It's been rather dejecting picking books off my shelves, blowing off the dust, and looking on www.amazon.co.uk to see if any of them are likely to fetch a price. In most cases there are umpteen copies of the book for sale for Amazon's minimum price of 1p (plus £2.80 postage and packing).
It's sad thinking of all the costly books sitting there, gathering dust, and taking up space. No-one else can readily look at them, unless I try to sell them or give them away and this makes them even more of a wasted resource.
Yet, if I don't sell or give away the books now, I can only imagine that their inherent value will sink below even the worth of the fibres they are manufactured from, as the printed book becomes increasingly obsolete.
Some people have a romantic attachment to books - shelves of books create a good impression of scholarliness and the right kind of seriousness - and they can look attractive, it's true, but given the high cost of housing, the space they take up is expensive. Their low tech way of working pales against modern information technology and transporting them as part of giving them away or selling them is environmentally unkind.
Not that the books I have look attractive as shelved. There is a trace of order in the way are arranged, but this is based on their subject, not what they look like. To have them ordered aesthetically would require them to be indexed and their shelf location recorded and I'm not prepared to spend time doing that (am I?).
The ease with which texts can be distributed technically with modern communications means that in order to protect the intellectual property of the author, some kind of digital jiggery-pokery needs to be applied to stop the text being freely available. This was easier to limit with physical books owing to their bulk and comparatively poor portability and distributability.
But the only reason to try to prevent texts being widely distributed and available is to create scarcity so that a price can be charged. So far as fulfilling human needs by use of the text goes, there is no direct reason for depriving someone of the text in question. Therefore in an NLRBE all text would be freely available, and as the authors, like anyone else, would have their needs met anyway, they wouldn't need to participate in the scarcity creation.
Showing posts with label rbe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rbe. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
Monday, 14 January 2013
Personal property
I've just been listening to Peter Joseph on Blogtalk radio, and one of the subjects he explored is psychology v logic. By way of example, he set up abolition of / deprivation from personal property as one of the straw men used against the RBE.
My thoughts here follow on from his, but are not what he said exactly; they combine some of the ideas expressed in his talk in a different way.
Personal property is sacrosanct in many people's views. Even in a work environment, with equipment allocated / issued by an employer, people can have a strong identification of something being theirs - can I borrow YOUR stapler.
It's quite hard to analyse; there's one element of identifing with a possession - a concept that car manufacturers like to play on, so that a possession is part of you or your personality, and the other element is securing access to the resource. (I'm settimg aside things of sentimental value, or yucky things like sharing a toothbrush).
Let's take a CD for example. Technologically, it's perfectly possible to listen to any piece of music (recording) anytime, anywhere. We don't technically need a CD. Somehow though, the desire to have instant access to a recording, plus the £ invested in it, plus the (at one time) technical need to physically have a CD, plus the emotional draw created by the packaging, plus the cultural norm of posessing / owning combine powerfully to make us defensive of our CD collection, and reluctant if not unable to boil this down to actually what we want (what service) from the CD.
Imagine this scaled up, though, to a motor vehicle or dwelling. Living in an RBE takes such a leap of imagination. It's hard to inagine a world where we can call up a pice of music on any device that's to hand, or find a sleeping place where we happen to be, or easily and comfortably get from where we are to wher we want to be without any hassle, so at the moment we tend to own (secure exclusive use of) devices / objects that render these services. Thus we have CDs we rarely play, cars that are mainly parked, and so on usque ad infinitem.
My thoughts here follow on from his, but are not what he said exactly; they combine some of the ideas expressed in his talk in a different way.
Personal property is sacrosanct in many people's views. Even in a work environment, with equipment allocated / issued by an employer, people can have a strong identification of something being theirs - can I borrow YOUR stapler.
It's quite hard to analyse; there's one element of identifing with a possession - a concept that car manufacturers like to play on, so that a possession is part of you or your personality, and the other element is securing access to the resource. (I'm settimg aside things of sentimental value, or yucky things like sharing a toothbrush).
Let's take a CD for example. Technologically, it's perfectly possible to listen to any piece of music (recording) anytime, anywhere. We don't technically need a CD. Somehow though, the desire to have instant access to a recording, plus the £ invested in it, plus the (at one time) technical need to physically have a CD, plus the emotional draw created by the packaging, plus the cultural norm of posessing / owning combine powerfully to make us defensive of our CD collection, and reluctant if not unable to boil this down to actually what we want (what service) from the CD.
Imagine this scaled up, though, to a motor vehicle or dwelling. Living in an RBE takes such a leap of imagination. It's hard to inagine a world where we can call up a pice of music on any device that's to hand, or find a sleeping place where we happen to be, or easily and comfortably get from where we are to wher we want to be without any hassle, so at the moment we tend to own (secure exclusive use of) devices / objects that render these services. Thus we have CDs we rarely play, cars that are mainly parked, and so on usque ad infinitem.
Friday, 31 August 2012
The lights in the tunnel
I have read Martin Ford's book with considerable interest. His main thesis is that technological unemployment will pervade and that we should plan for it.
Where I must part company with him is in his view that consumption and capitalism are sine qua non. He rejects Marx's idea of a planned economy (and I'm not here to defend it) yet at the same time posits an economy where the government arranges for the consumer to have the money he needs to keep consumption going by taxing consumption(!) and levying business taxes. This is also a planned economy.
