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.

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

Looking for work

"There are jobs out there for those looking hard enough". We hear this kind of nonsense spouted fairly often, as if jobs were hidden away to make it harder for people to 'find' them. If they are, why? If something needs doing for the fulfilment of human needs and society, we (society) want to find the most efficient, sustainable way of doing it. Therefore we need maximum information about what technology and if necessary human ability is available to do it. In a connected world, these needs and resources must be desperately easy to match. Maybe getting on one's bike and looking for work made sense years ago, but not now.

"Noone's going to come knoocking at your door offering you a job." If there's no job that needs doing that you can do then this is quite true, but if there is a job that needs doing that you can do, them why on earth are you not matched with it?

Sound bite brings no nutrition

David Cameron (UK Prime Minister) has said that social housing should be allocated to those who work hard. It the kind of superficial comment we're used to from politicians of all persuasions. It doesn't really bear close examination.

First, how would someone determine how hard anyone is working, and second, there's a vector here. How hard anyone is working doing what? It does actually matter what they're doing. It needs to be socially constructive and in support of human needs - as well as being sustainable within the resources available. Do we want people working hard against these goals?

Cancer stage of capitalism diagnosed by a trader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqN3amj6AcE&feature=player_embedded

'The cancer stage of capitalism' is a book by John McMurtry, but this trader likens the recession to cancer. He opines that "anyone" can make money in a recession. I didn't note his terminology, but the essence is you bet on stock markets falling.

Of course "anyone" can probably do this, but not everyone can. There have to be losers for there to be winners.

Monetary reform

The monetary reform movements and groups I have encountered all call for an end to the ability of commercial banks to create money out of thin air with no realistic limits on how much they create and no constraint on the purpose they create it for, other than their own profit.

The reform groups call for the money supply to be regulated by a government appointed or constituted body rather like the Monetary Policy Committe that sets the base interest rate.

A change to this system may remove some of the worst mechanisms for boom and bust, but still seems to me to leave the problem of the basis on which money supply will be increased or decreased. In some reformed models, banks will still be in offering loans and interest on deposits. How will the banking system as a whole ensure that it meets human need and does not ignore the oversall constraint of our finite ecosystem.

Will the banking system look to create jobs that the system will require people to have n order to access the resources they need? If so, it will have failed to address that key element of a resource based economy.

'Bank to the Future' seeks to combine social networking and peer-to-peer lending. Nice, but if a project is making money by liquidating natural capital, it doesn't make it better becuse the £ raised to start up the project was raised by crowd funding rather than fractional reserve lending. The CEO of BttF speaks engagingly about projects that interest or excite potential investors, but if these are not sustainable projects that benefit human need then they should not be done, however eciting they are.

Apart from ensuring that the reformed baming system meets the sustainability and human neeed focussed criteria, would it not be better to step over this development and use the technology and ingenuity we have available to solve problems directly and account for the resourcces we actually have available at a planetary level. No committee can decide how much of a natural resource the eco system should have, but scientists can measure how much it actaully does have, and work out ways of using resources efficiently so as not to deplete them, and find alternatives to resources in short supply. In a monetary system, resources in short supply have a high price, and the money will follow such resources. The monetary system likes shortages, even needs them, which is why we see  set aside in agriculture and food being thrown away while people go hungry for lack of money.

A conversation with Jacque Fresco

http://www.createandshare.net/multimedia-documentaries/videos-consciousness/conversation-jacque-fresco.html

This is a god interview with Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project from 2004. He doesn't digress to much and in one case where he does, the interviewer  calmly aks him the same question again. It's  a good intro to TVP