Intro for International Organisation for a Participatory Society

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, April 10th, 2012 - 98 comments
Categories: activism, class war, political alternatives, Revolution, vision - Tags:

h/t Carol. Apparently some people are only seeing a blank white space where the opening frame of the vid should be. Clicking on the blank space should start the vid. Sheesh. Then it didn’t embed at all when I added the explanation! So ‘fraid you’ll just have to click the link unless some kindly sorts who knows there way around better than me can get the vid re-embedded…

[lprent: The tick is not to embed it. Just put the URL in and let wordpress embed it. It knows how to do it for most of the standard streamer locations. ]

[Bill: thank’s for the fix. I’d originally simply pasted the URL and it seemed okay until I added text on the back of Carol’s comment at which point it all ‘crapped out’.]

98 comments on “Intro for International Organisation for a Participatory Society ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. just saying 1
    10 April 2012 at 9:04 am

    edit

    • Bill 1.1
      10 April 2012 at 9:07 am

      Edited the post’s title…IOPS = International Organisation for a Participatory Society

      • just saying 1.1.1
        10 April 2012 at 9:23 am

        Thanks Bill.
        Thought I might need another cup of coffee or something when I saw the new title, and thought I must have imagined the old one.

  2. Pete George 2
    10 April 2012 at 9:18 am

    This post is blank, but being categorised as “class war” and Revolution” seems curious for a topic like Participatory Society.

    The post isn’t blank on firefox and I know of no reason it would be blank in other browsers. Maybe you clicked while another poster was making unilateral editing decisions… [Bill]

  3. hellonearthis 3
    10 April 2012 at 9:35 am

    Isn’t this a copyright violation, that looks like an old Simpsons segment and in NZ we have no fair use to use it.

    There was no copyright attached to the original source, so no. Not as far as I’m aware. The original source is here [Bill]

    • hellonearthis 3.1
      10 April 2012 at 10:26 am

      After viewing it, it is clearly a theft of the Simpson IP and they have no credits to the original creators of the work. The start is a copy of the episode that Banksy did. http://news.change.org/stories/banksy-s-simpsons-opening-asks-is-slave-labor-behind-our-products

      This work maybe fair use overseas but to use it in NZ where there is no fair use is a breach of copyright and the standard opens its self to a copyright infringement down notice under new zealand law.

      The Original Source you mention bill, stole the Simpsons IP.

      It’s like the Broken Sea Audio case, where it’s legal here but illegal in the USA, only in reverses.
      http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=3146

      [lprent: What a pile of whining waffle.

      1. We have no idea of any agreement or otherwise for IPOS to use it. Nor do you.

      2. The local copyright holders can send me an e-mail. However they’d be better off sending it to vimeo since that is where we are linking to.

      3. Rather than whining here. Inform whoever you think are the local rights owners. Offhand I have zero idea who they are, and there isn’t exactly an index to find out. ]

      • Mickysavage 3.1.1
        10 April 2012 at 10:31 am

        I am sure Banksie would approve.

        • hellonearthis 3.1.1.1
          10 April 2012 at 10:44 am

          And Steven Hawkins? Maybe, but the copyright holders of the Simpsons Brand “FOX”? might not.

          • sodapaper 3.1.1.1.1
            10 April 2012 at 11:29 am

            dork

            • hellonearthis 3.1.1.1.1.1
              10 April 2012 at 3:35 pm

              No need to make personal attacks, play the issue not the person.
              And I was not whinning, I was just pointing out the law.
              Now I’m whinning due to the personal attacks.

              [lprent: Then don’t make dumb arse comments that I have to respond to on behalf of the site. Every time that I have to expend time doing that, I consider:-

              1. How to encourage you not to waste my precious time that I could use on dealing with something important.

              2. If I should just kick you off the site so I don’t have to deal with another stupid luser wasting my time.

              3. How much I personally despise people who waste my time and how I should express it this time to the jerk-off…

              Read the policy and consider that if I have to wind up responding for such moron level comments again then you will earn yourself a all expenses paid vacation from commenting here. ]

          • mickysavage 3.1.1.1.2
            10 April 2012 at 1:10 pm

            Funny an Über dark stylish critique of the capitalist system and some people can only see the supposed theft of Global Corporations IP.  How funny but sad …

  4. Gosman 4
    10 April 2012 at 10:42 am

    What a surprise – A leftist organisation guilty of intellectual property theft.