He accepts that the planet has finite resources, but predicts that nano-technology will radically increase what we can do with available materials. I have no reason (or knowledge) to doubt or question his prediction about nano-technology, but he cannot brush away the finiteness of resources by saying we can exploit them more effectively/efficiently
He is silent on the subject of advertising, which is a key driving force in a consumption based economy. He wants to incentivise people to improve themselves and society by offering what amounts to wages for doing these things. I don't disagree with financial incentives being used to create social / environmental benefits, but presumably Ford's system will have to incentivise people to consume goods and services - that is basically advertising/marketing. As he foresees a world in which most work is done by machines, I assume that advertising will be similarly cybernated.
But in missing out advertising as a subject area, Ford has overlooked a huge gap in his thought process. We can find it by consiering what modern advertising does. It seelks to persuade you that such and such a product will make you a better, more attractive, essentially happier, healthier person. Paradoxically, advertising knows what Ford has omitted. Our true motivation is to be happy and healthy. Advertising couples that motivation to consumption to keep the economy going, because our economic system is basically one of consumption. Ford sees this, but does not challenge it - in fact it is his start point, even though he accepts that the free market is an intellectual construct. It has no physical referent.
It is the supreme and truly immutable fact that we have finite resources to work with. That, combined with the urge of humans, like any species, to survive and thrive, produces the essential train of thought of a Resource Based Economy, in which we apply the scientific method and technology to bear on the issue of how we as a species can survive and thrive on 'spaceship earth'.
It is a pity, because Ford goes so far towards deriving an RBE by his own sound reasoning, yet stops short because of assumptions about money and the "invisible hand" idea of Adam Smith which leaves the latter's ideas exposed to the criticism of being more systematic theology than a plan for how humanity can survive and thrive.
Ford has great expectations of what technology can/will achieve, and I'm not disagreeing, but another omission, and a key building block of an RBE, is applying the technology to knowing what useful stuff we have on the planet, how much of it we have, and where it is. Ford scoffs at the idea of knowledge being on the web and not in people's heads:This rather goes against his high view of artificial intelligence, but surely he must accept by his own logic that an inventory of the earth's resources would be the ultimate application for technology, and the starting point of a properly planned - I assume he does not object to all planning - approach to our survival on this planet.
Where I must part company with him is in his view that consumption and capitalism are sine qua non. He rejects Marx's idea of a planned economy (and I'm not here to defend it) yet at the same time posits an economy where the government arranges for the consumer to have the money he needs to keep consumption going by taxing consumption(!) and levying business taxes. This is also a planned economy.
He accepts that the planet has finite resources, but predicts that nano-technology will radically increase what we can do with available materials. I have no reason (or knowledge) to doubt or question his prediction about nano-technology, but he cannot brush away the finiteness of resources by saying we can exploit them more effectively/efficiently
He is silent on the subject of advertising, which is a key driving force in a consumption based economy. He wants to incentivise people to improve themselves and society by offering what amounts to wages for doing these things. I don't disagree with financial incentives being used to create social / environmental benefits, but presumably Ford's system will have to incentivise people to consume goods and services - that is basically advertising/marketing. As he foresees a world in which most work is done by machines, I assume that advertising will be similarly cybernated.
But in missing out advertising as a subject area, Ford has overlooked a huge gap in his thought process. We can find it by consiering what modern advertising does. It seelks to persuade you that such and such a product will make you a better, more attractive, essentially happier, healthier person. Paradoxically, advertising knows what Ford has omitted. Our true motivation is to be happy and healthy. Advertising couples that motivation to consumption to keep the economy going, because our economic system is basically one of consumption. Ford sees this, but does not challenge it - in fact it is his start point, even though he accepts that the free market is an intellectual construct. It has no physical referent.
It is the supreme and truly immutable fact that we have finite resources to work with. That, combined with the urge of humans, like any species, to survive and thrive, produces the essential train of thought of a Resource Based Economy, in which we apply the scientific method and technology to bear on the issue of how we as a species can survive and thrive on 'spaceship earth'.
It is a pity, because Ford goes so far towards deriving an RBE by his own sound reasoning, yet stops short because of assumptions about money and the "invisible hand" idea of Adam Smith which leaves the latter's ideas exposed to the criticism of being more systematic theology than a plan for how humanity can survive and thrive.
Ford has great expectations of what technology can/will achieve, and I'm not disagreeing, but another omission, and a key building block of an RBE, is applying the technology to knowing what useful stuff we have on the planet, how much of it we have, and where it is. Ford scoffs at the idea of knowledge being on the web and not in people's heads:This rather goes against his high view of artificial intelligence, but surely he must accept by his own logic that an inventory of the earth's resources would be the ultimate application for technology, and the starting point of a properly planned - I assume he does not object to all planning - approach to our survival on this planet.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Quantifying planetary resources
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSxIT3LixaE&feature=youtu.be
This short and clear presentation by Jason Lord entitled "visualising a systems approach" quickly gets to the subject of the planet as a closed system. To manage a closed system we have to know about it. In an RBE we want to manage the system for the benefit of society generally - that is we want to use the finite carrying capacity of the earth as efficiently as possible to sustain human life. This means the radical minimisation of waste.
To know what the carrying capacity of the earth is we have to collect data and take measurements, and this talk gives an important example of where this is already being done - namely NASA's Earth Observation System of satellites. The point is this is now, not in the future.
In the talk Jason also explained how using data gathered from this site in a super computer, they ran a weather model that predicted the planetary weather for 20 days with very good accuracy.
This short and clear presentation by Jason Lord entitled "visualising a systems approach" quickly gets to the subject of the planet as a closed system. To manage a closed system we have to know about it. In an RBE we want to manage the system for the benefit of society generally - that is we want to use the finite carrying capacity of the earth as efficiently as possible to sustain human life. This means the radical minimisation of waste.
