[p2p-research] cutting cultural budgets

Sat Jun 26 18:13:57 CEST 2010

I have been asked in a side message to spell out how credit has collapsed in
the modern world.  I will try to explain this in a reasonable few words.

For capitalism to succeed, there must be the prospect of long-term
profitable cash flows.  Profit assumes a capacity, an efficiency, that
allows one to compete.  Or, it assumes a corner on a commodity in
demand...like a square of land in the middle of a commercial district or a
pile of copper ore in the ground.  Ideally such stocks do not deplete.

To purchase a cash flow, one borrows and then develops the flow to achieve
greater output than the creditor assumed.  This was due in large part to the
field of "management" which is a technology that has had a power law-like
development in the last 500 years...ending about now.

Information flows (e.g. this list) have made profit opportunities more
transparent and scrutinized.  In short, the market reacts faster.  Further,
management has been degraded by the implementation of high quality, low cost
automation tools which make human performance largely irrelevant in fields
from stock trading to car production...soon in medicine and
transportation...even warfare where pilots are increasingly replace by
drones flown by sergeants rather than captains with 1 million dollars worth
of training.  As train engines become more powerful, and yet cockpits
smaller, the capacity of management to respond in ways other than technology
replacement tends toward zero.

Consequently, the profit capacity of capitalists to outperform credit
expectations drops.  This forces interest rates down.  The economy stagnates
because growth becomes highly problematic...the Japan syndrome.  People
start saving and building capital which cannot be put to use.  This leads to
deflation...much more problematic than inflation from an overheated
economy.  In short, supply exceeds reasonable (economic) demand...thus
prices fall.  Money becomes worth more and thus the propensity to borrow is
even more costly.  (Debts are eaten up by inflation and made worse by
deflation.)   Without credit, new projects that are risk based to grow
things in new ways are minimized.  More people resort to wage work in large
institutions and the overall efficiencies of society fall.

The prescription is cooperative non-credit based expansion of innovation and
risk taking by P2P co-ops designed to produce things that matter in a system
(free or not) that leads to economic possibilities.  These will never be
self-sufficiency and off-grid rubbish...the hippy side of P2P.  Instead,
they will be small commercial co-ops and groups that live in the margins by
producing and innovating with minimal capital.  At least that's the way I
see it.

