Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 52. (Read 288376 times)

Bring in a third party that both of the first two parties agree to use, to make sure there are no conflicts of interest such as these, and have both of the first two pay the third one. Everybody wins.

I don't see how a voluntary exchange implies that there is no conflict of interest.
If the other party withholds information that would make you change your mind about the deal than that is pretty much direct conflict of interest.

God, I hope Walmart gives to charity. They're one of the largest abusers of the poor underclass that exists.

That likely has a lot to do with most people here just struggling to survive paycheck-to-paycheck, bill-to-bill, let along build up capital. Wealthy corporations and individuals give to charity all the time though. Even Wal-Mart.

Ok, self interest then. I just have a very grim view of society and believe all self interest revolves around greed. I can't just be happy to have my share (even when I know I can't utilize any greater quantity) I need more. The USA version of capitalism works this way. No one wants to provide for the needy (even if it may be in their self interest to do so) they have to accumulate as much wealth as they can before the next guy gets it first.

Other than that, I pretty much agree with you on everything.

What you describe sounds more like the failure of Bureaucrat-"ism".

It's not founded on greed, it's founded on self-interest. There's a difference.

In a voluntary exchange--a capitalist exchange--I look out for my own interests, and the other party looks out for theirs. There is no conflict of interest, and if a deal completes it is because both participants feel they will be better off after the deal is done than before, or else the deal does not take place. Thus every transaction in a capitalist system results in more and more benefit to society in general.

Correct, the socialist system fell victim to greed because there was a conflict of interest. Bureaucrats were given power over huge swaths of humanity and asked to make self-less decisions for them. They instead made self-serving decisions that either incidentally helped those people, helped them to a lesser extent than those people would've chosen for themselves, or actively went against the interest of those other people.

That is, the bureaucrats acted in self-interested fashion, just as in capitalism, but because they could benefit at the expense of others, they more or less did so depending on individual character and chance of facing consequences.

Thus the capitalist system is far superior for it removes the ability for a transaction to take place if one party isn't benefiting, whereas the socialist system could force those kinds of transactions to take place regardless of it not being in people's interests.

The economic calculation problem proves such socialist schemes impossible, pipe-dreams, and forever unworkable.

You forget the most important role of this computer (and why i think it's impossible).

Based on the informaton you mention this computer still needs to take the right decision (or a desicion that people would consider right).
I don't think anyone on earth can claim to have devised such a system.
Sure, analyzing and counting etc. is easy enough.
But who decides what is the best way forward?
May situations do not have a clear choice, even when all factors are considered.

I think that people who belief in such a system are essentially running away from the hard problems.
They just put their trust in technology and hope/believe it will somehow magically save them.

It's an ideological pipe dream if you ask me.

You can't think this way because without money we would not have been able to create this society.
Money makes value fungible. It means that it acts as a grease for economic activity.
None of the things we have now would be created if value didn't flow this freely in the form of money.

I'm sorry to tell you but bitcoin is technology.
And so it is very likey that there is some undiscovered weakness in bitcion.
Statistically it is unavoidable.

Just wanted to add: On the macro scale, printing money does not increase the worlds capital in any way. It only functions to skew the markets, from an (practically) optimal way to use capital, to a suboptimal way, reducing the worlds wealth.

Hoarding money does not directly make the world richer, because money has no use-value. Indirectly, it has some effects that can make a difference, it makes the remaining money more worth, that is other prices goes down, and that can change the minds of other people regarding saveing and investment.

Investment on the other hand, that is buying capital goods, raw materials, tools and factory buildings, make the world richer through higher productivity.

This difference between money and capital is often diffuse, because on the micro scale, you can easily transform money to capital by buying. In fact this is the normal way to start a company, you summon up some people, agree to pay some money into a company. This company is now said to have capital, though it still only has money. Next step is to buy the capital and start producing. At that point the world starts to get more wealthy.

Hoarding money is the same as delaying consumption, and the direct value is to let others consume now. The sum is null, but it is a prerequisite to investing. By others in the whole world since their money is now worth more, or by others through lending, or by the saver directly if he wants to invest himself.

No, there is no such thing where humans are concerned. Your population would need to cooperate completely and that wouldn't happen. Civilizations failure, regardless of the system in place, is always the human element. Capitalism only works to an extent because it is basically founded in greed which everyone can support. The socialist systems fell victim to greed quickly. Peter Joseph is a typical dreamer that thought of a good idea on paper but then humans become involved and it gets screwed all up. The idea of no private property alone will keep it from ever seeing any real success. The "scientific method" of allocating resources would work until the first person decided to game the system and you know that would happen almost immediately.

Yes. But only if the centrally controlling computer is able to know what everyone thinks and wants, know all the resources that exist, can track every single resource through its entire production method, is able to motivate inventors and doers with more stuff, if that's what they want, without upsetting the neighbors who are getting less stuff, and is able to make everyone happy and like itself.

Personally, I can't make everyone like me. Maybe it's possible if I abduct people and drug them, and then make sure they all take drugs from then on to stay complacent and ignorant? Have you seen Equilibrium before?

Very nice and accurate description of each circumstance. So, do you agree with the Zeitgeist Movement that a resource based economy can work?

Both. It is true, you can't manipulate Bitcoin. You can manipulate the perception of it, and lie about where it's going, or how you're about to affect it, but that's typically at a great risk and cost to the manipulator. E.g. pushing up prices with tiny buys runs a huge risk that new sellers, seeing a good deal, would just over-sell to you, making you sell all your coins for a really shitty price. Manipulators can't actually manipulate Bitcoin by changing any of its fundamentals though, the way manipulators of fiat are legally required to. And Atlas is correct, too, that money is nothing more than a more easily used barter commodity that's used as a tool to make trade easier. Without money, you would see the same capital accumulation and commodity market manipulation you see now. You could even ease barter by keeping logs of who owes whom, so for instance, if i need your bread, but all I have is a cow, and we all agree that one cow is worth 250 loaves of bread, we can trade my cow for your one loaf of bread, and keep a public record that you still owe me 249 loaves. No money required, but much more complicated to do.

As for hoarding wealth, hoarding doesn't make wealth go up, producing wealth makes it go up. For example, people hoarding bitcoins did not make Bitcoin prices go up and became wealthy because Bitcoin was being hoarded. They got wealthy because there were a lot of other people, and the hoarders themselves, who were making the Bitcoin economy as a whole go up, either by building Bitcoin businesses, or by getting new people to use Bitcoin by convincing them off its benefit. The only reason Bitcoin hoarders became wealthier is because a lot of people had their lives be improved thanks to Bitcoin. If that weren't true, then new people would not have had a reason to use Bitcoin, new users would not have entered the market, and price would not have gone up.

Well then I can agree with you. I appreciate many socialist ideals but in practice they don't seem to work.

I don't attribute myself to it, but I can understand that from a Libertarian perspective I can be viewed as such.

There are things in socialist schools of thought which I agree upon as well as many I disagree upon.
But if you ask me this question in a real debate I'd probably say: "Yes, I am socialist! *eg*"

That sounds remarkably socialist to me, even down to quoting Marxists. You're not socialist are you?