To know what the carrying capacity of the earth is we have to collect data and take measurements, and this talk gives an important example of where this is already being done - namely NASA's Earth Observation System of satellites. The point is this is now, not in the future.
In the talk Jason also explained how using data gathered from this site in a super computer, they ran a weather model that predicted the planetary weather for 20 days with very good accuracy.
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Royal Zeitgeist Movement?
Here is a quotation from The Royal Society's recently published report People and the planet.
'The problem of resource allocation is often referred to as the tragedy of the commons, but that phrase can be taken to mean that by just dividing up the commons into separately owned lots all will be well.
Sometimes that is the case, but some commons are valuable as commons (for example human knowledge), and parts are impossible to divide up (for example the atmosphere). Regulation of the many commons that concern all humanity must be achieved by high level negotiations that do not fall back exclusively on appeals to “my nation’s interests”.
Beyond the very short term, the real interests of nations lie in solving global problems in an equitable fashion, not just in each struggling to stay ahead. Implementation requires farsighted leaders'.
Very close to the definition of resource based economy.
'The problem of resource allocation is often referred to as the tragedy of the commons, but that phrase can be taken to mean that by just dividing up the commons into separately owned lots all will be well.
Sometimes that is the case, but some commons are valuable as commons (for example human knowledge), and parts are impossible to divide up (for example the atmosphere). Regulation of the many commons that concern all humanity must be achieved by high level negotiations that do not fall back exclusively on appeals to “my nation’s interests”.
Beyond the very short term, the real interests of nations lie in solving global problems in an equitable fashion, not just in each struggling to stay ahead. Implementation requires farsighted leaders'.
Very close to the definition of resource based economy.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Pharma jobs in an RBE
Supposing it was discovered that (say) eating a handful of grass every day would ward off cancer. In an RBE there would be much rejoicing at the discovery and studies would look into how we can produce and distribute enough grass to meet this new need, and/or how we could extract or manufacure the active ingredient if that would make the remedy more efficient. The objective would be to derive the most human benefit from the least unit of resource.
In our current economy, the jobs of people who work in big pharma and the cancer industry would be at stake. It would be in the vested interest to discredit the claim that grass cures cancer, or to corner the market in grass, or to monetise it or the active ingredient that brings the benefit. It is easy to deride this need to protect vested interests, but it is a very real need. If people don't have jobs their lives collapse. Therefore there's a trade off of jobs for other gains. The "need" to have a job has to be weighed against other needs.
In an RBE, there is no need to do work for its own sake and if work can be handed over to machines or obviates, that is done as soon as possible. Thus if grass cures cancer and there is no more need for people to work in big pharma or the cancer industy that is good. Those people can do something else.
In our current economy, the jobs of people who work in big pharma and the cancer industry would be at stake. It would be in the vested interest to discredit the claim that grass cures cancer, or to corner the market in grass, or to monetise it or the active ingredient that brings the benefit. It is easy to deride this need to protect vested interests, but it is a very real need. If people don't have jobs their lives collapse. Therefore there's a trade off of jobs for other gains. The "need" to have a job has to be weighed against other needs.
In an RBE, there is no need to do work for its own sake and if work can be handed over to machines or obviates, that is done as soon as possible. Thus if grass cures cancer and there is no more need for people to work in big pharma or the cancer industy that is good. Those people can do something else.
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Marketing and rioting
These are some recommendations from the newly published report on the 2011 riots in England, with my comments.
"Better information should be provided to parents and schools about marketing techniques and the way they seek to influence behaviour. The Panel recommends that the Advertising Standards Authority make the impact of advertising and branding techniques on young people a feature of its new school education programme to raise resilience amongst children."
So the ASA should go into schools to educate young people how not to be [unduly] influenced by marketing trechniques.
"Communities are concerned about the aggressive marketing by brands to young people, who often cannot afford their products. The Panel recommends that the Advertising Standards Authority incorporate commercialism and materialism into their engagement work with young people and take action on the findings."
Right - so marketing to people who can't afford to buy a product is going to entice them into stealing it instead, so the ASA needs to step in and tell them about commercialsm and materialism, which are the very lifeblood of advertising/marketing.
"Children must be protected from excessive marketing, whilst supporting business and not harming commerce. We also recommend that the Government appoint an independent champion to manage a dialogue between Government and big Brands to further this debate"
What, they should market things just to make children buy them if they can afford them, but not enough to make them steal them? Rather than there not being excessive marketing, we should protect children from it?
Are the report writers blinkered as to what marketing/advertising is? It is a deliberate attempt to get people to buy things by getting them to want them and/or believe they need them. There's an almighty paradox if we accept advertising/marketing, but also educate children in how not to succumb to it. It's analagous to teaching them how to get hit less painfully instead of stopping the hitting. Marketing and advertising are not natural forces like the weather. They're something we deliberately do
In the current system, if the effects of marketing are mitigated, the amount of the product consumed will fall and this will lead to less work making it and so less ability by workers to consume products. It's called cyclic consumption and it's a massive problem. We have to keep consuming to keep economic growth going, but we can't keep consuming stuff as we haven't got an infinite amount of it. The answer is to abandon the riduculous concept of economic growth as we know it and start working on meeting human needs sustainably.
What is wrong with the idea of making the meeting of human needs, especially basic ones, our priority as a planet of humans? Obviously we have to do so using only the finite resources available to us. Therefor it seems logical to conserve those resources so that we can support the maximumm population that is scientifically possible. That's a Resouce Based Economy in a nutshell.