    I had a look at their website and their laughable economic goals. Highlights include these gems of comedic brilliance:

    “- no individuals or groups own resources, factories, etc., so ownership doesn’t affect anyone’s decision making influence or share of income.

    – workers who work longer or harder or at more onerous conditions doing socially valued labor (including training) earn proportionately more for doing.

    – there is neither market competition nor top-down planning, but instead decentralized cooperative negotiation of inputs and outputs, whether accomplished by workers and consumers councils or some other suitable method.”

    Why don’t they come out and state they are a Communist organisation – are they too embarrassed by the title?

    • r0b 4.1
      10 April 2012 at 12:30 pm

      What a surprise – A leftist organisation guilty of intellectual property theft.

      Careful there Gos.

    • Bill 4.2
      10 April 2012 at 12:32 pm

      A leftist organisation guilty of intellectual property theft. Proof? Or you just jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions?

      …laughable economic goals. Highlights include these gems of comedic brilliance:..

      Have you got any reasoning or argument to back up your assertion? Any intelligent criticism at all? Or are you just ‘barking to your master’s voice’ like a good little ‘Pavlov Poodle’?

      Why don’t they come out and state they are a Communist organisation…

      In a highly decentralised organisation, who do you imagine ‘they’ are Gosman? Do you imagine every member of the organisation self identifies as communist? What about those who would identify as being progressive or liberal or anarchist or any of the other number of ‘ists’, ‘ive’s’ or ‘isms’ that might reasonably indicate an adherence to or belief in democracy?

      Maybe ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ may be) don’t state ‘they’ are a communist organisation simply because ‘they’ (the mouth pieces present in traditional organisations) don’t exist. That and the fact that the organisation isn’t communist.

      • Gosman 4.2.1
        10 April 2012 at 1:09 pm

        Their economic prescriptions read like extracts from the collective works of Marx and Engels. No private property, people being paid according to their effort, worker controlled places of business, allocation of labour and resources managed via some magical mechanism not involving markets. It is all standard Communist economic theory. It ain’t new and it doesn’t work. I’m happy to get into the reasons it doesn’t work if you like.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1.1
          10 April 2012 at 2:56 pm

          It ain’t new and it doesn’t work.

          As it’s not been tried how do you know that?

          The USSR was state capitalist and so is China, North Korea etc.

          • Gosman 4.2.1.1.1
            10 April 2012 at 3:02 pm

            Cuba has aspects of worker led co-operatives. So to does Venezuela. All the places mentioned don’t believe in private property or the market mechanism for deciding allocation of resources.

            BTW what is this magical method of resource allocation DTB or haven’t you guys worked that one out yet?

            • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1.1.1.1
              10 April 2012 at 5:26 pm

              Democracy – or is that too complex for you?

            • Colonial Viper 4.2.1.1.1.2
              10 April 2012 at 5:45 pm

              All the places mentioned don’t believe in private property or the market mechanism for deciding allocation of resources.

              Gosman – in total there are over 200 Russian and Chinese billionaires. So I think that “belief in private property” is alive and well in those countries.

              • Colonial Viper …
                10 April 2012 at 5:57 pm

                In fact according to this, China has 271 USD billionaires just by itself. Which well outnumbers the billionaires in “capitalist” market economies like Germany, Japan and India.

                Looks like China’s approach to state capitalism with a ‘Chinese Flavour’ competes against western models for wealth creation just fine, Gossie.

                Edit – link is here

                http://www.cnbc.com/id/44530244/China_s_10_Wealthiest_Billionaires

                • Gosman …
                  11 April 2012 at 12:03 am

                  When were these billionaires created C.V? Was it before or after the reforms introduced where private enterprise was encouraged?

        • Bill 4.2.1.2
          10 April 2012 at 4:21 pm

          I’m happy to get into the reasons it doesn’t work if you like.

          Go on then.

          • Gosman 4.2.1.2.1
            10 April 2012 at 4:27 pm

            It doesn’t price intellectual property for one and neither does it deal with risk.

            • Bill 4.2.1.2.1.1
              10 April 2012 at 5:17 pm

              Nah. C’mon. So it doesn’t assign a price…a monetary value…to intellectual property (can’t be stolen for profit then, eh?)…And…?