On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am always glad for Europe and its views.  It has been a good a fair
> partner in the modern world.  I am sad they're left collapses at some speed
> similar to our right...both groups becoming hollow specters of their former
> selves--caricatures really.   The enlightened right of John Kennedy and
> Scoop Jackson is as dead as that of Harold Macmillan.  Their successors
> (Reagan and Thatcher) bankrupt both countries because they were impatient as
> much as ignorant...a bankruptcy that has now finally seen its last transfer
> of private and corporate debt to the public sector.  In short, as we have
> said here left and right, capitalism is screwed...but for reasons far
> different than anything the left ever envisioned...not that it matters.
>
> The welfare state (which is far more American than European as a structural
> state project designed for the People--but that's a nit) is dying fast and
> will die completely soon.  It is now being dismantled in England and will be
> soon in Spain and Germany--a process that will take more than a decade.
> Medicaid is under extreme pressure in the US and will soon fail as a
> state-based program...as it must.  Thus, the US nation will pick up another
> crippling debt which is well beyond the last straw.   Norway will be last
> because of their oil wealth.  But they are paying the price with an extreme
> slide of their currency which is even greater than that of the Euro.
>
> Europe's left will spend 30 years discussing the injustice done them, just
> as the American right will spend 30 years discussing enemies long buried.
> It doesn't much matter.  Now is a time for survival.  Those who will survive
> will define economic relevance for themselves without silly moral
> peccadilloes and hope for state allies.  The most inspirational model by far
> I've seen on these pages is the little project you highlighted in the
> Andies.  It gives me hope that the poor are not left as defenseless as they
> seem.  I still see microfinance as a way, but the defaults and failures in
> that industry have left it crippled in most of the world.  In short, credit
> problems are the root of nearly all of modern capitalism's ills...something
> the left simply doesn't understand nor will they.  It was automation and
> information speed that killed credit...and that is the story of the modern
> world in a nutshell.  The answer is cooperation...in a new and economically
> sound ways...not as lazy socialism but as productive P2P.
>
> Some days I see the prospect of success.  Most I see hopelessness.  I
> admire all of you who keep trying.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 3:38 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> of course the formal/dominant european left has always been nationalistic
>> and elitist, but always less so than the American right ...
>>
>> and as for your stress on defeat, that is all relative, the european
>> welfare state will stand as a major achievement of civilisation, and on most
>> quality of life indicators, most european countries have always been ahead
>> of the U.S.; indeed, despite the assaults of reaganism/thatcherism, now
>> intensified under extreme neoliberalism, it has always defended these
>> achievements quite more successfully than its american counterparts .. I
>> lived in the U.S. and Europe alike, and unless you have a lot of money, I
>> would say that generally living in the latter  (or in Canada) is a guarantee
>> of a more pleasant life ... You would like us for Europeans to uses the same
>> militaristic focus as the U.S. Been there, done that, and it was disastrous
>> ... so, indeed, we will not follow that advice and waste countless billions,
>> thank you very much ... unless you have imperial ambitions like the U.S. and
>> want to live off the rent of the rest of the world, it is not a good
>> investment, and not realistic ..
>>
>> so while your critique is true, the same critique would apply much more to
>> the U.S. ..
>>
>> I'm pretty confident that in the end, european working people will  not
>> let the merkel/sarkozy's get away with their assaults on living standards
>> ... the future will tell ..
>>
>> the days of American empire are numbered, this does of course not
>> necessarily mean that any new empire, would be any better, and in any case,
>> imperial dislocation has historically been quite disastrous for everybody
>> ... until a new configuration takes hold ..
>>
>> or let's dream, a new more progressive civilisation, centered around p2p
>> infrastructures, may be in the realm of these new possibilities .. but it
>> will get worse before it gets better ...
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 11:27 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>  On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Mike, I think it is likely not accurate that many US-based readers of
>>>> this thread with respond with pro-US viewpoints. At least for those of
>>>> us in the US who are regular readers and respondents to p2presearch
>>>> listl anyway.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Clearly few people on this list hold "pro-US" viewpoints.  That is part
>>> caused, I think, by the European left which has always been nationalistic
>>> and elitist (while singing the Internationale!), and part identification of
>>> the US with corporate agendas...which is historically absurd.  Indeed Niall
>>> Ferguson--probably the best known European historian of the day, regularly
>>> chides the US for not being more corporatist.  But such is politics.  And
>>> such is the historical left which can always find a way to seize defeat from
>>> the jaws of victory.  P2P is happening and happening very fast.  Sadly, a
>>> lot of old scores are being lumped with it that will ultimately threaten its
>>> success--mostly a sadly naive internationalist/socialist agenda.  The moral
>>> relativism of Europe is always quick to see an evil US and an evil Israel,
>>> and ever slow to see a gross environment disaster in the Gulf or in Nigeria
>>> largely of their own making.  It's an old and a sad story of lack of
>>> responsibility and lack of commitment to moral good that takes real
>>> commitment.  Usually it leads to large numbers of US graves in some distant
>>> land formerly carved and made "civilized" by enlightened Europeans who have
>>> a clear vision of how the world SHOULD be.
>>>
>>> I am grateful that the governments of Europe...especially the
>>> conservatives in the UK, Sarkozy in France, and Merkel in Germany realize
>>> the absurdity of these historical left positions and work to undermine them
>>> gently.  P2P will be the better for it.  Anarchism and general decline of
>>> civilization, on the other hand, will have to wait a day or two.  Chances
>>> are good those will come soon enough.
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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>>
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>>
>> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
> P.O. Box 633
> Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
> Cayman Islands
> (345) 916-1712
>
>
>
>

-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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