Question for strident capitalists...

[Billy T]

Ah, but I gave you examples from the current economic model where people were NOT getting more money.

Yes we agree money is NOT the only reward. To get a job willing done the Total Reward, R, must be positive. We can even reduce this to an equation:
R = M + A where R is the total reward, M is the monetary reward (always zero in your no-money system) and A is the intrinsic attractiveness of the job. (A must be in same units as M and could be determined approximately at least by asking how much the average person would pay to be allowed that job.

For example to assist in the research I told about in last post, I would have paid at least $5/ hour, if bidding for the job against someone else. It was a very "positive A" job for me at least (on average, but not the day I was splashing shit filled water around, looking for the clogged drain.)

A < 0 for "undesirable jobs" A > 0 for desirable jobs, both by definition. R > 0 is required to have anyone wanting the job.

Your system has the simple equation R = A, so as I have been stating no one will do the net undesirable Jobs. In the current system to get the undesirable jobs done, you need M > |A| or without absolute signs, M + A > 0. when A is negative and that is always the case for "A positive" jobs. Now admittedly the Value of A can be positive for some few even if it is quite negative for most. I.e. I am admitting that some jobs most find unattractive may have a few applicants for them - see joke at end.

... So, if someone still wants to get their supply packet, they will naturally gravitate into the occupations that are available, ...

This is the first honest admission that in order to eat, some will be forced to take net undesirable jobs (A < 0), just as they are in the current money system. I. e. some doing a "negative A" but essential job in your system will be singing "Take this jobs and shove it " too.

 

[cosmictotem]

This is the first honest admission that in order to eat, some will be forced to take net undesirable jobs (A < 0), just as they are in the current money system. I. e. some doing a "negative A" but essential job in your system will be singing "Take this jobs and shove it " too.

No one will be any more "forced" to accept a job than they are forced to accept a McJob under the current system. I don't suppose you want to assert that people want to work McJobs under the current economic model, do you? And people don't enlist in the armed services in order to survive, right?

You continue to find problems with my proposed economic model which the current economic system hasn't even resolved itself.

 

[Billy T]

No one will be any more "forced" to accept a job than they are forced to accept a McJob under the current system. I don't suppose you want to assert that people want to work McJobs under the current economic model, do you? And people don't enlist in the armed services in order to survive, right?

You continue to find problems with my proposed economic model which the current economic system hasn't even resolved itself.

Your posts are getting better - more realistic with less fantacies about human nature. I agree, and have several times admitted, the need to eat and lack of skills / knowledge a desirable job requires, does FORCE many now to continue doing jobs they hate - their only comfort (other than a very flexible pay check's choices about what they get, while your system does not give any choice about what you get - you get the standard supply package) is to sing with gusto:
"Take this job and shove it."

The main problem your model has and the current model does not, is lack of any incentive to do more than the minimum required. Your system produces a much smaller "economic pie" that is equally divided.

Also I mentioned before that your commune of 10,000 or less with no money to buy solar cells will closely resemble the middle ages, no electricity - some skilled trades men, like shoe makers, but 90% work as farmers behind a horse drawn wooden plow. You think you can make a steel plow? Read on:

Mau ordered each tiny village to have its own blast furnace and produce their assigned quotes. They could not, so disassembled steel bridges etc. to melt them down. Children turned in their carpenter father's saw and hammer to get the "Hero of the Revolution" award! Steel and many other things essential to a modern society requires either money to import them into your group or population in that "no-money society" greater than 10 million. Now, please get realistic about this too.

Backyard steel furnaces were used by the people of China during the Great Leap Forward (1958–62).[1][2] These small steel blast furnaces were constructed in the backyards of the communes, hence their names. People used every type of fuel they could to power these furnaces, from coal to the wood of coffins. Where iron ore was unavailable, they melted any steel objects they could get their hands on, including pots and pans, and even bicycles, to make steel girders, but these girders were useless, as the steel was impure and of poor quality and thus cracked easily. Unbeknownst to the Communist Party officials, the result was not steel, but high carbon pig iron, which needs to be decarburized to make steel

That is why you need KNOWLEDGABLE managers, not the ignorant but democratic rabble making decisions about how to make steel and all things that use transistors* etc. Your system fortunately would collape as Mau's did, in a couple of years. If it continued it would be "A great leap back to the middle ages."

* I have a Ph. D. in physic and had very advanced (two graduate level) courses in solid state physics, but could not make a transistor if my life depended on producing one per year. Not even the huge, by current standards, one in a "TO -5" can like the first were.

 

[iceaura]

Secondly, ADDING nicotine doesn't make babyfood cheaper - it makes it more expensive.

So does adding sugar. But the cheapest stuff in the store tends to have a lot of added sugar. There's a reason.

The nicotine added baby food will be cheaper because Reynolds will subsidize it, and because it will be the massively produced kind with all the attendant economies of scale, and maybe even because it will replace some added preservative or the like.

Besides, how would they find out about it if Reynolds decided not to tell them?
Passing tainted babyfood off as healthy babyfood is fraud and is illegal under contract law.

It's not tainted. It just has a little bit of nicotine in it. If the government coercively interferes with the free market and forces content labeling, it's right on the label in technical nomenclature and 1/2 point myopia font - under the price sticker, featuring a price 50% lower than the boutique, hippy/yuppy, "organic" stuff in the natural foods ghetto section. The consumer has the choice, just as you mandate.

I agree with everything except 'free market'. Slavery is a non-voluntary form of coerced labor. Forced labor can not be compatible with freely traded voluntarily performed labor. They're simply two different things. The 'free' in free market refer to trades that are freely made without threat of coercive violence.

Definition: A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between vendors and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. Slaves are not 'free' to set the price of their labor

1) The market is between the vendor and purchaser, not the vendor and consumer. That can make a very big difference in the efficiency of a market - as the health insurance market in the US illustrates in glowing strobe neon.

