[p2p-research] User Freedom and the Purpose of Profit

[Alex Rollin]

Thank you for sharing this Patrick.

I've been looking to have a conversation about indirect effects that might
be tracked in such a situation.

I have not finished reading your other links yet.

I also don't want to go to far off-topic, but this post got my mind racing.

What about looking at "levels" when we talk about prices?

Without triggering the often returned to debate about whether money is good
or bad, can we look at how the decision to purchase is a decision about the
level of participation and involvement the purchaser is making?

This is a customer side look at the decision to purchase and purchase again.

For example, if I buy the hamburger the 3rd time, I might be willing to pay
6.25 to double my profit contribution.

At some point I might "break even" as a vested partner, which might mean I
could purchase burgers at the $3.75 rate, but I want to see the "sources"
shared with other business, so I continue to pay $5.00 to maintain my vote
for that direction.

I'm not sure that I understand the overall utility of ever 'lowering' the
price to 3.75 since this points at some kind of 'stable' system, the likes
of which I have never seen.  Part of what I am sure you get at in your other
links is the fact that the purchase and the participation in the 'community
of decision makers' are similar but not necessarily the same thing,
depending on how things are run.

Just because I buy a hamburger doesn't mean I'm in favor of acquisition of
ore sources.  It just means I'm complicit.

To go further, which sources, how deep into the supply chain, and for how
long (1 year or perpeuity) are the sources secured?  I realize these are
decisions that every organization must make on it's own.  I feel that these
are important things to look at, though, not because I am rallying one way
or the other but because I want to look at them, and I crave an environment
where these are the issues that need addressing :)

A
Alex
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.- Socrates



On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 6:21 AM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>wrote:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
> > I am not sure what "the physical sources" means, concretely.
> > Suppose the product is wheat.
> > Does this mean that the users become part owners of the farm?
>
> Within such a system, pre-payment - whether as initial funding or as
> profit paid - would be invested in *more* physical sources that are
> not yet operational.
>
> For example: Let's say you pay $5 for a hamburger from such an
> institution, but it only cost the current owners $3.75 (including all
> wages) to deliver it to you (and clean up after you, etc.).
>
> The difference between price you paid and the costs of production was
> $1.25.
>
> That $1.25 is pooled with the payments of profit by the many other
> customers.
>
> When there is enough funds to act, the current owners purchase *more*
> physical sources with that revenue.
>
> But the ownership of each of those investments is retained by the
> original payer.
>
> Your overpayment becomes your automatic investment in beef cattle,
> fields of alfalfa, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chickens, etc. and all
> the land and water rights and tools and any other supporting sources.
>
> The payer becomes part owner in farms and factories, but would only
> become part owner in some of the *current* physical sources if there
> happen to be some up for sale, and that group of owners were accepting
> you as co-owner.
>
> Otherwise, and more often, your investment would be used to grow the
> size of the organization by purchasing even more physical sources.
>
> He who pays profit slowly becomes owner,
> He who owns enough no longer pays profit.
>
> Profit is invested by the current owners, but the payer would retain
> full ownership of those 'shares'.
>
> These investments then 'vest' as their literal productiveness comes online.
>
> There seems to be a need for the current owners to have some control
> over that investment, but that control must taper toward 0... or
> actually it should taper toward their % of ownership in any co-owned
> source.  A crude solution might be a time period where the payer is
> inhibited from immediately "cashing out".
>
>
>
> > Does this mean a new customer has to pay more than old customers, in
> > order to buy from them a share of the farm?
>
> The difference is not between 'old' and 'new', but between 'owning'
> and 'non-owning'.
>
> As a new, non-owning payer, you have little choice but to pay the $5.
>
> But as you pay your percentage into the system (as you pay profit),
> you accrue real, tangible, material, productive, generative assets
> that are under your full dominion (within limitations of realistic
> divisibility with other possible restrictions ...).
>
> When you own an apple tree, you must pay all the costs of labor,
> tools, water, etc. but you do not pay profit, for you own the objects
> already.
>
> When you co-own an apple tree orchard with some other people, then you
> must pay the same things, and you own the objects already, but it is
> easier to do with others helping.
>
>
>
> > I think it is easier to make this work for small production
> > activities, which might have thousands of different customers, than
> > for large ones with millions of customers.
>
> Yes, small is better for some things, such as agriculture and many
> types of simple manufacturing.  It also brings pollution costs local,
> which I think is a good feedback.
>
> But we could also pre-pay into a phone and internet system that could
> deliver service *at cost* to billions.
>
> We could send audio, video, even terabytes of data from our
> wrist-phone while only paying for the *real* costs.
>
> How much do you pay to operate the network within your home?
>
> When a user owns the sources he only pays the costs of initial
> investment, real wear and tear, the energy and space consumed and any
> needed labor.
>
>
> > Perhaps the biggest problem with investment today is when it goes into
> > large companies.  Perhaps if we could arrange a way to discourage
> > large companies, it would eliminate the problems of investment today
> > with a smaller restructuring of society.
>
> Yes, corporations are homicidal megaliths because treating profit as
> owner reward is a positive-feedback loop incenting even more profit.
>
> But since profit measures consumer dependence,
> and since scarcity increases consumer dependence,
> Corporations tend to withhold, restrict, disable, destroy.
>
> ...
>
> Treating profit as payer investment is a negative-feedback loop that
> allows growth to occur, but tapers off (profits approach zero) as
> consumers gains sufficient ownership in all the physical sources of
> that production.
>
> We can form new corporations under a special Terms of Operation that
> enforce this constraint, and any other rules we find may be needed to
> ensure freedom.
>
> Here is my shot at this:
> http://patware.freeshell.org/general%20public%20law.htm
>
> Here is an earlier attempt that is more complete in some ways:
> http://patware.freeshell.org/gplv4%20draft%201.htm
>
> These should also help understand the idea:
> http://p2pfoundation.net/User_Owned
> http://patware.freeshell.org/thesis.htm
>
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