[p2p-research] WorCPlace News: Do you want to know a secret?

[Michel Bauwens]

The market is a allocation method for rival goods: scarcity engineering (but
so are hierarchical and democratic allocation);

but for abundant goods such as non-rival information, we need abundance
engineering, and free self-allocation and distribution seems the best method
... so the information economy is indeed a contradiction in terms!

Roberto Verzola's work remains the best for making these important
distinctions, see http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?s=%22Roberto+Verzola%22

Michel

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:21 AM, Steve Herrick <estebandido at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "MadWorC" <madworc at madworc.org>
> Date: Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:13 PM
> Subject: WorCPlace News: Do you want to know a secret?
> To: "\"estebandido at gmail.com\"" <estebandido at gmail.com>
>
>
>  WorCPlace News
> News from MadWorC -- Madison Worker Cooperatives
>
> (I'm re-sending this, because I realized the subject line probably looked
> like spam. Oops!)
>
> I was listening to public radio the other weekend, and a speaker said that
> the last thing we want is a information economy. He said that would result
> in there being less information available. You'd think there would be more,
> if that's what we produce, right? Not so. Information isn't like a physical
> good. It can spread quickly and easily, and if that happens, people won't
> want to pay for it. That means the only way to profit from it is by
> restricting it and hiding it as much as possible. It wouldn't so much be an
> economy of information as an economy of secrets.
>
> And, of course, it's not an entirely hypothetical situation. Secrecy
> brought us Enron, and Lehman Brothers, and AIG, and Bernie Madoff, and the
> list goes on.
>
> To fight back against this kind of corruption, we need to find ways to make
> the explosion in information we've watched over the last 15 years serve the
> economy. Not the ethereal economy of high finance and day trading, but the
> real economy of families who try to stretch paychecks to cover rent, food,
> and school clothes.
>
> If there's a business model that tries to do this, it's worker co-ops, and
> if there's one worker co-op that holds the torch of honesty even higher than
> the others, it's Just Coffee. They stopped seeking fair-trade certification
> for their coffee years ago, not because the standards were too high, but
> because they were too low. In its place, they are developing what they call
> "transparent trade," in which the general public can easily learn pretty
> much anything there is to know about the business. They have no secrets --
> their supplier contracts, their pay scales, even their profit-and-loss
> statements are available. See for yourself in Matt Earley's article<http://madworc.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=16&qid=47>
> .
>
> There's a lot more to be said about transparency, but I'll come back to it
> in future months. In the meantime, there's another way we address ourselves
> to the public: the symbols that represent us. Have you noticed a common
> theme running through co-op logos? Ever wondered why that is? Ole Olson
> explains<http://madworc.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=17&qid=47>
> .
>
> No mailing address as yet
> Madison, WI 53701
> United States
>
> Were you forwarded this announcement by a bright, considerate, all-around
> cool friend? Would you like to be a subscriber in your own right? Just go to
> http://madworc.org<http://madworc.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=18&qid=47>and click on the link in the upper right-hand corner.
>
> If you've sat down and really thought it over, and still want to stop
> receiving these newsletters, click here.<http://madworc.org/civicrm/mailing/optout?reset=1&jid=19&qid=47&h=65fe193c5f2de64c>
>
>
>
> --
> Steve Herrick
>
> I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
> — Blaise Pascal
>



-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
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