2) You have confused the slave with the owner. The free market is between the vendor and the purchaser, not the merchandise and the purchaser. Slave markets in the US were almost perfectly free and unregulated, just as free market capitalism specifies.

The people who have socialized health insurance and/or medical care don't seem to have those problems. Any idea why?
LOL - - -
- - -
When my daughter was born we opted OUT or the 'Free' public hospital and instead flew to Japan and paid a pittance - 5500fordeliveryinaPrivateJapanesehospitalwhichincludedafull3weeksstayduetosomecomplications.InSocialParadiseAustraliawherethehealthcaresystemisgoingbroke−aPrivatedoctorwouldrun12,000 just for the delivery alone. As for the Public, well, I probably wouldn't have a daughter alive today.

As I've mentioned several times before, you have an absolute genius for picking examples that directly and flagrantly contradict the point you claim they illustrate.

The health care system in Japan provides healthcare services, including screening examinations, prenatal care and infectious disease control, with the patient accepting responsibility for 30% of these costs while the government pays the remaining 70%. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance programme administered by local governments. Patients are free to select physicians or facilities of their choice and cannot be denied coverage. Hospitals, by law, must be run as non-profit and be managed by physicians. For-profit corporations are not allowed to own or operate hospitals. Clinics must be owned and operated by physicians.

You bought into a public health care system far more heavily government managed than the US one, far less market dominated, far less capitalistic, far more socialistic. And like pretty much everyone else with direct personal experience for comparison, you found it superior in performance as well as much less costly in money.

Look, we both want the same outcome. You way has been tried and failed

My way is quite similar to the Japanese way. Would you call your experience with the Japanese way a failure?

 

[cosmictotem]

The main problem your model has and the current model does not, is lack of any incentive to do more than the minimum required. Your system produces a much smaller "economic pie" that is equally divided.

Well, it does have an incentive. The more produced, the higher the standard of living becomes for the population. And because the work force will not be limited by wages, the same work, whether desirable or undesirable, can be spread out amongst a lager work force, so each citizen is doing less of the undesirable work than the 8 hours that would be required under a monetary system. So the services and goods a society requires could be supplied with less energy input from each citizen than would be required under a monetary model. So although there may be work that is undesirable, the individual worker is required to do less of it. That can be seen as an incentive.

 

[Billy T]

Well, it does have an incentive. The more produced, the higher the standard of living becomes for the population. And because the work force will not be limited by wages, the same work, whether desirable or undesirable, can be spread out amongst a lager work force, so each citizen is doing less of the undesirable work than the 8 hours that would be required under a monetary system. So the services and goods a society requires could be supplied with less energy input from each citizen than would be required under a monetary model. So although there may be work that is undesirable, the individual worker is required to do less of it. That can be seen as an incentive.

It was nice while it lasted (two posts) but your back to your standard nonsense posts again:

Yes in the current system, if you work twice a hard and you are rewarded in proportion to your effort you get 100% increase in your material wealth - purchasing power in the current system. If you live in even the smallest "no-money all share equally" commune, which does barter for some goods like solar cells and steel knives the external society makes, you might be able to have one 60 watt lamp and a TV on for an hour.* With you all doing the minimum required production the commune will be hard pressed to just feed and cloth itself, with very little left over to barter for things only the much larger, money-using society can produce.

Let say this minimum number is 5000 people. Then when your 100% more production is shared out equally . I. e. all get an increase of 1/5000 = 0.0002 in living standard or 0.02%. Not much of an incentive for you to work twice as hard as when you got a 100% increase in your consumption or saving for old age.

How do you "spread out amongst a larger work force" cleaning a latrine or pumping gas and cleaning wind shield at 3AM? ENOUGH NOW with your silly nonsense!

Why would the goods and services required from each person be "supplied with less energy input from each citizen", who are mainly farmers waking behind a horse drawn wooden plow from sun rise to sun set and some times (if it is the first dry spell in Spring when seeds need to be planted,) plowing by kerosene lantern until mid-night? (Back in 1900 when a few dry days came in a row, the lantern was stuck on a pole at the end of the field and you guided the horse always towards it.) You commune has no money to buy gasoline (or diesel) for any tractor and can't barter for big cost items like a tractor, so you commune is man and horse powered.

Are you assuming the larger efficient money using society will have mercy on a bunch of misguided simple saps and just give the commune the things you need to live better than the peasants of the middle ages did?

SUMMARY: You have lapsed back into illogical " FALSE ASSERTION MODE" where you don't even try to justify your assertions. For example: You don't give any reason why it will take less human energy than small scale framing did as it was done in years before 1900, when it took about 90% of the people working long hard hours just to feed the then much smaller US population.

* I'm not sure but don't think the electric power company will even supply that much electrical energy for the big jar of home canned pickles you have to barter with.

 

[Billy T]

In post 361, I promised a joke at the end, but forgot to give it. The point of it was to illustrate some few find jobs that 99.9% think are very unattractive to be attractive; but they are less than 0.1%. Too few to get all the necessary but terrible jobs filled without high pay. Here is the joke:

Man comes into bar, wet and smelling of shit. Bar tender says:
What the hell happen to you Joe?
Joe replies: You know I drain the waste tank of passenger planes don't you?
Bar keep: Yes.
Joe: Well today the hose connections broke and that crap flew all over me - why I need a stiff drink bad now.
Bar keep: Your a nice guy Joe and smart too - Why don't you get a better job?
Joe: What! and give up working in aviation?

 

[cosmictotem]

It was nice while it lasted (two posts) but your back to your standard nonsense posts again:

Yes in the current system, if you work twice a hard and you are rewarded in proportion to your effort you get 100% increase in your material wealth - purchasing power in the current system. If you live in even the smallest "no-money all share equally" commune, which does barter for some goods like solar cells and steel knives the external society makes, you might be able to have one 60 watt lamp and a TV on for an hour.* With you all doing the minimum required production the commune will be hard pressed to just feed and cloth itself, with very little left over to barter for things only the much larger, money-using society can produce.

