This blog represents an exploration of how a distributed economy might be developed. It is merely ideas that I have come up with, or have discovered over time.
Edit (3/18/2012): I do not have access to any of Allan Johansson's work, so I could be off in my use of the term "distributed economy".
Edit (3/18/2012): I found on page ix of the book Event Marketing by Leonard H. Hoyle that "According to the management guru Peter Ferdinand Drucker, 'Business has only two basic functions-marketing and innovation'". Aren't we messing with both of of these in some way, right now, in addition to how we handle money? I mean, this distributed economy already seems to be here in some ways, as well as developing rapidly. As I see it, this distributed economy could be huge.
Hi Mr Shambaugh,
ReplyDeleteI am also working on a new approach to production.
Reading your articles I see your focus is very different from mine, so I hope we can learn from each other...
I have some delicate (sometimes considered offensive) questions:
0.) How will investors be compensated? I say investors should be consumers who are compensated with Product instead of Profit.
1.) Who should be owners of the means of production? I say the consumers should be the owners - so they do not need to buy the product because, as co-owners, they own their % already.
2.) What should be done with Profit when we sell surplus Product to outsiders? I say Profit should be treated as an investment from the consumer who paid it - so that all consumers slowly gain the co-ownership needed to secure their future needs.
3.) How should workers be compensated? I say by accepting their promises of future work as yet another form of investment - so they each become co-owners in the means of production for which they need the products (not necessarily the means of production for which they know and want to operate) within the production network.
4.) How do we vote within such a system? I say by treating the payment of costs as a vote, and the absence of such payment as a vote against - so each person votes to build and maintain the "public works" they want by simply paying for those things.
5.) How do we solve the Tyranny of the Majority when decisions are not unanimous and cannot be resolved through payment-based-votes? I say by allowing any "realistically divisible" subgroup to secede from the rest for any reason while retaining their portion of co-ownership. When the means of production cannot be divided realistically, the minority can probably sell their shares to the outsiders who are paying more than cost for surplus as explained in #2.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Patrick Anderson
http://ImputedProduction.BlogSpot.com
Okay, I'll give it my best shot based on what I know.
Delete0.) How will investors be compensated? I say investors should be consumers who are compensated with Product instead of Profit.
See the big paragraph below. I believe it is largely up to the concerned party.
1.) Who should be owners of the means of production? I say the consumers should be the owners - so they do not need to buy the product because, as co-owners, they own their % already.
Investors could come together like a co-op, or someone could own it. I believe it is largely up to them. Computers might be able to help keep track of things depending on computer power, network speed, the ability to model and query data, and perhaps other things. I imagine people working with a firm in a collaborative fashion, or drawing a loose boundry around a project which represents a firm.
2.) What should be done with Profit when we sell surplus Product to outsiders? I say Profit should be treated as an investment from the consumer who paid it - so that all consumers slowly gain the co-ownership needed to secure their future needs.
Largely, I believe this should be up to whoever is producing.
3.) How should workers be compensated? I say by accepting their promises of future work as yet another form of investment - so they each become co-owners in the means of production for which they need the products (not necessarily the means of production for which they know and want to operate) within the production network.
Sure, I think this could be possible. Again, I believe that it largely up to the firm and the workers.
4.) How do we vote within such a system? I say by treating the payment of costs as a vote, and the absence of such payment as a vote against - so each person votes to build and maintain the "public works" they want by simply paying for those things.
Unfortunately, this ties the ability to pay with the ability to vote. This bothers me. I should study U.S. History. There were many who thought about voting and they ended up with a republic, not a democracy.
Type "America is not a democracy" into Youtube. I'm sure you'll quickly find that it is a Republic and not a democracy.
Aaron Russo explains America is NOT a Democracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RewUP-Fdhqk
Glenn Beck "America Is Not A Democracy, It's A Republic"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmseYh44vA
Why America is a Republic, not a Democracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=ygEEL57AcZs
(Argues that it is good that we are a Republic and not a Democracy, because if
we were a democracy "majority rule" our rights would not be protected, and eventually we would end up with an oligarchy.")
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
On Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life%2C_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness
John Locke: Natural Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property - Jim Powell
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/#axzz2OmeNfngB
5.) How do we solve the Tyranny of the Majority when decisions are not unanimous and cannot be resolved through payment-based-votes? I say by allowing any "realistically divisible" subgroup to secede from the rest for any reason while retaining their portion of co-ownership. When the means of production cannot be divided realistically, the minority can probably sell their shares to the outsiders who are paying more than cost for surplus as explained in #2.
I'm not sure, maybe U.S. history has something to say.
At first I thought distributed funding (http://adistributedeconomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/distributed-funding.html) was the way to do it. It's just nodes and edges, with the nodes representing people, projects, or whatever and the edges the "paths" where the obligation flows. The edges could be a record of debts or intentions in the case of pay later or donate later. The edges could also be conduits that direct payment in the case of pay now and donate now. The flow could be from any node to another node, or any node and any number of other nodes. The amount from one node to another node could be some percentage of the total amount to all neighboring nodes. That is, the unit whole that someone gives is divided amongst all of the other nodes.
DeleteI could place various conditions. For example, I might want to not pay out until I make a profit. Also say that I wish to have a convention such that 50% of what I make represents the unit whole that is divided amongst all of the other nodes. I'd say this would represent donate later, or pay later if there was some sort of obligation like investors. Another model for pay later could be a convention such that whatever I owe people is what I owe, and whatever this adds up to would be the unit whole for all of the neighboring nodes. Pay now would be a little different. Say I want to buy something, but I want to give to each of the contributors. Than the contribution would be calculated somehow, maybe in labor content as Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell suggest in A New Socialism, or maybe by the crowd by voting like in Better Means [2]. The main difference would be that labor content could be predetermined by some entity (I'm going to have to go back to the book) in Towards a New Socialism, and democratically by the group involved in Better Means. (Thanks Pavlik Elf!) Donate now doesn't have to be based on anything, but I may want to follow the payment scheme put out by pay now. I could also independently decide what I wish to donate to each neighboring node.
Goods and services could also be used in place of money. Food for thought. I ran accross a startup called Producia that uses a time based currency called fini for college students (http://checkthis.com/producism).
In practice this could be a bit different. Ripple [3] is worth checking out. They found an ingenious way of routing around money in a distributed way.
Also, I'm not sure at this point why linked data could be helpful for payments. I'd like to find this out. Payswarm is one such example. It is supposed to keep track of things,
so that things can be paid for. It's been bothering me that Ripple and Payswarm use JSON [5], [6]. On the other hand this could be a good thing.
Thanks Patrick for your insightful questions! You motivated me to answer them.
[1] Towards a New Socialism: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/
[2] Bettermeans Introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlnMWlvw9g
[3] Ripple: https://ripple.com/
[4] Payswarm: https://payswarm.com/
[5] (Ripple) JSON API: https://ripple.com/wiki/JSON_API
[6] JSON-LD: http://json-ld.org/