There's a basic human need for protection from the elements/environment, and clothes and shoes are likely to be a way to provide this need, I touched before (http://colins-rbe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/irreducible-human-need.html) on Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. When advertisers make people crave the latest pair of trainers, they are not trying to appeal to their need to protect their feet and skeleton from the effects of walking and running, but to higher order needs for feelings of self-worth, acceptance, etc, and suggesting that buying a product or products will help meet that need. But it won't.
"Better information should be provided to parents and schools about marketing techniques and the way they seek to influence behaviour. The Panel recommends that the Advertising Standards Authority make the impact of advertising and branding techniques on young people a feature of its new school education programme to raise resilience amongst children."
So the ASA should go into schools to educate young people how not to be [unduly] influenced by marketing trechniques.
"Communities are concerned about the aggressive marketing by brands to young people, who often cannot afford their products. The Panel recommends that the Advertising Standards Authority incorporate commercialism and materialism into their engagement work with young people and take action on the findings."
Right - so marketing to people who can't afford to buy a product is going to entice them into stealing it instead, so the ASA needs to step in and tell them about commercialsm and materialism, which are the very lifeblood of advertising/marketing.
"Children must be protected from excessive marketing, whilst supporting business and not harming commerce. We also recommend that the Government appoint an independent champion to manage a dialogue between Government and big Brands to further this debate"
What, they should market things just to make children buy them if they can afford them, but not enough to make them steal them? Rather than there not being excessive marketing, we should protect children from it?
Are the report writers blinkered as to what marketing/advertising is? It is a deliberate attempt to get people to buy things by getting them to want them and/or believe they need them. There's an almighty paradox if we accept advertising/marketing, but also educate children in how not to succumb to it. It's analagous to teaching them how to get hit less painfully instead of stopping the hitting. Marketing and advertising are not natural forces like the weather. They're something we deliberately do
In the current system, if the effects of marketing are mitigated, the amount of the product consumed will fall and this will lead to less work making it and so less ability by workers to consume products. It's called cyclic consumption and it's a massive problem. We have to keep consuming to keep economic growth going, but we can't keep consuming stuff as we haven't got an infinite amount of it. The answer is to abandon the riduculous concept of economic growth as we know it and start working on meeting human needs sustainably.
What is wrong with the idea of making the meeting of human needs, especially basic ones, our priority as a planet of humans? Obviously we have to do so using only the finite resources available to us. Therefor it seems logical to conserve those resources so that we can support the maximumm population that is scientifically possible. That's a Resouce Based Economy in a nutshell.
There's a basic human need for protection from the elements/environment, and clothes and shoes are likely to be a way to provide this need, I touched before (http://colins-rbe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/irreducible-human-need.html) on Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. When advertisers make people crave the latest pair of trainers, they are not trying to appeal to their need to protect their feet and skeleton from the effects of walking and running, but to higher order needs for feelings of self-worth, acceptance, etc, and suggesting that buying a product or products will help meet that need. But it won't.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Politicians and government
At this year's Zeitgeist Day (my third, unbelievably), there was some Q&A about the role of government in transitioning to an RBE. Some say we should try to get govenment on board, and others that that is far too optimistic as government is far too venal. For the moment, my thought is that we can't leave government to politicians.
On thetrain travelling home, I read an editorial by Jeremy O'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week. It is apposite. He wrote: "democracies create all kinds of devices- elcctions every five years, First Past The Post, the European Court of Human Rights - to ensure that the will of the people is not given too much of a look in. Whisper it quietly, but that's a good thing."
So there you have it - a news editor condoning constraints on democracy. Don't get me wrong, opinion, especially if uninformed, is worthless. It's just that we're played along, and given just enough input to the democratic process to make some people think that our input/opinion actually counts.
On thetrain travelling home, I read an editorial by Jeremy O'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week. It is apposite. He wrote: "democracies create all kinds of devices- elcctions every five years, First Past The Post, the European Court of Human Rights - to ensure that the will of the people is not given too much of a look in. Whisper it quietly, but that's a good thing."
So there you have it - a news editor condoning constraints on democracy. Don't get me wrong, opinion, especially if uninformed, is worthless. It's just that we're played along, and given just enough input to the democratic process to make some people think that our input/opinion actually counts.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
The Economic Calculation Problem
I like this short article, with plenty of links, which counters criticisms of an RBE made from the perspective of the economic calculation problem (which basically says that money is the only way of adding up the attributes of goods and services). The end of article summing up says:
"technology is what makes society work better, not money. Money is a technology, but its obsolescence, whether planned or not, happened a long time ago, and [yet] still we continue to use this destructive tool. We have a better way to obtain decisions now, it's called the scientific method"
pastehtml.com/view/bl72nuukm.html
"technology is what makes society work better, not money. Money is a technology, but its obsolescence, whether planned or not, happened a long time ago, and [yet] still we continue to use this destructive tool. We have a better way to obtain decisions now, it's called the scientific method"
pastehtml.com/view/bl72nuukm.html
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Man made climate change
Someone handed me an article that (I think) debunks the idea that what humanity is doing to the planet is contributing to rising sea levels. The writer seems eminent, if his credentials are anything to go by. The person who gave me the article opined that man made cliamte change is a myth being deployed to control us and others contributed that it's about making money.
All the while there is money, how will we ever be able to tell whether people genuinely believe what they're saying?
As to whether they're correct, well if they are then we need to do something and if we don't do something we're doomed. If they're wrong we're doomed anyway, so we losing nothing significant by trying.
Broadenng this out, the sooner we use up the planet's resources, the sooner we're extinct as a species. That's very simple and undeniable. As we see waste in various forms all around us, we know that we're nowhere near being as economical as possible with our finite resources.