Let say this minimum number is 5000 people. Then when your 100% more production is shared out equally . I. e. all get an increase of 1/5000 = 0.0002 in living standard or 0.02%. Not much of an incentive for you to work twice as hard as when you got a 100% increase in your consumption or saving for old age.

How do you "spread out amongst a larger work force" cleaning a latrine or pumping gas and cleaning wind shield at 3AM? ENOUGH NOW with your silly nonsense!

Why would the goods and services required from each person be "supplied with less energy input from each citizen", who are mainly farmers waking behind a horse drawn wooden plow from sun rise to sun set and some times (if it is the first dry spell in Spring when seeds need to be planted,) plowing by kerosene lantern until mid-night? (Back in 1900 when a few dry days came in a row, the lantern was stuck on a pole at the end of the field and you guided the horse always towards it.) You commune has no money to buy gasoline (or diesel) for any tractor and can't barter for big cost items like a tractor, so you commune is man and horse powered.

Are you assuming the larger efficient money using society will have mercy on a bunch of misguided simple saps and just give the commune the things you need to live better than the peasants of the middle ages did?

SUMMARY: You have lapsed back into illogical " FALSE ASSERTION MODE" where you don't even try to justify your assertions. For example: You don't give any reason why it will take less human energy than small scale framing did as it was done in years before 1900, when it took about 90% of the people working long hard hours just to feed the then much smaller US population.

* I'm not sure but don't think the electric power company will even supply that much electrical energy for the big jar of home canned pickles you have to barter with.

You have to remember, that an incentive my proposed model would have and the current model does not always have, is that the energy you are putting into the system will be rewarded with, at the very least, enough resources to live as an independent being. In the current economic model there are many jobs that, despite being done, do not provide enough monetary compensation to support their workers sufficiently. So you have such cases where Walmart workers still require governmental assistance, young adults working McJobs are forced to live with their parents, people are forced to room with others to make rent and all may be forced to work multiple jobs just to pay the cost to someone else for their continued existence. Expenses are put on credit cards. These are all behaviors contrary to what the curent system claims it can do for people. This is why people join the armed forces under the current monetary system, because even though the pay is negligible, at least there is the assurance their basic needs will be provided.

You forget that people work multiple jobs and are scrambling for money. You forget, people can't afford educational tuition. You forget people who, despite working, require supplemental government assistance. You forget, young adults (sometimes college educated) are stuck living with their parents because the only job they can find is far below their level of education. You forget people have to put expenses on credit cards to defer payments because they are living pay check to pay check. You forget people have to look to the few institutions holding the real money to pay for houses, cars, education, healthcare, a new business enterprise, etc. You forget food is often put on credit cards. Anything fundamental to keeping you alive, very often requires the assistance of a large entity with the real money of the monetary system. And you forget, your citizens have to pay for an education from an educational system that resists automation, and thus could make itself cheaper. You forget despite this monetary reward you claim a monetary system provides its citizens, most of that money goes to a few banks and lenders, who really make things like houses and cars and insurance and education and medical treatment and businesses, and sometimes even food itself, possible. Without the money from these few large entities, a large percentage of your supposedly fairly compensated workforce would not even be able to exist on the Earth.

You forget all these incentives a RBE has and the current system does not, Billy.

So yes, enough with your silliness!

Why don't you ask yourself why someone would want to work in a system where they are not truly independent according to that system's own definition of independence?

Everybody else has their hands in your life. The bank owns your house. The lender owns your car. The insurance companies decide what gets paid for in your life whether house care, car care or medical care. Education loan companies decide whether you get an education. Banks decide whether you open that restaurant or not. Health insurance companies, whether you live or die and your quality of medical care. And because you've allowed money to be an incentive, drug companies can buy off doctors and psychiatrists, industry can buy off environmental scientists, food companies can buy off everyone from the FDA to inspectors to nutritionists, etc. Everybody has their hands in your pie.

And really the only way the monetary system keeps people participating in this insanity is by government enforcement.

 

[Billy T]

L

You have to remember, that an incentive my proposed model would have and the current model does not always have, is that the energy you are putting into the system will be rewarded with, at the very least, enough resources to live as an independent being. In the current economic model there are many jobs that, despite being done, do not provide enough monetary compensation to support their workers sufficiently. ...

Your CLAIM that all will have their basic needs met is FALSE. It would be true IFF the "no-money & share equally" system worked, but it ALWAYS* fails to even be able to feed its members and collapses or is modified to have private ownership of the farms and to use some form of money (a way to store wealth for future use).

* Has failed in the more than 1000 times it has been attempted, but quite often before all do starve, they convert to private farms and adopt money as medium of exchange providing a choice as to what your reward will be (not just the standard "supply package") Also money is a store of value. When saved, it finances new construction, etc. (Banks lend it out to others for this - at a higher interest rate than they pay on your saving account, etc. )

All of America's initial settlements tried your system. Some converted in time to survive, the "lost Colony" did not, it seems. A couple nearly starved but kindly Indians feed them. Following is from my earlier post 189. Later posts after it tell how Stalin starved a few million with his collective farms (And the share equally concept, but as always in the USSR, "Some are more equal than Others" - to quote Animal Farm). As Forbes notes the Plymouth colony was near starvation in only two years of using your system, but converted from it, "just in the nick of time." Then they had an abundance of food, especially corn the very next year!

