[p2p-research] the sterling quote

[Patrick Anderson]

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> We socialized risk, but not reward.

It is true that Capitalists do not 'socialize' reward, but that does
not mean it cannot be done.
It is possible to organize afresh in such a way that reward (profit)
is treated differently.

The treatment of Profit is usually pre-determined to be a payment for
those who have Invested.
But wait a minute, ... what if we could pay Investors directly with
the Product instead?

That would only be meaningful if the Investors were simultaneously the
Consumers of that very Product, and if they only Invest as much as
they predict they will need.

So, for example, if a group of Milk Consumers organized to purchase a
small dairy, they would prepay for the total Costs of that production,
and their return for that Investment would the Product itself = Milk.

There would be no Profit unless somebody accidentally Invested too
much.  And in that case, the extra milk could be sold, and considering
the ridiculous overpricing of raw milk, it would be easy to charge a
Price above Cost.

But then what should the group do with that 'reward'?  What would it
mean to 'socialize' the Profit?

Well, what if they acted as though the late-comer who paid that extra
value were also making an investment?

What if we treated Profit as though it were an Investment from the
Consumer who paid it?

Doing so would taper Profit (and therefore growth) toward zero since a
Consumer who owns the Physical Sources of the Product he uses does not
pay Profit - for he owns the Product even before it is created as a
side-effect of his having property in the Physical Sources.

This would cause the organization to grow according to Consumer demand
(paying Profit being the source of that growth), in a 'distributed'
manner since the very person willing to pay for that growth becomes
the direct beneficiary because he gains real property co-ownership and
therefore control over those Physical Sources.

And since a Consumer with Property in Physical Sources pays no Profit
(since he does not buy the Product, but owns it already), this also
causes growth to naturally taper toward zero [actually growth would
follow the same curve as the demand for that Product].


> For now, all that can be done is to save and to wait.

That sounds like no strategy at all.