An RBE woould focus on the economical use of resources for human health and well being. There woukd be no incentive to make money, so even if the science was not unanimous, we would know it was not biased by the need to make money, whether by doing the science or writing about it.
All the while there is money, how will we ever be able to tell whether people genuinely believe what they're saying?
As to whether they're correct, well if they are then we need to do something and if we don't do something we're doomed. If they're wrong we're doomed anyway, so we losing nothing significant by trying.
Broadenng this out, the sooner we use up the planet's resources, the sooner we're extinct as a species. That's very simple and undeniable. As we see waste in various forms all around us, we know that we're nowhere near being as economical as possible with our finite resources.
An RBE woould focus on the economical use of resources for human health and well being. There woukd be no incentive to make money, so even if the science was not unanimous, we would know it was not biased by the need to make money, whether by doing the science or writing about it.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Natural Capitalism
I have been discussing, on Facebook, with fellow advocates of an RBE whether the ideas presented in the book Natural Capitalism are valid and helpful in the transition to an RBE which most people, if not everyone, agree cannot happen overnight. One of the principles that NatCap and an RBE share is that what we need are services, and not goods in themselves. One example used is the chauffagiste, who provides the service of keeping your home warm, for which you pay him. In our current economic system, it will clearly make sense for him to do this cost efficiently, as any £ he saves can be kept as profits and/or passed on as cost savings to the end user.
From an environmental poin of view, one would hope that this would lead to reduced waste / pollution and use of non-renewable resources, but it might be the case that your chauffagiste buys energy from a producer who is polluting like billy-ho but producing energy at low unit cost to the end user. In NatCap terms this is because the right to pollute is under-priced. If it wasn't, and all the externalities of producing energy were costed into the unit price, the rising price itself would itself provide the disincentive to use the energy inefficiently.
Once every natural resource has a price on it, maybe NatCap will arrive at an RBE through its own method and logic.
NatCap would see everything given a price so that Capitalism obeyed its own rule of not liquidating capital (natural capital here) and calling it income. So, if the price of physical resources included all externalities, the factory gate price of the good (energy in my example) would not vary in those terms. It would still vary by the efficiency of the corporation - ie how much it was paying out in wages. Capitalism seeks out the cheapest labour and cheap ways to replace human labour, but in doing so reduces the spending power of the consumers it needs to keep spending to keep cyclic consumption going. This is how capitalism destroys itself.
From an environmental poin of view, one would hope that this would lead to reduced waste / pollution and use of non-renewable resources, but it might be the case that your chauffagiste buys energy from a producer who is polluting like billy-ho but producing energy at low unit cost to the end user. In NatCap terms this is because the right to pollute is under-priced. If it wasn't, and all the externalities of producing energy were costed into the unit price, the rising price itself would itself provide the disincentive to use the energy inefficiently.
Once every natural resource has a price on it, maybe NatCap will arrive at an RBE through its own method and logic.
NatCap would see everything given a price so that Capitalism obeyed its own rule of not liquidating capital (natural capital here) and calling it income. So, if the price of physical resources included all externalities, the factory gate price of the good (energy in my example) would not vary in those terms. It would still vary by the efficiency of the corporation - ie how much it was paying out in wages. Capitalism seeks out the cheapest labour and cheap ways to replace human labour, but in doing so reduces the spending power of the consumers it needs to keep spending to keep cyclic consumption going. This is how capitalism destroys itself.
Debt unsustainable says Daily Telegraph
Jeff Randall writing in the Telegraph (what could be more mainstream?) points out that the people of Britain owe £1.5 trillion in mortgages, loans and credit card debts. He says if the Bank of England was not holding down the base rate at 0.5% "borrowers would be going to the wall in droves" but also that the BofE can't hold rates down for ever. "So why aren't politicians raising the alarm? Because the Chancellor wants people to keep spending to boost the stalling economy." "Consumers should be in no doubt though: a 'day of reckoning' is coming." [Derived from an article in The Week, 5 November 2011].
Clearly a lower interest rate is better than a high one when you're in debt, but the money to pay back interest has to be borrowed and can only be borrowed at interest. So debt can never be paid back by everyone - some have to go bust - it's just arithmetic.
And how are we going to keep spending without eventually consuming all the resources that the planet has available? To some extent consuming services will help, if those services are trying to be more materials efficient (more service for less stuff - especially waste and pollution).
But because £ has been put beween real resources and the meeting of human need, meaning that we have to meet human need indirectly by the acquiring of money, which bears interest, we have to work to get £, and then spend the £ so that others can be in work. Cyclic consumption it's called. We need to be meeting human need directly from real resources, sustainably. If £ facilitates this, so be it, but money must be the means, not the end.
Dr Giles Fraser, who resigned as Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral because of his concerns over the way the Cathedral was treating Occupy the London Stock Exchange protesters, said on Thought for the day on BBC Radio 4 this morming that markets produce wealth and jobs. This depends on what you mean by markets and wealth. If you mean financial markets, ie gambling institutions, well yes people, though not everyone, can make £ by such gambling. Wealth - if it is to be truly relevant - has surely to be gauged as the means to meet human need, a means that money cannot be as it cannot be eaten, drunk, breathed, lived in, or used to move things.
Markets first evolved as a means of distributing goods. The true wealth creators would take their produce to a place where they could sell it and money fulfilled its classic role as a means exchange, a store of value and a unit of accounting. A farmer doesn't want to swap the sheep (say) that he has raised for physical goods, especially not persishables, so he takes tokens which he can use later to acquire the means to meet his human need.