... Your ideas are not new. They have been tried more than 1000 times and all but about 20 failed. Those survivors dropped the collective approach to production (had their farm land divided and placed under one family's ownership and control) and adopted money to flexibly allocate the goods that were produced in accordance with the buyer's wishes (or let him save and invest; buy a new tractor, etc.). Or to repeat part of the Forbes article:
" Most schoolchildren know that the Mayflower pilgrims came to America to escape the persecution they encountered in Europe. A more obscure fact was that the Plymouth Colony was originally organized as a communal society, with an equal sharing of the fruits of everyone’s labor. At least, that was the plan.* Their governor, William Bradford, documented how this degenerated over the next two years into “injustice,” “indignity” and “a kind of slavery.” Productivity was shot, and the community starved. ... They abandoned communal ownership and, lo and behold, the fields sprouted with life.

As Bradford writes: “They had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn. … By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the faces of things were changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many.”

Hundreds of utopian experiments followed Plymouth–religious and secular, communist and individualistic, radical and moderate. But all had to make impossible sacrifices in the service of their ideals. ... Many religious societies declined or disbanded after the loss of their founder. ... Secular societies fared even worse, many of them repeating the lessons of Plymouth. Josiah Warren, a member of the celebrated New Harmony commune that collapsed under collectivist strains, went on to found societies based on a decidedly more individualistic premise, including utopia in Ohio and Modern Times on Long Island. While economically successful, boundaries between the true believers and their neighbors dissolved over time. Today, the hamlet of Brentwood, N.Y., where Modern Times used to be, looks like the rest of its Long Island surroundings–pleasant enough, but no utopia. ...

The long series of failed experiments yields some interesting lessons. The first is that internal power grabs are even more poisonous to utopian dreams than external threats. The gold standard of utopian leadership, the benevolent prince or philosopher king, is inherently unstable. " ....

I made this text red as Forbes notes the most lethal thing to these idealistic societies is some how the goods produced must be distributed. - Your ideas are the foundation of a very corrupt, money-free, society. I.e. pretty girl who sleeps with male distributor gets the better cut of meat, the fresher vegetables, etc. and that is just the minor level of corruption that destroyed Plymouth Colony in less than two years. Nice thing about money, is that the beautify saint can't buy more with it than the ugly sinner can - it treats all equally. A goal you aspire to but produce un-fair corrupt quickly collapsing societies, if history if a guide.
- - - - - -
You have not even learned this first "lesson" but want to do what Santa Anna warn not to:
Don't learn from history, but repeat its failures. ...

I'm not claiming regulated capitalism is perfect and think a forced transfer of wealth to the poor is essential (progressive taxation funding welfare programs can do that). Unfortunately, IMO the tax reduction GWB gave his wealthy supporters, has placed the US in grave danger. Bottom part of the middleclass is now poor and needs of funding for welfare are growing. That plus a defense budget (which makes a few even more wealthy) that is greater than the total of the 16 next biggest defense spenders, is destroying the US, when Fed's fiat money printing becomes unsustainable. I. e. the boost it has given stock prices will end, perhaps soon, if not now started. Then foreign demand for dollars* will decline and the dollar's value wrt to wheat or gold etc. will decline. - This, if true, is not the fault of well regulated capitalism, but of bad decisions (like GWB's expensive wars, and too little taxes on the wealthy, so wealth and the associated power concentrates too much.)

The US now has: Government by the powerful few, by their lobbyist, and for the wealthy. No longer: "Of the people, by the people, and for the people." US democracy is a sham - ill educated voters cannot understand what Alex de Tocqueville did in 1835. (Democracy in America) They vote for which ever candidate promises to give most "goodies now" and promises to send the bill to the not yet born. Thus the per capital debt grows every year and that rate will accelerate when interest rate on the debt becomes more normal.

* Strong now as dollars are required to buy US stocks and bonds, but when foreigners see their equity losses mounting, they will sell and convert the sale's dollars into their own currency so it can be used at home. I. e. current positive dollar demand can become a negative, especially if the Euro no longer props up Greece, etc.

 

[cosmictotem]

All of America's initial settlements tried your system. Some converted in time to survive, the "lost Colony" did not, it seems. A couple nearly starved but kindly Indians feed them. Following is from my earlier post 189. Later posts after it tell how Stalin starved a few million with his collective farms (And the share equally concept, but as always in the USSR, "Some are more equal than Others" - to quote Animal Farm). As Forbes notes the Plymouth colony was near starvation in only two years of using your system, but converted from it, "just in the nick of time." Then they had an abundance of food, especially corn the very next year!

It would be easy to refute me if I was advocating a single system but, more precisely, I am advocating a combination of resource management models with no one model having primacy over another or being imposed on a free person. As I've said repeatedly, once in possession of your parcel, you would be free to practice the resource management model of your choice with whatever goods you produced on that parcel or in combination with the parcels of others, and distribute them under the resource management model of your choice, with the caveat that land itself, which cannot be produced, should neither be sold.

And if one resource management model is not performing adequately to your expectations, you could supplement that resource management model with another or even a third or fourth, provided that no one resource model prohibits the practice of another. That is consistent in keeping land and resources neutral and not in favor of anyone resource model.

Additionally, let's look at the consequences of a monetary system. You are correct in that sometimes money can enable the individual to access an abundance of resources to secure their comfort. However, unchecked, that ability can result in an overabundance and imbalance of resources in the hands and at the disposal of too few people. Certainly, you won't deny that humans are capable of over consumption, will you not? Consider the problem of obesity where more nutritional input is consumed than would be required for the healthy existence of the human body. Do you think such propensity for human gluttony is reserved only for food? If money represents resources, can't money itself reach an overabundance and imbalance of resources in too few hands? Isn't there a limit to have much resources we require and couldn't possibly employ for the comfortable sustenance of our existence? Doesn't resource gluttony lead to wasteful production and the unnecessary use of resources that could otherwise be distributed in a more efficient manner to reduce resource imbalances among a cooperative population? It is the monetary system that enables such waste. Wouldn't a proper resource management model preserve resources by taking into account sustainability, waste and over consumption?