              What’s this risk it doesn’t deal with? The risk of financial loss/benefit? Be more precise please.

              • Gosman …
                10 April 2012 at 7:14 pm

                The risk that something doesn’t pay off or the cost of something bad happening. Tell me how the system assigns a value to that? I can tell you how it is done in a free market system. It might be imperfect but at least it is inbuilt in the system.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  10 April 2012 at 9:16 pm

                  The risk that something doesn’t pay off or the cost of something bad happening.

                  In an actual rational socio-economic system there is no risk. Some resources will get used and, if the idea doesn’t work, recycled. Something else won’t be done as fast but that’s not really an issue – society would have been aware of that in the first place and decided to try whatever didn’t work anyway. The real important point is that nobody loses anything.

                  It might be imperfect but at least it is inbuilt in the system.

                  In fact it’s so wrong that it’s brought about anthropogenic climate change, increased poverty, and put a few people in what amounts to dictatorial control of the planet.

                  • Gosman …
                    10 April 2012 at 11:57 pm

                    “In an actual rational socio-economic system there is no risk.”

                    Hence the failure of socialism. It can’t fully understand the concept of pricing risk.

                    That is not stating that capitalism doesn’t have problem with this either, as witnessed by the GFC.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:38 am

                      It can’t fully understand the concept of pricing risk.

                      That’s not an argument against the simple fact that I said that society would be making the decision with full information. They’d know exactly what the cost would be in real terms. The real economy is a zero sum game – if society decides to do something then they won’t be able to do something else.

                      There would be no risk because there would be no loss. The physical resources would still be there.

              • Gosman …
                10 April 2012 at 7:18 pm

                As for intellectual property, I presume you acknowledge that ideas can also be valuable or do you not place any degree of benefit on these?

                • Colonial Viper …
                  10 April 2012 at 7:48 pm

                  An idea has nearly zero value until it is implemented. Implementations have value. Not ideas.

                  • Gosman …
                    10 April 2012 at 11:52 pm

                    Wrong. Ideas have value when people are willing to pay for them. The fact you can’t understand that is why you are stuck in failed leftist economic thinking.

                    • felix …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:09 am

                      Interesting idea.

                      Does that mean that the more money someone is willing to pay, the better the idea?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:11 am

                      Sure, the idea Time Warner had to acquire AOL for multi-billions was by Gossie’s thinking, one of the best ideas in the history of man.

                    • rosy …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:16 am

                      I use some number 8 wire to replace/fix something. It works for me, but only under my unique circumstances. It’s my idea, my implementation and no-one would be willing to pay for it. Does my idea have value?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:27 am

                      Felix, no it doesn’t.

                      Take my example of homeopathic medicine. Just because people value the idea doesn’t make it useful.

                    • felix …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:32 am

                      Then what use is your definition of value if it doesn’t relate to the… err… value of the idea?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:40 am

                      See Adele’s resonse to the homeopathic question below. She acknowledges that homeopathy is a billion dollar industry. Do you disagree that this is it’s economic value?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:43 am

                      Paying for something doesn’t mean it has human value. And vice versa. (Not talking specifically about homeopathy, mind you).

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:47 am

                      I’ve already stated Iam meaning economic value her. Not social/moral value. Those are far harder to define.

                      You might want to base a society on pricing based on those ideas. Good luck to you. How would you define the value of homeopathy then?

                    • felix …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:47 am

                      I disagree that the fact that idiots pay billions of dollars for tiny bottles of water means that tiny bottles of water have any intrinsic value over and above the intrinsic value of what they actually are.

                    • felix …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:52 am

                      “How would you define the value of homeopathy then?”

                      Scientifically of course.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:52 am

                      I’m not talking about intrinsic value. I’m discussing economic value.

                    • felix …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:02 am

                      I know. But what use is your measure of “economic value” if it’s unrelated to the actual, you know, real intrinsic value?

                      I mean what actual use?

                  • Gosman …
                    11 April 2012 at 12:57 am

                    This goes to the heart of the matter though. If a single pill saved a persons life how doi you value that? I mean how much is a person’s life worth? It is entirely subjective. Some would argue it is priceless. But then you get into problems of whether an old person’t life is worth more or less than a young persons life then.

