Hmmmm…as a new customer, which town would you rather live in based on Electricity costs? Which system gives most value to most people,(considering future generations that weren’t offered the cash incentive?)
Really, the only practical difference I see is that each power account receives a dividend every year. They pay out (at this time) $100 million per year to account holders. Aside from that, the prices float pretty much the same as other companies. The network runs well, and few incidents happen. There has been complaint of rising prices in all of the electricity market for some years, but nearly everything is going up in price, besides cellphones and computers.
So, everything else being equal then logically the community owned Electric town pays $100 million per year less, or another way of looking at it is that future generations in the Private town will be paying $100 million per year more than they should be because of a previous generation of individuals decided to “cash-in”.
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What the Soviets achieved in WW2 cannot be ignored, and yet, I was referring more to the wholesale slaughter of intellectuals from 1917 onwards.
Remember though, the Warsaw Pact. Hitler initiated the attack on the USSR. Before Stalingrad, the Soviets were fighting for their own survival. I don’t know if I would point to them as having virtuously saved us all.
Anyway, again, besides the point. Their wartime successes say nothing about the benefits or disadvantages of their political and economic system, or the vicious murder of people that they disagreed with. Or the conditions they imposed later upon their people. Or the mass graves. Or the fact that the mighty socialist system could produce vast quantities of shoes, but often only in one size. Or the shortages of toilet paper. Or the forced labour. Or the gulags. Or the invasion of other nations to bring them into the union. Or the secret police. Or the mass starvations.
But everything else is not equal. The trust itself is something I support as a solution to crony acquisition of public infrastructure. However, the trust has not expanded to service other areas, because they don’t profit. They are locked in in perpetuity. It works for now, but only because other privately held companies are expanding into the space that the trust otherwise would.
Essentially, in an economic sense I realise the necessity for services to expand with demand, and favor a private solution. But in order to solve public ownership issues (on the way to privatization), I think localities must be able to choose their path. Anarchy applied by force is just another form of tyranny, and in fact, wouldn’t be anarchy.
I thought you said the prices were the same except the trust customers got a $100 million refund -yes or no?
I’m not understanding why, when it’s cheaper, more efficient and benefits more people to the tune of $100 m a year to be publicly owned?
You were also going to explain your plans for welfare btw. 
The prices are roughly the same, yes. But you said ‘everything else being equal’. It’s not because the service expands more slowly (or not at all) compared to privately owned companies, who keep more of their profits. So if we stuck with the model for all companies, new houses being built would not be part of the network, unless they paid out less and invested more of their profits elsewhere.
Well, it’s cheaper. By $320 per year or so. I said nothing of efficiency. In fact, lack of expansion would be a sign of inefficiency.
Yes, I’m out at the moment typing on my phone. I’ll have to wait to get home to answer re welfare. It’s worthy of a full treatment.
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lol…ok, off to bed now though till morning. I also misunderstood the dynamics - I thought all new houses would just join the scheme - it’s worse than I thought!!! You’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out why though…lol
Actually, as a parting shot……it makes me chuckle when people who propose taking publicly owned infrastructure, depriving future generations for the benefit of the few lucky ones who happen to have money and live in the present time by offering “shares” in it, (that necessarily the poor can’t afford, but used to own anyway) – then complain about tax being “theft”….
I’m replying to this topic for giving my tough.
I understand that are a huge problem with the government. But who is government? It’s everyone that live in that country. Here in Canada there are like hundred of parties but no one know it and peoples always votes for the 2 (now maybe 4 and that increase over time) main parties. It’s always the same thing. People vote for gift. And now where we are now? With full of debt. It’s almost like that everywhere on the planet.
Another problem. Parties are getting more known with time and more and more peoples want change and they vote for different parties and the votes get divided. Here in Canada and especially in Quebec we have a government that role the entire Country with only let’s say 40% of all the votes. 60% didn’t want that guy as a Premier Minister. And worse that party have the majority. Later with more parties that will get to know with the public what it’s going to happen? 30%, 20% or even worse and it will rules the country with 80% that didn’t want it? Let’s say there are 10 very well known parties but one get more popular but by little per circumscription and got majority only with 20% of the total votes. That’s a very big big big big big big big and so on very huge problem.
EDIT: The best liar always win.
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Okay what structures are those? Say one owns their own land, has an off grid self sufficient home, grows their own food, has their own water, and has a job or sells produce for any excess they might need. What physical or social structures are they asking for free?
Moreover your outlook is rather confusing. First you say that you think several services should be public and available to everyone. THEN you express resentment towards those who would not want to pay for them. It seems you do believe these things should be privately owned after all because the moment that someone refuses to compensate you for them you get resentful.