While certainly, a resource management model will need to be tweaked, possibly using modern technology, to avoid under production, there is no doubt the current model is very sloppy and abusive in its management of resource balances and the source of those resources, the planet. And if the current model provides too much for too few, it stands to reason that the current model needs to, at the very least, move closer to the resource based economy approach to achieve a more equitable distribution of power and control over resources.

 

[Billy T]

It would be easy to refute me if I was advocating a single system but, more precisely, I am advocating a combination of resource management models with no one model having primacy over another or being imposed on a free person. As I've said repeatedly, once in possession of your parcel, you would be free to practice the resource management model of your choice with whatever goods you produced on that parcel or in combination with the parcels of others, and distribute them under the resource management model of your choice, with the caveat that land itself, which cannot be produced, should neither be sold.

And if one resource management model is not performing adequately to your expectations, you could supplement that resource management model with another or even a third or fourth, provided that no one resource model prohibits the practice of another. That is consistent in keeping land and resources neutral and not in favor of anyone resource model.

Additionally, let's look at the consequences of a monetary system. You are correct in that sometimes money can enable the individual to access an abundance of resources to secure their comfort. However, unchecked, that ability can result in an overabundance and imbalance of resources in the hands and at the disposal of too few people. Certainly, you won't deny that humans are capable of over consumption, will you not? Consider the problem of obesity where more nutritional input is consumed than would be required for the healthy existence of the human body. Do you think such propensity for human gluttony is reserved only for food? If money represents resources, can't money itself reach an overabundance and imbalance of resources in too few hands? Isn't there a limit to have much resources we require and couldn't possibly employ for the comfortable sustenance of our existence? Doesn't resource gluttony lead to wasteful production and the unnecessary use of resources that could otherwise be distributed in a more efficient manner to reduce resource imbalances among a cooperative population? It is the monetary system that enables such waste. Wouldn't a proper resource management model preserve resources by taking into account sustainability, waste and over consumption?

While certainly, a resource management model will need to be tweaked, possibly using modern technology, to avoid under production, there is no doubt the current model is very sloppy and abusive in its management of resource balances and the source of those resources, the planet. And if the current model provides too much for too few, it stands to reason that the current model needs to, at the very least, move closer to the resource based economy approach to achieve a more equitable distribution of power and control over resources.

Not much I would say is wrong here, in part because it is so vague.

For example, who and how would specify the land parcel I can use but not sell (perhaps not even give it to my heirs when I die? - you are not very clear on who in the next generation get to use the land parcel I could use when living.) and where would it be? Near where I was born, or what? As your land parcel is the basis of your living, and they differ greatly in fertility, the administrator of their awarding has great power to reward those he likes and punish those who don't do him any favors - A huge corruption problem: Great power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Please remove some of this excessive vagueness with some specifics as to how land parcels are assigned to individuals.

Also tell something about non-land decisions. For example who tells a successful farmer he is a glutton, must distribute some of the food he is producing instead of eat it. How is he forced to do that?

I understand how money & the market place is a "resource management model" which admittedly is releasing too much CO2 when sugar cane based alcohol is much better, in many ways in addition to be slightly "CO2 net negative release" but not being applied as it should be under the current resource management model. It took a military dictatorship in Brazil to order the switch from gasoline to that car fuel.

In fact I only know or two resource management system - a quasi-free market and a central dictator. Tell at least something about what you are referring to with phrase: resource management model. How does it work who and how are the millions of production decision made?

For single simple example: Does your resource management model dictate that toilet paper must not be bleached white but remain brown? If it allows for production of white toilet paper, how is the choice between Chlorine and Sulfur acid bleaching made. (One will pollute the air and the other the water).

Your post is so vague it essentially says nothing about what you are proposing. Also it is too dynamic - For example, you not longer speak so specifically about the nature of the rewards given equally to all who qualify. - Have standard "supply packages" dropped from you concept? I.e. do you now get "flexible credit limit" you can "spend" to get items of your choice? - that sound like electronic money / credit cards, etc. - exactly what we now have, except every month all get the same step up in the spendable sum on their credit card. If you are now allowing the customer to chose, how do you suppress gluttony or cigarette smoking etc.?

 

[cosmictotem]

For example, who and how would specify the land parcel I can use but not sell (perhaps not even give it to my heirs when I die? - you are not very clear on who in the next generation get to use the land parcel I could use when living.) and where would it be? Near where I was born, or what? As your land parcel is the basis of your living, and they differ greatly in fertility, the administrator of their awarding has great power to reward those he likes and punish those who don't do him any favors - A huge corruption problem: Great power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Well, I went over this earlier in the thread but perhaps you've forgotten. No one would assign the land, only record whether it was occupied or not. Abandoned land would be available for occupancy on a first come, first served basis. If an abandoned parcel is not fertile enough for you, keep searching until you find an available one you find acceptable. It's not like there aren't access issues for some in today's economic model. but I imagine since all will be restricted to no more than five acres to live on, there will be plenty of fertile land always available. The role of government would be only to record which parcels were being utilized and not by whom and which ones were available.

Also tell something about non-land decisions. For example who tells a successful farmer he is a glutton, must distribute some of the food he is producing instead of eat it. How is he forced to do that?

There are several layers to this: If the farmer elects to receive cooperatively produced supplies under the moneyless resource model, he would be obliged to follow the distribution standards of the moneyless cooperative model but not on goods he was able to produce by himself without recruiting the direct aid of others. So, theoretically, the farmer could reap all the benefits of being in the cooperative and still keep everything produced solely by his own hand to himself. So he could supplement and add to his food supplies with food he has produced in his garden by his own hand.

If he does not elect to receive cooperatively produced supplies, he would be under no obligation to submit his energies to the cooperative or his goods. He could elect to produce goods under a self-contained monetary resource model with others who share his choice.

