A Resource Based Economy

[Mike Christ]

Marx noted that capitalists have to turn to governments in order to protect their systematic theft (aka profit) from the workers and the environment. Government is a result of capitalism, the monetary system and the free market mentality.

I agree, true free market is an illusion. Big companies always want protection and, as money buys power, they'll always end up buying a central authority for protection. What Americans call crony capitalism is the natural and inevitable evolution of capitalism. You can say lots of bad things about Marx but he was spot on there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

Although free markets are commonly associated with capitalism in contemporary usage and popular culture, free markets have been also advocated by socialists and have been included in various different proposals for market socialism, co-op businesses, and profit sharing.

Free market != capitalism

[1714094641]

1714094641

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

In this day and age, there are no valid reasons to adhere to economic theories developed over a century ago. Things have changed since then. The only excuses for maintaining this madness is ignorance and fear, which I, and many others, seek to dispel. There are better ways and new ideas. Explore them and engage them, don't be a pussy reactionary that appeals to the scary stories designed to make you believe your piece of land and ideology is better than someone else's piece of land and ideology. For people so distraught with government propaganda, you sure do espouse a great deal of economic propaganda that is no longer relevant or sustainable. It must be difficult living inside your own head with all of the contradictions and dualities that you must maintain. I'm sure it's exhausting and you are agitated when these assumptions are challenged. If your ideas were so well formed and valid, it would not necessitate your continued emotional outbursts and sophomoric assertions. Please start questioning what is clearly wrong with your belief system. You will feel better and appreciate the clarity it brings.

You haven't really said anything here. You don't need economics to understand why RBE is silly. You just need to define your terms.

Go ahead.

Scarce: __________________ <---- fill in the blank

[LightRider]

[Rassah]

And still no details. Nothing about how it will actually work, or how to transition to such a system  

By the way, do you know Peter Joseph personally?

[LightRider]

And still no details. Nothing about how it will actually work, or how to transition to such a system  

By the way, do you know Peter Joseph personally?

It will work by working with nature instead of against it.

I do not.

[justusranvier]

And still no details. Nothing about how it will actually work, or how to transition to such a system

No answers to pertinent questions, but he's got plenty of time to spam unrelated threads with this stuff.

[AnonyMint]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFcTJAQ7zc4

It's a sad state of affairs when we have to argue which is worth more, a shiny rock or a string of bits. Let's investigate a resource based economy.

The resource better be knowledge, else you are proposing to resurrect the dinosaurs.

Problem is knowledge is not fungible, so can't serve as liquid currency that maximizes division-of-labor.

[LightRider]

For those more interested in a "free market" solution to world hunger, http://www.cyberfarmsystems.com is now accepting Bitcoin donations to help fund their startup and promote their technology. This is a company sympathetic to the Zeitgeist Movement and to implementing a resource based economy.

[LightRider]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9FDIne7M9o

3 hour discussion of economic calculation in a resource based economy.

[Mike Christ]

Okay I think I've finally grasped it:

Though Joseph never actually says it (or perhaps I've missed it), what's really paying for all these technological advancements and constructions are people's input of energy and time, with the intent of a desired output, such as the tower farms and whatnot; this same behavior can be found if, for example, a person decided to plant a farm, i.e. energy expenditure, and then ate the food they'd grown, i.e. the desired output, with the major difference being, group projects instead of solo projects.  Is this correct, LightRider?

[LightRider]

Okay I think I've finally grasped it:

Though Joseph never actually says it (or perhaps I've missed it), what's really paying for all these technological advancements and constructions are people's input of energy and time, with the intent of a desired output, such as the tower farms and whatnot; this same behavior can be found if, for example, a person decided to plant a farm, i.e. energy expenditure, and then ate the food they'd grown, i.e. the desired output, with the major difference being, group projects instead of solo projects.  Is this correct, LightRider?

That's a very simplistic representation I think, but yes. If the desired outcomes are sustainability, efficiency and a high standard of living for all people, then common efforts to achieve those ends, along with the application of our technical capability and reliance on the scientific method for rational consensus, are what is generally being proposed.

[Mike Christ]

That's a very simplistic representation I think, but yes. If the desired outcomes are sustainability, efficiency and a high standard of living for all people, then common efforts to achieve those ends, along with the application of our technical capability and reliance on the scientific method for rational consensus, are what is generally being proposed.