                • Adele …
                  10 April 2012 at 8:41 pm

                  Gosman

                  Ideas are only valuable when they are commodified – it’s relatively easy to have a good idea but try making it happen as a success story – i.e. lots of people want to buy the end product.

                  Also, I think if we can survive this current stream of conciousness than in all probability a participatory society will become a reality of the future.

                  It only requires people to act with integrity towards each other. Communism didn’t work because people in influential positions were corrupt. Capitalism is not working because people in influential positions are corrupt.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  10 April 2012 at 9:18 pm

                  Ideas are strange things – the more they’re shared the more valuable they become, The more they’re restricted the less valuable and when shared the person with the original idea hasn’t lost.

                  • Adele …
                    10 April 2012 at 10:33 pm

                    With all due respect, Draco

                    It sounds like you’ve watched too many chick flicks.

                    Ideas aren’t meant to be simply shared around like feelgood popcorn. They only become meaningful when put into practise. What I dislike most about ‘ideas’ folk is that they usually expect others to realise their dreams for them. An idea worth sharing is an idea worth doing – yourself.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:42 am

                      Sharing ideas sparks more ideas from others who have different knowledge.

                  • Gosman …
                    10 April 2012 at 11:54 pm

                    Wrong. Ideas have value dependent on what people are willing to pay for them not on how much they are shared. But thanks for illustrating the problem leftists have with intellectual property.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:03 am

                      Wrong.
                      I’d probably go so far as to say that it’s not actually possible to purchase just an idea. All transactions involve implementations of the idea. Even books. There might be an exception, but I can’t think of it at the moment.
                       

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:06 am

                      I can inform you of an idea McFlock and you can pay me for that. You don’t have to implement my idea. You still have essentially valued that idea at the point you paid me to tell you though.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:10 am

                      Okay, consultancy. Interesting thought.
                           
                      Tell me, if every idea you informed me of was never implemented, how long do you think I’d keep paying you? The supposed value to me of your idea is actually the projected value of any implementation of that idea.
                       

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:13 am

                      I presume that if you don’t implement my ideas and get some benefit from them at some stage you will stop paying me. However the value of my idea is still based on how much you paid me for them not the benefit you gained from doing so.

                    • Adele …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:16 am

                      Gosman

                      What fool would pay you for an idea only? If somebody has sufficient money to simply throw out on ‘owning an idea’ they obviously have inherited wealth and deserve to lose every penny of it.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:17 am

                      Nope.
                      If you sell horse shit labelled as gold dust, it’s still horse shit.
                            
                      You haven’t demonstrated the value of your ideas, just the gullibility of your clients in believing implementations of your ideas will produce value.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:21 am

                      This just serves to illustrate why the thinking promoted by that group can’t grasp concepts such as pricing the values of ideas.

                      Let me put it in real world terms for you. What is the economic value of Homeopathic medicine?

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:25 am

                      or your idiotic belief that something which does nothing, produces nothing, has no form, substance, colour or smell, has value simply because someone can be conned into believing it will do any or all of the above.
                            
                      Pretty screwed up, dude.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:31 am

                      No, I wouldn’t pay for homeopathy myself because I agree with you that it is horseshit. However it does have economic value because the idea has been ‘bought’ by gullible people. Essentially they are only purchasing water but it has more value to them because they think it is doing something and they are willing to pay more than for non-homeopathic water. It is essentiallly the idea they are paying for.

                    • Adele …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:34 am

                      Gosman

                      Homeopathic medicine is a billion dollar industry in the USA. Its been in practise in various forms for a very long time. So what is the point, again?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:36 am

                      You have illustrated my point perfectly Adele. Thank you for that. It has an economic value.

                      Now please ask McFlock whether he believes it has an economic value.

                    • Adele …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:12 am

                      Gosman

                      Selling homeopathy is not selling an idea of wellness.

                      There are approximately 6000-7000 adverse drug reactions reported each year in this country – with a large number resulting in death. So far, no deaths have been reported for homeopathic remedies.

                      Obviously, what is being purchased is ‘holy’ water.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:22 am
                       
                       

                      Okay, let’s look at it from another angle.
                             
                      You are a consultant with an idea. All your prospective clients know that the idea will never be implemented in any way whatsoever, even as vaporware. It won’t boost productivity or improve health or wellbeing, or do anything else. It is an idea that will never be implemented in the real world. Everybody knows this. Perfect information about the economic value of your idea, throughout the world.
                          