So because £ can be used to acquire goods and services as and when required, it takes on the semblamce of actually being a commodity, rather than just tokens. Money markets logically follow, but people quietly forget that just because there is more £ there is not more actual directly useful stuff. Only science and technology can take the credit for actually increasing yields of directly useful stuff.
Nowadays, the advocates of an RBE hold that science and technology can sustainably help the planet yield enough directly useful stuff to meet our human needs, and with moderm communications, there is no need (or less need) to take physical things to a physical space for the exchange/transfer to take place. (The farmer just puts his sheep on e-bay, so to speak, and whoever wants them buys them.)
So if we were organising our planet today from scratch, using what we know and can do today, the pull of money on our economy (lit. household management) wouldn't be the driving force. If there isn't scarcity there's no need to use money as a store of value, means of exchange or store of value. If we use human need as the driving force, we immediately see that we don't need to do any more work than is necessary to facilitate our human needs being met and that if we can reduce that work by technology and mechanisation, that would be good, not bad (as we already accept at household level).
So there, again, is the train of thought that leads to an RBE. The use of the scientific method via technology, to sustainably meet human need.
Clearly a lower interest rate is better than a high one when you're in debt, but the money to pay back interest has to be borrowed and can only be borrowed at interest. So debt can never be paid back by everyone - some have to go bust - it's just arithmetic.
And how are we going to keep spending without eventually consuming all the resources that the planet has available? To some extent consuming services will help, if those services are trying to be more materials efficient (more service for less stuff - especially waste and pollution).
But because £ has been put beween real resources and the meeting of human need, meaning that we have to meet human need indirectly by the acquiring of money, which bears interest, we have to work to get £, and then spend the £ so that others can be in work. Cyclic consumption it's called. We need to be meeting human need directly from real resources, sustainably. If £ facilitates this, so be it, but money must be the means, not the end.
Dr Giles Fraser, who resigned as Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral because of his concerns over the way the Cathedral was treating Occupy the London Stock Exchange protesters, said on Thought for the day on BBC Radio 4 this morming that markets produce wealth and jobs. This depends on what you mean by markets and wealth. If you mean financial markets, ie gambling institutions, well yes people, though not everyone, can make £ by such gambling. Wealth - if it is to be truly relevant - has surely to be gauged as the means to meet human need, a means that money cannot be as it cannot be eaten, drunk, breathed, lived in, or used to move things.
Markets first evolved as a means of distributing goods. The true wealth creators would take their produce to a place where they could sell it and money fulfilled its classic role as a means exchange, a store of value and a unit of accounting. A farmer doesn't want to swap the sheep (say) that he has raised for physical goods, especially not persishables, so he takes tokens which he can use later to acquire the means to meet his human need.
So because £ can be used to acquire goods and services as and when required, it takes on the semblamce of actually being a commodity, rather than just tokens. Money markets logically follow, but people quietly forget that just because there is more £ there is not more actual directly useful stuff. Only science and technology can take the credit for actually increasing yields of directly useful stuff.
Nowadays, the advocates of an RBE hold that science and technology can sustainably help the planet yield enough directly useful stuff to meet our human needs, and with moderm communications, there is no need (or less need) to take physical things to a physical space for the exchange/transfer to take place. (The farmer just puts his sheep on e-bay, so to speak, and whoever wants them buys them.)
So if we were organising our planet today from scratch, using what we know and can do today, the pull of money on our economy (lit. household management) wouldn't be the driving force. If there isn't scarcity there's no need to use money as a store of value, means of exchange or store of value. If we use human need as the driving force, we immediately see that we don't need to do any more work than is necessary to facilitate our human needs being met and that if we can reduce that work by technology and mechanisation, that would be good, not bad (as we already accept at household level).
So there, again, is the train of thought that leads to an RBE. The use of the scientific method via technology, to sustainably meet human need.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Is this just fantasy?
It's fascinating to read people saying that an RBE is just fantasy. It's an interesting word. Clearly in the sense that the RBE is a theory, it is a fantasy - something imagined, but 'fantasy' has the overtone of unachievable and unrealistic. Maybe that's right, but many who make the point also have a 'fantasy' about free market capitalism, which they constantly claim works for just about everybody. But not everybody, though?
Some critics raise the spectre of a centrally planned economy, and one I have just read illustrates the power of our current system by use of a loaf of bread. How does s/he actually think a loaf of bread comes to be on a supermarket shelf? Is some computer not counting how many loaves are sold, and where? Is some bakery not trying to bake the bread just in time, and deliver it just in time, using economies of scale (if they exist)? What is this but central planning? The fact that money changes hands at each stage does not make production and distribution more efficient. If anything it adds friction to the flow of bread from farm to belly.
Is the bakery trying to cut down on waste? Yes of course - as an RBE would do. Does the distributor try to find the mist efficient way of transporting the bread? Yes of course - as an RBE would do. A lot of the mechanisms are there and the RBE would use them as they are, improving them where possible.
What's different in an RBE, continuing with this analogy? Well (1) if you want / need a loaf of bread, but haven't got the money to pay for it, forget it. Resources are allocated by ability to pay, not human need. (2) Part of what you pay at the till is for advertising and marketing. Yes, someone trying to persuade you to eat more bread, or bread 'a' instead of bread 'b'. What is the right amount of bread to eat - and the best kind - for human health and happiness? No matter - this is about making a profit.
Opponents of an RBE scoff at computer control of distribution, whilst completely ignoring the fact that the big suprmarkets do exactly that. They also ask "who programmes the computers?" to suggest doubt about the motivation. Well first, who programs them now? Their motivation is profit. Second, as already explained, computers collect information about where things are sold (as a proxy for where they are needed). Technically there's no important difference. Imagine online shopping as it is now, but without the bit where you pay.
