[VBbuilders] Google Voice discovered allowing pure VoIP calls???

[Mark Petz]

" Every Consumer Cooperative I know of is only concerned with buying
products that were made by Capitalists."

You need to look around more coz I know lots of collectives and
co-operatives that are focused on non-capitalists. FOR example in the Art
World. If you have ever been to a craft fair you will quickly see that much
of the produce is not produced in any capitalistic sense, Similar aspects
can be asked of festivals and Women's Institute markets - OF course some of
these do have capitalists involved. But many do not have any odea of making
capital as the aim.

Church fêtes and country fairs are similar in that the aim is often not a
profit motive (in a capitalist sense - more money) but that of community
development so it could be argued social capital - but in my opinion that
term is only capitalists or Marxists trying to make an alternative way fit
into their Weltanschauung much as Abrahamists try and make my paganism fit
their notion of God.

M

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 5:09 PM, Robert Steele <
robert.david.steele.vivas at gmail.com> wrote:

> What works for me is the concept of cognitive surplus being both enabled by
> worker ownership equity and directed in ways that reflect both the worker
> already have a sufficiency of tangible goods, and a motivation for creating
> wealth for the whole.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:30 AM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>> > I remain unconvinced of a consumers-only ownership modality, again, all
>> > stakeholders should have a stake, all peers, not just consuming peers
>>
>> Workers can invest more than they are able to consume, but it won't do
>> them any good when the consumers already have sufficient ownership
>> needed to protect themselves from workers who try to stop other peers
>> from doing that work by blocking access to the Sources of Production.
>>
>> Workers cannot protect wages through ownership if other consumers
>> already have sufficient ownership because propping wages requires
>> the worker be able to STOP other potential workers from accessing
>> the Sources of Production, and why would a group stop a peer from
>> bidding to do a job - in some cases even for free (gratis).
>>
>> Like I said, I don't care if Workers invest and co-own more of the Apple
>> orchard than they are able to consume, but how will that help them
>> prop up wages when the other co-owners will always have the option
>> to do the work for themselves or to hire the lowest bidder?
>>
>> When the consumers around those workers have sufficient ownership,
>> they will not be buying the product from anyone, but will own it already
>> as a side-effect of their owning the Sources of those Objectives.
>>
>>
>>
>> > if this type of consumer coop
>>
>> This is absolutely NOT a Consumer Cooperative.
>>
>> 1,) Consumer Cooperatives *sell* the product back to the co-owners and
>> collect a profit during that transaction that a committee then doles
>> out in a Tyranny of the Majority fashion.
>>
>> 1a.) Imputed Production only sells product to non-owners, and only
>> when there is surplus, and treats that profit as an investment from
>> that payer - causing ownership and control to be automatically
>> distributed at the point of sale back to the actor who was willing to
>> pay for it.  This system minimizes and nearly eliminates the trading
>> of goods since the owner of Sources does not buy the Objective, but
>> owns it already as a result of his owning the Sources.  The trading of
>> goods will tend toward zero but does not reach stasis because of
>> newcomers into the system (even just babies being born), and because
>> people's interests change across time.
>>
>> 2.) Consumer Cooperatives are "Democratically Controlled" with
>> one-member/one-vote.
>>
>> 2a.) Imputed Production is far more autarchic- where any member can
>> 'fork' his portion of the Sources and secede from the union or sell
>> those shares if a split is attempted that is finer than reasonable
>> divisibility (you can't both feed a single milk-cow grain and NOT feed
>> that cow grain, but can divide a herd).
>>
>> 2b.) Each member has exactly as much vote power as he has ownership.
>> If you own 11% of a roto-tiller and your neighbor owns 22%, then you
>> have only half as much vote power in decisions such as "how often
>> should we change the oil".
>>
>> 3.) Every Consumer Cooperative I know of is only concerned with buying
>> products that were made by Capitalists.
>>
>> 3a.) Imputed Production is primarily about ownership and control of
>> the entire tree of production - recursively, and works toward a
>> Vertically Integrated Commons where we, the people, own the farms and
>> factories and land and water rights and all the other Sources and
>> supporting Sources required to reproduce those things.
>>
>> There are other differences I don't remember right now, but please do
>> not call my proposal a Consumer Cooperative, because the
>> organizational forms are vastly different both in structure and in
>> results.
>>
>>
>> > turns out to be successfull, more people would
>> > choose it (of course, this can only happen in a truly free society, so
>> this
>> > is quite hypothetical, and political transformations will be needed
>> before
>> > such type of free experimentation can occur)
>>
>> We don't need to transform politicians, and do not have enough money
>> to buy such changes anyway.
>>
>> All we need to do is start businesses that are funded and owned by
>> Consumers and that treat Profit as payer investment.
>>
>
>
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