                      So tell me: who would give you money in exchange for this idea?
                       
                      My suggested answer is “nobody”. And if nobody pays for it, by your measure the idea is without economic value.

                       
                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:43 am

                      Ideas have value dependent on what people are willing to pay for them…

                      Money is a delusion.

                    • rosy …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:46 am

                      Exactly McFlock, Gosman seems to me to be conflating the economic value of an idea with the traded value.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 8:12 am

                      How do you measure the economic value of something then rosy?

                      What is the economic value of Homeopathic remedies?

                    • rosy …
                      11 April 2012 at 8:26 am

                      Dunno Gos, what’s the economic value of an idea like Unix, Gnu, Wikipedia compared to the economic value of say, an iPhone? I know the first three don’t have a traded value, but the last does, so I certainly wouldn’t value it at the price someone is willing to pay.

                      What’s the economic value of homeopathy? In money terms the (company profit + the placebo effect that saves medical costs) minus (the extra cost to the health system of delayed care for serious illness)

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 9:29 am

                      Gosman, I think you might have missed my question.
                             
                      If you had an idea that everybody from the outset knew for certain would never have any implementation whatsoever, who would pay for it?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:49 pm

                      “Perfect information about the economic value of your idea, throughout the world.”

                      And therein lies your problem. You will never get this because no two people think exactly the same about something.

                      I find it interesting that libertarian ideas are dismissed as pie in the sky stuff by many here yet you seem to believe in this fantasy land version of reality.

                      Now go back to Homeopathy McFlock. Does it have economic value?

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 2:44 pm

                      Dude, it was a demonstration that the idea itself has no value – any monetary transactions are based around the probability that the implementation of that idea will produce value x.
                                  
                      Let’s, for the sake of debate, assume that homeopathic medicine doesn’t work. So the world has two sets of folk in it, those who think (in error) that it does work, and those who think it doesn’t work and might delay treatment (a la Steve Jobs). 
                           
                      Obviously, those people who think homeopathic medicine does work will pay for treatments based on the health outcome they think they’ll receive. I.e. the outcome of its implementation.
                           
                      What about the other group? Why would they purchase an idea that would not be implemented on the grounds that they believe it would, if anything, cause harm through inaction?
                                  
                      Now let’s assume homeopathic medicine does work. Believers will still pay money on the expected value of treatment, not on the idea. Non-believers will still not bother purchasing an idea that they believe will not help when implemented.

                      So it’s not the idea of homeopathic medicine that has value – it’s the expected value of outcomes from the implementation of the idea of homeopathic treatments.
                                

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 3:44 pm

                      But both you and I know that Homeopathic remedies are no better than a placebo , i.e. the user might as well drink tap water rather than pay for the remedy.

                      So following your logic the homeopathic remedies have an economic value of zero. Yet this flies in the face of the fact that it is a billion dollar industry employing thousands of people around the world.

                      Your convoluted logic about the value of ideas falls down in this matter. It isn’t the outcome or even expected outcome that had the value. That value is up front when the transaction takes place.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 3:52 pm

                      Dude, it’s not “convoluted”, it’s pretty bloody simple.
                           
                      And whether or not homeopathic treatments actually work is irrelevant to the price people are prepared to pay for the implementation of the “remedy”. The people who believe they work  will pay (a lot). The people who don’t believe they work will not pay anything. So they’re not buying the “idea”, they’re buying the implementation of the idea based on what they believe the value of the implementation is, and the probability of it working.
                              
                      Hell, you’ve been commenting in this thread that socialists have no idea how to price risk, but you are having exactly the same difficulty of which you accuse others: you are failing (refusing?) to understand that the price people will pay for a medical treatment is a function of the reward from successful treatment and the risk that it will not work.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 4:04 pm

                      Whatever function is used to determining the price someone is willing to pay for something is irrelevant in working out it’s economic value. This is purely the price that someone is willing to sell an item and someone is willing to purchase it. You over complicate matters by presupposing the value is derived from anything other than this simple concept.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 4:10 pm

                      Let’s take it back to the consultancy idea. The economic value in the consultancy is not in the amount it might save a firm if they implemented the idea, although it does play a part in reaching it’s economic value. It’s value is simply in the amount that the person with the idea is willing to pass the information to another person and that other person is willing to pay for that idea so long as they are the at least the same. If I have an idea that I think can save you 1 million currency units per year and I am willing to sell you that idea for 250,000 currency units but you are only willing to pay 100,000, if I don’t lower my expectation of how much my idea is worth the idea has no economic value.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 4:33 pm

                      Gos, CV’s original statement was “An idea has nearly zero value until it  is implemented. Implementations have value. Not ideas.”
                             
