Re: [ox-en] The "Free Market" requires scarcity

Patrick Anderson <[email protected]> writes

>We should be producing for *product* (use value), but are instead
>producing for *profit* (exchange value) which cannot abide abundance.
>
>What will we ever do to solve this paradox?

Well here are some practical ideas:

1. Establish an alliance of community oriented businesses supporting the
emergence of non-profit-zones, regulated by ex - ante agreements about
social production. These are agressive, profit oriented sharks that
compete for the growing market of non-profit communities and therefore
protect and nourish them with products and services. They compete not only
on the monetary level, but also on the cultural level with the rest of the
business world to foster a cultural change that tehy support for their own
interest.

2. Transfer the majority of the existing monetary capital into non -
capital, by financing common ground and resources that serve the sole
purpose of decent life organisation of participants (Life Maintainance
Organisations). LMOs will constitute the customer base for the companies
outlined in (1). Its is important to have a plurality of LMOs to enable
individual choice and freedom.

3. Since inside LMOs there is no capital, there is also no production for
profit. To achieve that you are strongly advised to give up the idea of
money as internal tansaction tool. Every production based on money will be
speculative and disruptive in the end. I think that some people have to
experience this the hard way in trying out market-based local LMOs, some
people will seek to find other solutions from the beginning.

What we need is simply a poltical organisation that advocates this tye of
change. p2p production is an important element in this picture because it
supports growing community spirit and self-confidence of associated
producers. But as you say correctly, the ways of economy need to change
beyond capitalism. p2p cannot directly replace capitalist prduction, it
can only limit it. 

But this, in the long run, is the most effective way to get rid of it.

Franz




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