The important distinction within the cooperative resource management model is between goods produced individually and goods produced with the outside aid of others. Since no one helping you is paid in money, in exchange for the energies of others, the output goods must be distributed to support the group. However, if you recruit no one else's energy while producing tomatoes under the cooperative resource management model, you are not obligated to produce tomatoes for anyone else because you recruited no one's direct cooperative energy to produce those tomatoes.

Under a monetary system, since no one works for free or without monetary compensation, you would be obliged to follow the reverse behavior, that is, you would be obliged to monetarily compensate anyone you recruited to assist you but you would not have to share your output goods for free with the population living under that model.

In fact I only know or two resource management system - a quasi-free market and a central dictator. Tell at least something about what you are referring to with phrase: resource management model. How does it work who and how are the millions of production decision made?

For single simple example: Does your resource management model dictate that toilet paper must not be bleached white but remain brown? If it allows for production of white toilet paper, how is the choice between Chlorine and Sulfur acid bleaching made. (One will pollute the air and the other the water).

I suspect you are referring to the calculation problem posed by von Mises? For this I will refer you to the following:

The 11:00 - 16:00 mark of the following video:

Or...

This blog post (not as long as you think):
http://www.theresourcebasedeconomy....lation-in-a-resource-based-economy-a-defence/

Or…

This video:

Have standard "supply packages" dropped from you concept?

No. They are still there. Not sure why you think they wouldn't be.

how do you suppress gluttony or cigarette smoking etc.?

It wouldn't be suppressed, it just wouldn't be cooperatively endorsed or advanced. After all, gluttony and smoking are not scientific necessities. The resource based economy is concerned with supplying people with what they need to support their life comfortably, not shower them with their every want and extravagance. That said, if such luxuries can be supported for all under the cooperative model and given the energies being put into the system, a moneyless resource model would not explicitly prohibit it as long as the essential goods and services were first being produced.

 

[Michael]

So does adding sugar. But the cheapest stuff in the store tends to have a lot of added sugar. There's a reason.

What is your point? Yes, sugar is added to everything, in the US. In Japan the amount of sugar is much lower - not because it's not cheap, but because sugary shit tastes like said shit to Japanese (and to me). The hyper regulated 'market' still bows to choice - even when that choice is limited to shitty options due to regulatory capture. Americans love to buy sugar shit and so that's what they're offered. Over time they get used to it and we all normalize to Type II diabetes and waddling obese people waddling around us while mooing into their free ObamaPhone.

Nice to know that the State has made it illegal to buy farm fresh milk and has even raided farms that had the audacity to sell it. You know, because one time, one person, back in 1890 New York bought some pink slime that was probably a bit healthier than the shit sold today.

Anyway, the poor do not need to buy babyfood - babyfood is CHEAP to make at home (and should be made at home out of fresh ingredients). There's also a whole industry of selling organic babyfood to middle class Americans that want to quickly pick their child up from 12 hours of day care, microwave and shovel in some proceeded food so that they can get to sleep and back to their second job paying the trillion in taxes need to run the State you love.

The nicotine added baby food will be cheaper because Reynolds will subsidize it, and because it will be the massively produced kind with all the attendant economies of scale, and maybe even because it will replace some added preservative or the like.

Then this will be left up to a Jury. If you are correct, and adding a little bit of one of the most potent neurotoxins known to man is 'healthy' then good. If it is not healthy, then Reynolds will go bust paying billions in property damage. Not to mention, in a free society, people are free NOT to shop at stores that sell poison as babyfood. See, that's how things will have to work in a free society. There's no Nanny to pretend gives two shits about you or your health and thus you have to take responsibility when you purchase things. Of course, at the end of the day, Americans hate taking personal responsibility and why do that when Magic Thinking is fun and pink slime cheap.

Summery: While I don't know IF a free non-violent society can come up with non-initiation of violence solutions to ALL of life's little problems, the one you proposed is easily handled via contract law and property rights.

It's not tainted. It just has a little bit of nicotine in it. If the government coercively interferes with the free market and forces content labeling, it's right on the label in technical nomenclature and 1/2 point myopia font - under the price sticker, featuring a price 50% lower than the boutique, hippy/yuppy, "organic" stuff in the natural foods ghetto section. The consumer has the choice, just as you mandate.

Like I said, it would be left up to the thousands and thousands of juries to determine if adding a neurotoxin breaks contract or causes property damage. It would also be left up to free people to choose not to shop at stores that sell poisonous babyfood. Not to mention, the billions of dollars in lawsuits health insurance companies would level against both RJ Reynolds, the babyfood producers, the stores and maybe even the parents.

While a hypothetical, I'm leaning a free civil society wouldn't purposely feed babies poison. What's not hypothetical is the FDA Regulated safe for human consumption boiled in ammonia ears, snouts, hooves, off-cuts, awful, bowel and anus ground up with wood pulp, infused with HFCS, colored with cancerous dyes legally sold in our hyper-regulated markets.

Now, do you think the FDA gives two flying f*cks about ensuring the consumer / Citizen is eating healthy food OR that the State regulation is actually acting to protect a trillion dollar fast food industry that it's now completely dependent on the taxation of for it's very survival? You can decide for yourself.

1) The market is between the vendor and purchaser, not the vendor and consumer. That can make a very big difference in the efficiency of a market - as the health insurance market in the US illustrates in glowing strobe neon.

"The Market"? Sounds like you're speaking in analogy. "Consumers"? Guess what - the vendor is also a consumer. The Purchaser is a Consumer. And the Consumer is a "Consumer". Any free people making voluntary trade is part of 'The Market" including the farmer growing the apples and selling them, as well as the guy or girl buying an apple and eating it.

2) You have confused the slave with the owner. The free market is between the vendor and the purchaser, not the merchandise and the purchaser. Slave markets in the US were almost perfectly free and unregulated, just as free market capitalism specifies.