Some critics raise the spectre of a centrally planned economy, and one I have just read illustrates the power of our current system by use of a loaf of bread. How does s/he actually think a loaf of bread comes to be on a supermarket shelf? Is some computer not counting how many loaves are sold, and where? Is some bakery not trying to bake the bread just in time, and deliver it just in time, using economies of scale (if they exist)? What is this but central planning? The fact that money changes hands at each stage does not make production and distribution more efficient. If anything it adds friction to the flow of bread from farm to belly.
Is the bakery trying to cut down on waste? Yes of course - as an RBE would do. Does the distributor try to find the mist efficient way of transporting the bread? Yes of course - as an RBE would do. A lot of the mechanisms are there and the RBE would use them as they are, improving them where possible.
What's different in an RBE, continuing with this analogy? Well (1) if you want / need a loaf of bread, but haven't got the money to pay for it, forget it. Resources are allocated by ability to pay, not human need. (2) Part of what you pay at the till is for advertising and marketing. Yes, someone trying to persuade you to eat more bread, or bread 'a' instead of bread 'b'. What is the right amount of bread to eat - and the best kind - for human health and happiness? No matter - this is about making a profit.
Opponents of an RBE scoff at computer control of distribution, whilst completely ignoring the fact that the big suprmarkets do exactly that. They also ask "who programmes the computers?" to suggest doubt about the motivation. Well first, who programs them now? Their motivation is profit. Second, as already explained, computers collect information about where things are sold (as a proxy for where they are needed). Technically there's no important difference. Imagine online shopping as it is now, but without the bit where you pay.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Capitalism on trial
I've just listened to the first eposode of 2 of this BBC Radio 4 programme, presented by former UK Conservative Government Minister, Michael Portillo.
A lot of nonsense was repeated. Capitalism has presided over technical advances, for one. Straightforward cum hoc ergo propter hoc ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation), even if they didn't spot that it is scientists and engineers that make these breakthroughs.
The pre-capitalist idea that the fulfilment of people's needs should be balanced with the resources available was scoffed at, as if we could use all the resources available, plus a bit and the mantra that capitalism produces wealth was much repeated. Again this phrase doesn't really bear any analysis. The only true wealth is having human needs met. Money is no good if it doesn't fulfil human needs (it can't buy you love). And however we're measuring wealth, it matters who it is being produced for. That is omitted from this statement. We infer "for all" but this is not true. Millions on this planet starve.
There wasn't any significant mention of the actual resources that directly sustain life on this planet. People can't take their eye of money and jobs for a ninute, it seems. They said there is no better alternative to capitalism, but they didn't mention a Resource Based Economy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0156tvw
A lot of nonsense was repeated. Capitalism has presided over technical advances, for one. Straightforward cum hoc ergo propter hoc ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation), even if they didn't spot that it is scientists and engineers that make these breakthroughs.
The pre-capitalist idea that the fulfilment of people's needs should be balanced with the resources available was scoffed at, as if we could use all the resources available, plus a bit and the mantra that capitalism produces wealth was much repeated. Again this phrase doesn't really bear any analysis. The only true wealth is having human needs met. Money is no good if it doesn't fulfil human needs (it can't buy you love). And however we're measuring wealth, it matters who it is being produced for. That is omitted from this statement. We infer "for all" but this is not true. Millions on this planet starve.
There wasn't any significant mention of the actual resources that directly sustain life on this planet. People can't take their eye of money and jobs for a ninute, it seems. They said there is no better alternative to capitalism, but they didn't mention a Resource Based Economy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0156tvw
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Get shopping Libyans
With the revolution in Libya coming to its denouement, apparently, I heard a commentator today opine that Libyans need to get shopping. Oh yes, that's what we want - more consumption. That's the solution. From dicatorship with shopping trip. From Gadaffi culture to cafe culture.
Spare me.
Spare me.
The Pope says we need an RBE
http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2011/08/en-route-to-madrid-pope-says-economies.htm
“The economy doesn’t function with market self-regulation but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind,” the Pope told reporters aboard the papal plane.
“Man must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good.”
Pope Benedict drew upon his 2009 encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” or “Charity in Truth” in which he asserted that the dignity of the person must be central to all economic decisions.
He told reporters that the current economic crisis afflicting many young people in countries like Spain again shows that a moral dimension isn’t “exterior” but “interior and fundamental” to the formulation of economic policy.
“The economy doesn’t function with market self-regulation but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind,” the Pope told reporters aboard the papal plane.
“Man must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good.”
Pope Benedict drew upon his 2009 encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” or “Charity in Truth” in which he asserted that the dignity of the person must be central to all economic decisions.
He told reporters that the current economic crisis afflicting many young people in countries like Spain again shows that a moral dimension isn’t “exterior” but “interior and fundamental” to the formulation of economic policy.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Fundamental human needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs
I have just followed up the mention of Manfred Max-Neef in the RBE 101 vvideo (see previous post). The term used in his thinking is Fundamental human needs. Hee has nine classes of needs, including subsistence, and he breaks these categories each down further into four existential categories: being, having, doing and interacting.
Astoundingly, against subsistence, under both having and doing, he includes "work". This makes no sense to me, for reasons explained, but it's still useful analysis.
I have just followed up the mention of Manfred Max-Neef in the RBE 101 vvideo (see previous post). The term used in his thinking is Fundamental human needs. Hee has nine classes of needs, including subsistence, and he breaks these categories each down further into four existential categories: being, having, doing and interacting.