No intention of oversimplifying; I just understand things better if I can get them down to layman's terms

Don't laugh, but I've experienced something similar to this while playing the game Minecraft with friends; in it, you have personal property that you achieve through working the land, private property in a sense where it's generally agreed to be rude to intrude on another person's home uninvited, and you work together with your pals to "improve your living conditions" so to speak; if your friend was clear across the ocean and you wanted to see them more often, you'd just go out and make a bridge, or if you wanted to automate farming, you'd figure out a way to do it at the push of a button, so you could have more free time to do other things.

Whenever you needed something, such as cobblestone, you'd ask your pals if they had any, and usually they would, so you'd go and they'd give it to you and that was that; you continued to build things that would improve your experience there.  However, I've also seen forms of the market as well; sometimes a pal will ask for help that won't assist anyone but them, and they offer to pay in diamonds or gold for your time (that whole "What's in it for me?" thing); other times, they'll need something rare that you have and plan to use, and it would be faster to part with one's own rare items to trade for the desired item than to go out and try to find another one.  I can see how this can be resolved in reality: the first one can gradually be fixed with machine labor, the 2nd scenario can be solved with improvements in creating synthetic materials to remove the scarcity of any given thing; however, until that time, it seems the only alternative would be to use the market.

Anyhow: why is the RBE often set at-ends with the market system?  It seems they can both work fine in harmony; is there anything about the RBE which technically makes it incompatible with the market, or is this personal preference to avoid it?  Would the Zeitgeist advocate ostracize themselves from a person who participates in trade?

[LightRider]

[Rassah]

1) If you are not free to compete, then what are you free to do? Take by force?

2) It is, but it has held up for centuries in areas where free market flourished. Even in very socialist totalitarian areas, the invisible hand of the market sometimes pops up to provide things people want or need.

3) If everyone is equal, in everything they do and own, then there is no reason for anyone to excel, or even to apply themselves. That's how socialist economies with fixed prices and income fall appart. Why work harder than your colleague, if you get the same in the end?

4) Money is nothing more than a commodity that is easier to store and trade, no different from sugar, oil, or anything else. There is nothing special or magic about it. As long as we have commodities, and as long as people want to trade skills and products of their skill, there will be money. If, however, everyone's products and skills are equal, see #3.

5) Government IS chaos, abuse, and exploitation. Imagine if we had a system where people could be accused of something, brought to stand trial, and 95% of them, under a threat of a much larger sentence, were convinced to confess to a crime they didn't do and spend few years in jail? Horrible, right? That's what we have with government. If the chaos, abuse, and exploitation in libertopia is THAT bad, it at least won't worse than under government. Also, note, war, chaos, and exploitation is not as profitable as trade and cooperation.

6) The price doesn't reflect the price, the price reflects the reality of the scarcity of something. What is more efficient, seeing how much of something there is, and setting the price accordingly (which is what the 'price mechanism' does), or setting the price, and simply ignoring whether the price actually reflects how scarse something is (which is what Zeitgeist claims the free market does, but actually what they propose to do themselves). Scarce things in this world don't give a crap about their own price. They won't get more abundant if you make their price cheaper.


7) Although intellectual property is unique work and contribution that could not have existed without the person creating it, regardless of what it was based on, I'm against calling it "property" too, so pass.

8 ) Dirt, mud, and rocks are common herritage. What someone does with those things to turn then into things like houses, cars, and computers, is their own unique contribution. If you want to defend this point, you would likely have to claim that dirt and rock is just as valuable as a computer someone built. Also, no matter how much you make the entire plannet a "common good," it still won't make enough scarse minerals and materials for everyone. You can't make gold or diamonds pop into existance by "sharing"

9) The golden rule is, indeed, philosophizing. Some people philosophize that we should treat our neighbors as ourselves, and that we should not initiate violence unless we do it in self defence. Others disagree, and think the opposite, which I guess means they prefer to initiate violence whenever they see fit, and get offended when their victims get defensive (typically how governments work). Sure, it's just a philosophy, but most people think it's a good one for whatever reason.

