Comments on: Abundance Creates Utility But Destroys Exchange Value

By: Eric Reasons

Eric Reasons — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:31:55 +0000

Mr. Carson, I am flattered by the company you’ve put my writing in. You’ve done me a great kindness. My many thanks.

-Eric Reasons

By: Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:12:35 +0000

Indeed, one of the central social problems of the past century has been the increased monetization of culture and the encrouchment of monitization on everyday life. It is very telling that standard economic theory cannot propose the decrease of monetization and efficiency. Assumption upon assumption about what accounts for efficiency (biocide as an economic impact has proven vey efficient when measured in the short term). Efficiency is assumed to be value free and a universal good. Yet tremendous damage has been done in the name of efficiency.

Dr. Strangelove

By: Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:01:09 +0000

Interesting. “Capturing value from technological progress” is too ofetn merely a euphemism for extending the same property relations (and inequities of those relations) from late modern capitalism into a new mode of production and exchange. All economic thought is theology (or witchcraft) of one form or another. Behind the theories and claims lay thinly vielded defenses of values and preferred social systems.

The critique of any emerging digital economy and its redefinition of the status of property (and labour) must either begin with the acknowledgement that the current dominant economic system grossly favours the few over the many or it risks ignoring the most basic, and universal, fact of capitalism. It strikes me that many of the responses to the decaying status of private property within the Net are an attempt to ensure that the few can continue to have the most in the new era.

Dr. Strangelove
University of Ottawa
http://www.strangelove.com/blog

By: Curtis Carmack

Curtis Carmack — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:49:05 +0000

Great post! You provide good evidence for your thesis with your own post. Just think of what it used to take to be able to even do the synthesis you did of the “existing literature,” not to mention the previous virtual impossibility of imparting such ideas to casual consumers like me. Someone’s clearly not getting paid for the knowledge I gleaned! I just hope to accumulate enough of it to trade it in on a little leisure 😉

By: britmic

britmic — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:59:06 +0000

Interesting article, but some history may show that the situation is hardly new.

I guess the scribes went through this when the printing press arrived and could reproduce script at 700% less cost.

How about the sugar barons of the 18th century, working the slaves on the plantations. Did they become oil barons when the carburettor was invented after being inspired by perfume spray nozel?

When the winds of change are blowing you can build a shelter. Or you can build a windmill.

Make meaning and money will follow.

Scott Adams is the best economist I know of.

Sorry to be so random, but such is the nature of the world around us.

By: Anton Steinpilz

Anton Steinpilz — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:20:29 +0000

Thanks heaps the mention! I’m regular reader of (and occasional pilferer from) the P2P Foundation site, so it was a really cool surprise to see me referenced here.

All the best,
Anton