Astoundingly, against subsistence, under both having and doing, he includes "work". This makes no sense to me, for reasons explained, but it's still useful analysis.
Friday, 5 August 2011
Motivation; abundance
So a critcism of TVP/RBE is that people won't work without the motivation of money. Well we know this is not true of everyone at all times - we know that people do voluntary work, give to charity, and undertake all kinds of recreational activities in their own time and often at their own expense. But there remains a logical possibility that there will be those who if given their fair share of the plantet's resources for nothing, will input nothing from their own resources to the maintenance of an environmentally sustainable, socially just and peaceful planet for the benefit of humanity.
To overcome this problem, basically everyone has to work. Access to resoures is tied to money and money to work. Therefore, it is in the workers' interests that there is work for them to do. Police need crime, doctors and nurses need people to be ill, firefighters need fires, and so on ad infinitum.
This artificially created need to work is supposed to capture those people who would not contribute without being rewarded, but how many of those people are doing work that is actually productive for society and the planet now? Some, like many people, may be doing a job because they have to, and some may be doing jobs that involve clearing up the mess created by the system - to quote my favourite example, they may be employed mitigating or solving the effects of smoking to counterbalance the cigarette promotion industry in which people are paid more the more people smoke. Or they may be doing "jobs" that are unequivocally anti-social, even by current standards - acquistive crime, drug dealing, or whatever.
So, the naysayers' claim is that we can't risk a moneyless society just in case there are enough people who currently do something socially productive but will stop if no longer paid to mean that the required human work in an RBE - work that is increasingly encroached upon by automation - won't get done.
Well look. If we in fact found it to be a problem that the human work needed to have a successful RBE was not being done because people felt there was nothing in it for them and were not motivated (even though they would benefit from the successful RBE), we could re-introduce money. We would see it though for what it is - a claim on the planet's resources over and above one's fair share.
If there truly is abundance, this wouldn't make sense. It would surely be a rare person who would seek to deprive someone else of something of which there is plenty for all, just because s/he could.
So these are the issues: Will there be motivation to do the human work that needs doing, and will there be abundance so that people will not try to reserve resources for themselves to the exclusion of other? Maybe this is a risky experiment, but I don't think it is. We can easily switch back to our current system if the RBE doesn't work, but if anyone can stand up and say that the financial collapse, war, starvation and servitude that the planet currently faces is clearly better, then I would like to hear their arguments.
To overcome this problem, basically everyone has to work. Access to resoures is tied to money and money to work. Therefore, it is in the workers' interests that there is work for them to do. Police need crime, doctors and nurses need people to be ill, firefighters need fires, and so on ad infinitum.
This artificially created need to work is supposed to capture those people who would not contribute without being rewarded, but how many of those people are doing work that is actually productive for society and the planet now? Some, like many people, may be doing a job because they have to, and some may be doing jobs that involve clearing up the mess created by the system - to quote my favourite example, they may be employed mitigating or solving the effects of smoking to counterbalance the cigarette promotion industry in which people are paid more the more people smoke. Or they may be doing "jobs" that are unequivocally anti-social, even by current standards - acquistive crime, drug dealing, or whatever.
So, the naysayers' claim is that we can't risk a moneyless society just in case there are enough people who currently do something socially productive but will stop if no longer paid to mean that the required human work in an RBE - work that is increasingly encroached upon by automation - won't get done.
Well look. If we in fact found it to be a problem that the human work needed to have a successful RBE was not being done because people felt there was nothing in it for them and were not motivated (even though they would benefit from the successful RBE), we could re-introduce money. We would see it though for what it is - a claim on the planet's resources over and above one's fair share.
If there truly is abundance, this wouldn't make sense. It would surely be a rare person who would seek to deprive someone else of something of which there is plenty for all, just because s/he could.
So these are the issues: Will there be motivation to do the human work that needs doing, and will there be abundance so that people will not try to reserve resources for themselves to the exclusion of other? Maybe this is a risky experiment, but I don't think it is. We can easily switch back to our current system if the RBE doesn't work, but if anyone can stand up and say that the financial collapse, war, starvation and servitude that the planet currently faces is clearly better, then I would like to hear their arguments.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Pulling in manual labour
In an environmentally sustainable, just and peaceful world, the world system would only pull in the human work it needed to remain sustainable just and peaceful. If it could reduce human work through automation it would do it gladly. But for this to work the link from survival to work via money must be broken.
People are sceptical that people would work for no reward other than the satisfaction of it. I share the scepticism, but I'm prepared to give it a go. The world is so dysfunctional now, as we destroy each other and our environment, that I'm prepared to risk this motivational problem. And anyway, if we really needed money we coulkd re-introduce it easily in the twinkling of an eye. It's just numbers in computers.
People are sceptical that people would work for no reward other than the satisfaction of it. I share the scepticism, but I'm prepared to give it a go. The world is so dysfunctional now, as we destroy each other and our environment, that I'm prepared to risk this motivational problem. And anyway, if we really needed money we coulkd re-introduce it easily in the twinkling of an eye. It's just numbers in computers.
Inequality
The Daily Mail has reported that since 1977 the share of national income going to those on the bottom half of the earnings ladder [sic] has fallen by a quarter, while the slice going to the top 1% has increased by half.
In a resource based economy, with no money, there would be no possibility of the rich lending out their surplus money to the poor, with interest, so that those who have the most constantly get more.
In a resource based economy, with no money, there would be no possibility of the rich lending out their surplus money to the poor, with interest, so that those who have the most constantly get more.
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