Stealing labor by using violent force (slavery) is theft and is not the same as voluntarily selling labor. This is simply a violation of property - ALL humans are born owning their own body.

You bought into a public health care system far more heavily government managed than the US one, far less market dominated, far less capitalistic, far more socialistic. And like pretty much everyone else with direct personal experience for comparison, you found it superior in performance as well as much less costly in money.

The USA has a Fascistic model of healthcare. It's not a free-market. It's a hyper-regulatory-captured market stuffed to the brim with rent-seekers using a hampered fiat currency to inefficiently mediate exchange. Yes, Japan does have a similar system. Japan has a mixed private public healthcare system and also has universal coverage. They also have the most doctors per person in the world. I've been to the doctors in Japan. You're never going to replicate this system in the USA. It is impossible. Not unless the USA turned into Japan. And that isn't going to happen. You are again using Magic Thinking and wishful dreaming.

The question you're wondering is if a mixed healthcare system would work better in the USA compared to what we currently have?

Well, I'd compare Japanese "public" education to American "public" education. Japan costs half as much, and they do 10 times more with that half getting so-called world class "education". Of course, many children enter school with better literacy skills than Americans leaving school. Anyway, America's public 'education' costs twice as much, and we graduate functional illiterates at a rate of 1 in 5. So, I suspect, in terms of healthcare - that we'd pay twice (well, probably 10 times more) than in Japan and instead of 500,000 Americans dying due to medical incompetence and 3 - 5 million inflicted with lifelong serious injuries, we'll see 5 million killed by medical error and 30 - 50 million inflicted with serious injuries. But that's okay, because that'll be 'normal' in the Great Society rot that poses as the 'freest' nation on Earth.

I personally know of Private Chartered schools in the USA that are much better than schools in Japan. The kids only attend school 3 times a week, most start AE courses in grade 10. They're nothing like the pump-and-dump Government schools in the same neighborhoods. They also costs 1/10th the price. See what a TINY bit of freedom leads to? I'd say these kids would out perform any Japanese graduate in terms of actually putting their education to good use as in creating value. Would they do as well on a standardized test? Probably not. That's just my opinion.

Don't worry, we'll get 'free' Public Healthcare to go side by side with Private, and the very last place you're going to want to end up, is in a Public Hospital. You can bet the house on this one. And you're not getting rid of Private. The doctors themselves will not allows this to happen. So, don't worry about that either. They're certainly not stupid enough to go to a Public hospital and randomly end up as practice meat. This simply isn't ever going to happen. I do believe we will get Public healthcare - it will probably kill you. But that's okay, because most Americans will have normalized and wouldn't know any better anyway. So long as it's cost-free, who gives a f*ck anyway.

You'll see.

 

[Michael]

Ministry of Truth

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

So, let's see, we have never ending trillion dollar phony wars on "Terror" in order to prop up the military industrial complex (now normal), bulk domestic spying is now legal (and normal) and Iceaura here arguing human Slavery (forced labor) is no different than voluntarily selling labor (Freedom). Oh, and of course our Government Schools / pump-and-dump Education Factories 'graduate' functional illiterates at a rate of 1 in 5 (also normal).

Nice. Things appear to be on tract.

Land of the Fleeced
Home of the Slave

Now let's all get out there and vote for Hope and Change or Change We Can Believe In or whatever other slogan The Party comes up with simple enough for the masses to mentally digest.

 

[Michael]

It wouldn't be suppressed, it just wouldn't be cooperatively endorsed or advanced. After all, gluttony and smoking are not scientific necessities. The resource based economy is concerned with supplying people with what they need to support their life comfortably, not shower them with their every want and extravagance. That said, if such luxuries can be supported for all under the cooperative model and given the energies being put into the system, a moneyless resource model would not explicitly prohibit it as long as the essential goods and services were first being produced.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why is there such an emphasis on eliminating money? Scientifically, sound Money can be shown to be the most efficient means of measuring subjective experience. Because it's so efficient, it naturally arises in all complex social organizations. Thus, scientifically speaking, there's a strong cogent argument it will arise in your proposed social structure - probably within a couple months. Given that people are 'free' to choose to utilize such an indisputably efficient means of measuring the subjective experience during trade, those people in your society who choose to use it, will in short order become more 'successful' than others in society.

The efficiently money provides will result in better resource allocation and quickly lead to a better standard of living. I would assume that these people who better allocate resources would gain some social status doing so (and social power). Soon, the people not using money, would view their unequal status as unfair. While it is true they'd be given a resource package, in light of the much higher standard of living those using money are enjoying (hell, money users would possibly even donate their resource packages to moneyless people?) I'm thinking this unequal living standard may lead to some level of social strife whereby those moneyless people would maybe be tempted to use force against those with money? That's pretty much how it goes in all societies - free societies generally keep this in check, up to the point where those with less money decide to steal from those with money. That's when things generally collapse or we end up with war (and in the modern world a central bank).

This is sort of what happened in China. Even though Japan and the USA had little to do with China. They were regularly touted as the reason why Chinese were starving to death. Of course, they had absolutely nothing to do with why Chinese were starving - but, this is how Rulers play off human nature.

I guess, given money is going to arise, and arise very quickly, I wonder what your thoughts are.

 

[Billy T]

To Cosmictotem:Thanks. I now understand that land parcels no one is using can become yours to just by starting to live there and perhaps doing something productive with it. Is that required?
Lets assume I am a good artist and many want my paintings so they barter with me for them - how I get my needs with no other efforts. All I do with the land is watch the weeds grow. It happens to be very high agricultural potential land. In the current money based system, I would sell that good farm land, but I can not under your system - so you system wastes this high value resource.