                             
                      You have an idea that you think will save 1 million currency units per annum. Fair enough. If I know I could never implement that idea, why would I pay a single currency unit, let alone 100,000? I wouldn’t. Assuming ideas are tradeable commodities (big assumption, on the grounds that one can’t really do due diligence without a transfer of the idea), any value comes from its implementation. What I’d really be purchasing is not the idea, but the probability of a successful implementation of that idea.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 5:39 pm

                      And I’m telling you the implementation of an idea doesn’t determinie it’s economic value. That was done at the point of the transaction when the idea was passed from one person to another and some form of economic value was transferred back. Ideas might even make a loss, (and often do). The value is not dependent on them being implemented. All that means is the economic value of the idea on being passed on to someone else is likely to have fallen significantly (But not necessarily). This is what the hard leftist thinking at the heart of this debate cannot not grasp. Neither can you it seems.

                    • McFlock …
                      11 April 2012 at 11:02 pm
                       
                       

                      And I’m telling you the implementation of an idea doesn’t determinie it’s economic value. That was done at the point of the transaction when the idea was passed from one person to another and some form of economic value was transferred back.

                          
                      Fuck sake this is getting circular, but I think you’re almost there. At the point of transaction, where does that value come from? Why is one idea “worth” a million dollars, but another idea is “worth” nothing”? Why would anyone pay money for idea A but laugh if you asked for money for idea B?
                          
                      The answer is easy. Take your time.
                       
                       

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    10 April 2012 at 11:57 pm

                    Wow so many BS statements in so few words, amazing.

                    Ideas have value dependent on what people are willing to pay for them

                    Usual shite from you i.e. the value of life is measured by the price you can fetch for it.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:11 am

                      The trouble you have C.V is you seeemingly believe there is some innate economic value in something regardless of a transaction taking place. There may very well be some social or moral value in it but there isn’t an economic one until that transaction takes place.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:13 am

                      You say that because you only consider the financialised aspects of economics, not the broader category of real-physical-world economics.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:15 am

                      As an example. I keep a spare 10L container of diesel in the back of my vehicle. It sits there. I haven’t used it in months. No transactions have been taking place around it. But its presence there could easily save my life (or someone elses) at some stage over this winter.

                      That’s pretty fucking economic IMO.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:17 am

                      You are essentially pricing risk there C.V. Congrats on taking some steps in that direction.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:21 am

                      And what is the price associated with that risk, pray tell?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:42 am

                      You’ve already answered that question.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:44 am

                      What is it then? What is the transactional price you are referring to?

                      And is the pricing of that risk transaction objective or subjective?

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 12:49 am

                      It’s the price of putting the 10 litres of diesal in the back of your vehicle.

                      How many other people do you know do the same C.V?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 1:01 am

                      So the pricing of the risk is simply $15 then?

                      And is that pricing subjective or objective?

                      Lots of people I know carry spare fuel in their vehicles.

                    • Gosman …
                      11 April 2012 at 8:04 am

                      What a silly question. Is the price objective or subjective? Is the $15 you spent on the putting the diesel in the back of your car objective or subjective?

                      I presume you know some people you know don’t keep petrol in the back of their vehicles. If not you seem to keep a rather select group of friends and aquaintences.

                      I for one don’t keep any petrol in the back of my vehicle. This is because I don’t price the risk of my running out of fuel outside the walking distance of a service station as great as you do.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      11 April 2012 at 9:49 am

                      So pricing in orthodox economics can be largely subjective then?

      • Gosman 4.2.2
        10 April 2012 at 1:13 pm

        By the way my intellectual property comment was satirical. That stated I suspect strongly that this hasn’t been paid for by the organisation simply because it is so poorly produced and I doubt very much Fox would allow their intellectual property to be b@stardised so poorly for political purposes. That stated they might have enjoyed taking money off these hard leftist wackos.