10) That's just making up terms for how someone who doesn't work, doesn't save, and/or doesn't protect themself ends up geting raped by reality of life, and then trying to shift the blame. And STILL doesn't change the reality that resources are not unlimited, those who try to get them the hardest typically succeed, and simply deciding to "share" will only make everyone equally poor.

EDIT: Plus, as Mike Christ pointed out, this conflates the political philosophy of libertarianism, with the "political" philosophy of anarchy, anarchocapitalism, and various property positions. Kinda like painting all socialists and socio-anarchists as North Korean style communists.

[Mike Christ]

Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free") is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association.

...

Anarchist communism (also known as anarcho-communism, free communism, libertarian communism, and communist anarchism) is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wages and private property (while retaining respect for personal property), and in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy, and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

This graphic gives me a headache.  Political philosophy != economic theory

[herzmeister]

10 CONCERNS WITH THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT
ACCORDING TO THE BITCOIN FORUM

1 A 'free resource based economy" isn't freedom or resource-based. You are only 'free to consume as others say'
2 The 'computerized resource distribution' is just an assumption
3 A 'resource based economy' is centralized, which breeds inequality
4 Planned economy is outdated philosophy, & not needed
5 Without market a 'planned economy' will produce chaos, abuse and exploitation
6 The 'resource distribution mechanism' is inefficient, self referring & preserves scarcity
7 (We may agree here )
8 'Common property' is void as some are always more equal than others
9 The 'everyone is equal principle' is merely moral philosophizing
10 Managed resource distribution is structurally violent

www.bitcoin.org / www.bitcointalk.org

[mobodick]

For those more interested in a "free market" solution to world hunger, http://www.cyberfarmsystems.com is now accepting Bitcoin donations to help fund their startup and promote their technology.

If eliminating hunger is their goal then they are a bullshit firm.
Someone who can't afford food can certainly not afford these expensive toys.
This technology is for rich people who want to exclude themselfs from society.
The hungry people is what they use as a way to get funding, but of course their product can be used for "systems in apartment complexes, housing developments, resorts and more, providing a locally on demand option for people and restaurants."

Think about it, if you don't have the money to buy food, how in the hell will you be able to pay for this fully automaitc robotized future farm tech?
It is bullshit of the highest order.

[mobodick]

5) Government IS chaos, abuse, and exploitation. Imagine if we had a system where people could be accused of something, brought to stand trial, and 95% of them, under a threat of a much larger sentence, were convinced to confess to a crime they didn't do and spend few years in jail? Horrible, right? That's what we have with government. If the chaos, abuse, and exploitation in libertopia is THAT bad, it at least won't worse than under government. Also, note, war, chaos, and exploitation is not as profitable as trade and cooperation.

Government is the exact opposite extreme of chaos. It operates by abiding strict (internal) rules. The more extreme the stricter the rules. In the extreme all dynamics die out and everything becomes predictable.
Chaos is the oposite extreme where rules do not apply. However, everything becomes unpredictable.
Both extremes seem to be an unwanted outcome of any society and all known periods of stability in human societies seem to be based on a good balance between these two ideals.

[Rassah]

5) Government IS chaos...

Government is the exact opposite extreme of chaos. It operates by abiding strict (internal) rules. The more extreme the stricter the rules. In the extreme all dynamics die out and everything becomes predictable.
Chaos is the oposite extreme where rules do not apply. However, everything becomes unpredictable.

So, what would you call the recent NSA revelations, as well as all the dissapearances of money in Iraq, the wars as a whole, and hell, the entire set of congress-passed laws that are near impossible to follow at this point, simply due to the sheer size and complexity?

[mobodick]

5) Government IS chaos...

Government is the exact opposite extreme of chaos. It operates by abiding strict (internal) rules. The more extreme the stricter the rules. In the extreme all dynamics die out and everything becomes predictable.
Chaos is the oposite extreme where rules do not apply. However, everything becomes unpredictable.

So, what would you call the recent NSA revelations, as well as all the dissapearances of money in Iraq, the wars as a whole, and hell, the entire set of congress-passed laws that are near impossible to follow at this point, simply due to the sheer size and complexity?

I'd call it the outcome of a well structured mechanism. As i said before, both complete statism and complete chaos are ideals that cannot be reched. Any viable system has both qualities in varying quantities.
So even the most statist structures need chaos on the fringes to cope with the real world. A smart statist might even use chaos to further his own statist goals.