BTW, the economic justification for real estate taxes, is they tend to force land into it most economically productive use. For example if you are farming some land that is at a corner of the intersection of two major roads, the taxing authority knows it is much more valuable if a gas station were occupying that corner. You can not earn enough to pay the taxes with your farm produce as they are based on the land's true worth when in its highest economic use. So you are forced to sell it. This mechanism does not exist in your system - Valuable resources will be wasted or not in their most productive use. Again: money has nothing to do with the land's value. A gas station on the corner is a greater benefit to the society than the farm's produce. I am speaking of value to the society not to the owner.

If before I die, I invite a much younger artist friend to come an live with me and he has done so for 14 years when I die. - Is that land thrown back into the "available land" list? Or can he continue the tradition I started of only watching the weeds grow and when he is getting old, do as I did - invite a much younger artist to live there? It seems your system has no way to get this potentially very productive agriculture land used for growing food, in contrast to the current system that sells land to whoever will use it most economically productively.

This is but one of the many ways your system wastes resources. Miss-management of technical processes is much more important. - I note you did not attempt to answer my question about how your system makes the decision between using sulfuric acid or chlorine bleach to make toilet paper white.

After listening to your second link I now agree modern technology, like is used by stores to re stock items in demand, can replace the demand system's signal that rising prices send to the makers of the products. I. e. I admit the RBE can solve / supply the DEMAND signal of the "economic calculation problem" but that is NOT the "resource management problem." That can not be solved by consulting the people - they are far too ignorant of chemistry, economics and environment impact trade offs to know whether chlorine or sulfuric acid is the better choice for making toilet paper white. You need an experienced manager who has spent years as an "apprentice" in the toilet paper industry. - Not the majority rule of the ignorant masses making that type of technical decision.

You assert / claim your system would manage resources better, but offer no valid reason to believe this. I have given and example above of how it is more wasteful. (and there are many others) Perhaps even more important is the waste of gifted brains - Again very few, far too few, will chose to go thru 14 or so years of stressful effort and a couple year of out-right hell as an intern working 16 hours per day, to become a heart surgeon when jobs that require only a few days of training give the same supply package reward.

 

[cosmictotem]

BTW, the economic justification for real estate taxes, is they tend to force land into it most economically productive use. For example if you are farming some land that is at a corner of the intersection of two major roads, the taxing authority knows it is much more valuable if a gas station were occupying that corner. You can not earn enough to pay the taxes with your farm produce as they are based on the land's true worth when in its highest economic use. So you are forced to sell it. This mechanism does not exist in your system - Valuable resources will be wasted or not in their most productive use. Again: money has nothing to do with the land's value. A gas station on the corner is a greater benefit to the society than the farm's produce. I am speaking of value to the society not to the owner.

If before I die, I invite a much younger artist friend to come an live with me and he has done so for 14 years when I die. - Is that land thrown back into the "available land" list? Or can he continue the tradition I started of only watching the weeds grow and when he is getting old, do as I did - invite a much younger artist to live there? It seems your system has no way to get this potentially very productive agriculture land used for growing food, in contrast to the current system that sells land to whoever will use it most economically productively.

I'm going to give you the rest of the night to think about how, in a moneyless system where land is free, a farmer or artist can be convinced to allow their parcel to be put to better use. But I find it quite revealing that the solution you accept as normal in the current system, and are looking to see its counterpart in my proposed system, involves some kind of force or economic compulsion.

As far as inheriting land, as I suggested earlier in the thread, a possible rule of thumb would be land could only be passed on to your current spouse when you die. Any other relations after the spouse died would have no power to keep the parcel from returning back into public circulation.

 

[cosmictotem]

Thanks. I now understand that land parcels no one is using can become yours to just by starting to live there and perhaps doing something productive with it. Is that required?

You would not be required to produce goods on land that you personally lived on just as no one is required under capitalism to produce just for owning land.

Land declared as resource land exclusively, however, could only be used in your possession as long as you are producing goods from its resources.

 

[cosmictotem]

Again very few, far too few, will chose to go thru 14 or so years of stressful effort and a couple year of out-right hell as an intern working 16 hours per day, to become a heart surgeon when jobs that require only a few days of training give the same supply package reward.

Yes but they will not give the same access.

And again, if you introduce a gradient scale of monetary compensation, you open the whole can of worms to the possibility of people being bought, ethics compromised, corruption, etc. Judges could be bought off by private prisons to send more inmates their way by ruling a higher percentage of cases against defendants, etc. Everyone and everything can be bought at the expense of the average citizen. Legislation can be bought at the expense of democracy, etc. Doctors at the expense of the patient. Climatologists at the expense of the environment.

 

[cosmictotem]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why is there such an emphasis on eliminating money? Scientifically, sound Money can be shown to be the most efficient means of measuring subjective experience. Because it's so efficient, it naturally arises in all complex social organizations. Thus, scientifically speaking, there's a strong cogent argument it will arise in your proposed social structure - probably within a couple months. Given that people are 'free' to choose to utilize such an indisputably efficient means of measuring the subjective experience during trade, those people in your society who choose to use it, will in short order become more 'successful' than others in society.

Yes, if a citizen elected to engage in monetary exchange it would be allowed but such exchanges would be confined to their willing participants and not promoted as a universally enforced economic model.

As to why eliminate money, I will copy and paste what I posted in reply to Billy T:

And again, if you introduce a gradient scale of monetary compensation, you open the whole can of worms to the possibility of people being bought, ethics compromised, corruption, etc. Judges could be bought off by private prisons to send more inmates their way by ruling a higher percentage of cases against defendants, etc. Everyone and everything can be bought at the expense of the average citizen. Legislation can be bought at the expense of democracy, etc. Doctors at the expense of the patient. Climatologists at the expense of the environment.

A scientifically fixed resource distribution standard, set by reference to the biological requirements of the human body as well as the capabilities of modern technology, would decrease corruption as there would be no systematized way to buy corruption, no incentive to mislead consumers, no way to buy legislation, etc.