theory in that truth is
being useful for enlightening current understanding and positive planning
for a reasonable future.  Marx did not explain the course of capital,
capitalism or the nation state.  His sociology is fiction in that the
constructs he relies on are not real and not relevant to most people's
reality.  His politics has, as attempted, repeatedly failed and led to
misery and poverty.  He has contributed nothing to environmental protection
or has he inspired great subsequent ideas that are widely esteemed.  What
does this giant offer us?
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