  5. Uturn 5
    11 April 2012 at 8:23 am

    Oh for fucksake drossman, this page of gobshite from you proves you haven’t read any of Marx and Engel’s work. Starting with your claim that Cuba is a working model of communism/socialism and continuing right through to your confusion over values of ideas.

    Let me spell it out for you:

    Capitalism accumulates labour, ideas, resources and money – anything you like. It takes those public resources and places them under individual control – to date, in a purely arbitrary manner, through culture.

    As someone up the page said, if, under a socialist model that works, a collective chooses not to do something, the resource is still there, intact, for a future point. It’s “energy” remains exactly as it was when you first imagined it – actually increasing in “value”, as man develops to understand and match its potential.

    I await your recollection of the method you used to concieve and birth yourself, feed yourself when you couldn’t even open your eyes, exist in a relatively safe community, receive an education, medicate yourself with the knowledge of a doctor at age when you could hardly understand your own bodily functions, among other things, and reach the age you are now. Your entire entity does not live in a self-created vacuum, because despite your infantilism, you are not centre of the universe and haven’t been since you were a toddler, which is where your ability to think and experience the world seems to have stalled. When you have examined even the basic s of how indivduals fit into the greater context, come back and wow us. Until then, you remain, the ever dreary, drossman.

  6. captain hook 6
    11 April 2012 at 1:20 pm

    grossman thinks capitalism means he can have a dog to foul the streets with and a hardly davidson to assault our eardrums with.
    thats what choice is for noo noo heads.
    and redlogix I am not drunk.
    I just care for the world and not the aquisition of goods and brownie points.
    ok?

    • Bill 7.1
      12 April 2012 at 8:38 am

      That critique would appear to come from a perspective that applies contemporary psychological reactions and approaches to work, ie responses informed by Capitalist relations and command economy relations to a different economic model without taking into account the likely or possible psychological affects of that new environment.

      From the experience of a worker…me… (something the author seems to put great store by), the shirking and the over rating of peoples’ effort and sacrifice in the work environment simply doesn’t occur in an environment with paraconish attributes. Peer pressure is a very powerful tool and besides, why would the behaviour of ‘underdogs’ or wage slaves or the disenfranchised continue to manifest itself unaltered in a new set up where those heirarchies that contribute to assymetries of power have been levelled?

      On the wage question, I agree to a point. But then, just because people are receiving money for work, that doesn’t mean the system that is used today hasn’t been abolished. If wages are paid according to different criteria than today, then can’t we say the wage system has been abolished? And is there any reason why workers would need to pay themselves wages if they didn’t want to?

      Even under capitalism it is possible for workers to set up businesses where no wages are paid at all; where the income generated by the business, which is under the direct control of the workers, is used by the workers to provide for themselves collectively and individually without any of the workers being income earners.

  9. Malcolm 9
    12 April 2012 at 8:11 am

    “Communism is about reducing effort and sacrifice not raising them to fundamental principles as a sort of secular protestant work ethic. Remuneration for effort and sacrifice is based on the same assumptions of human behaviour as neoclassical economics (that as price reaches 0, demand increases exponentially), which are demonstrably false (there are some interesting anthropological studies to this effect, as well as the everyday experience that if tea and coffee is free at work we don’t all overdose on caffeine, or all become hypochondriacs when there’s free universal healthcare etc).”

    • Bill 9.1
      12 April 2012 at 8:50 am

      Paracon is simply about recognising effort and sacrifice, not placing such things on a pedestal. Look at this way. Maintaining the sewerage system isn’t something people want to do if they have options for better, more enjoyable productive activities. Way I see it there are limited options for getting that shit system maintained.

      1. Have an economic system that results in some people eventually having no other choice but to perform those ‘crappy’ jobs if they want to put food on their table.

      2. Have compulsion…like in Command Economies where you are simply told what you’re going to be doing by your political masters.

      3. Reward the performing of that task better than other more comfortable tasks. (Incentivise)

      4. Have no wages paid, but a self managed system whereby everyone undertakes to perform a given amount of the ‘crappy’ stuff.

      5. A mix of 3 and 4….a workers self managed balanced job complex…where wages may or may not be paid according to the preferences of that particular set of workers