Read up on Adam Smith and other capitalists. Corporatism is a massive perversion of the system and as I said it is fascism. Corporatism is not capitialism nor is it anarchy. How would you propose to have a corporation or a corporate oligarchy in an anarchic society? There would be no politicians to bribe, no laws to defend your trademarks or copyrights, no corporate law suits or other such tricks and no corporate charter, incorporation or legal liability to begin with! The entire corporate entity is built on the legal fiction. Whole countries are built on the corporate legal fiction! Canada and the U.S. are CORPORATIONS! These countries are traded on the stock market! Your average citizen buying groceries and selling his stuff on ebay is practicing capitalism. You talk about class warfare What are you objecting to? That an elite has more money than you or that they don’t pay taxes because their money is in a tax haven? Guess what SAFE will be the tax haven that anyone can use and if enough people use it will make fiat currency next to worthless.
Limited liability destroys the responsibility a businessman has to stay accountable to his customers. If a regular businessman acts in a disreputable manner his customers can sue him or shun his business. If a corporation acts disreputably then it recieves no personal liability. On SAFE you also have limited to absolutely no liability because you are anonymous. The difference being anyone can have the powers of a CEO or shareholder. Anyone can start their own “corporation” and anyone can store their money “offfshore.” These are no longer things only the “elites” do but rather every mom and pop shop can do them too. Therefore your arguement of “class warfare” gets rather blurry as if everyone can utitlize these abilities it’s no longer reallly class warfare now is it?
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Who is proposing that we require that people have to buy shares in something they already own? If the resource/infrastructure was publicly owned, then the people should be given shares in it, not be offered the opportunity to buy them.
I think this is where statists get confused. First they campaign about social safety nets and whatever else and say things should be free. Then they realize things can’t be free and have to be paid for. Then in order to keep things “free” they insist on coerciviely taking money from people and justify by saying that everyone must pay their fair share when the service was supposed to be FREE in the first place. It’s like giving someone a new TV or cell phone or something for “free” and then a month later saying “Oh by the way I signed you up for a subscription to pay for that. But you can’t get out of it and you can’t give back your new device.” If everyone agreed with universal health care everyone would donate to universal health care. If everyone agreed with public education everyone would donate to public education. It’s easy to vote with your mouth. Not so easy to vote with your wallet. So people tend only to donate to things they really care about. Or if we’re talking about shares, then buy them. Or here’s a thought turn public inferstructure into cryptocurrencies. Just make a new cryptocurrency for each public asset you want to monetize. The more people buy the more your asset is worth. How much is that road really worth. How much DO those people really love their lamp post lol.
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Economics can be decentralized through software and smart hardware and Maidsafe network will demonstrate what is possible. apply the same principles to a physical asset like a road or the electricity grid with some software tweaks and society has a winner. We are coming to this age quickly and possibilities are endless. David Irvine talks about the drive less car where the car maintains itself without ownership. A smart road could also be adapted with a self maintaining road and could funded by selling solar power that is inbuilt into the road.
Human behavior and beliefs is hard to decentralize but with smart technology and creation of abundance there will be less need to harm others for our greedy ways of survival of the fittest. People will be measured more for what to do for society then what they take from society.
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I may be being a bit thick here, but I’m totally confused as to how the trust/giving shares away thing works then. Are you saying that we start with something that is publicly owned by every resident, past, present and future - basically a common resource similar to say internet, air or water even (not too much of a stretch I don’t think and Nestle’s Ceo has already tried to argue that water is a commodity as opposed to a common resource).- then “somebody” decides it’s going to be privatized whatever the residents think - the only choice the residents get is whether they want a lump sum or to be given shares and paid a dividend? Please tell me I’ve got this wrong
The other issue I’d h ave is that I don’t see the resource as only the current resident’s decision to make tbh, for the reasons I’ve outlined. If you take the example of “water” and Nestle, then you can see the nature of my concerns. The current generation should not be given the choice of whether we protect the resources/eco-systems etc for future generations or sell them off to enrich ourselves, as we do with global warming, pollution etc. These things should be protected and preserved for the benefit of all, current and future.
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I think this is where the confused get stale…
"So people tend only to donate to things they really care about. "
You’ve done it again btw…another very strong argument against the your whole charity based model.
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Nice utopian case. The problem starts where you say that a person “owns” land. Ownership either requires public law or exists exclusively in your vocabulary - not in mine. I, as your neighbor, will simply come and say that you are using my land for free and I will bring my buddies who confirm that because, you know, we people from the region don’t like you. So, shoosh, shoosh, away from my land.
You mean smaller “roads”, which in my terminology is at best a “track”. What matters is cost: Former tracks didn’t cost a leg. Regular people had enough ressources to create them on their own or by the help of a few. 1m of todays german highway cost about 130,000 EUR. Try to crowdfund 10m, I promise, you will run into severe conflicts where those 10m should be built.
It´s true, in the past private entities built roads (also MUCH cheaper) without the help of government, but the idyllic world as described in one of the videos above has anything to do with that. They didn´t do it just to allow customers to come to their stores and buy stuff (this is, of course, true as well): they refinanced their investment by stopping people on the road and took away what they considered a “fair share”. You know, like a toll/tax, only arbritarely - and they made a fortune out of that.
Actually I paid this kind of “tax” when I entered Croatia one day and the guy at the road found some fishy excuse to get a “fair share” of my vacation funds. If I’d believe the simplistic argument of some discutants here, “police” or “government” is like this by nature. Fortunately that is far from true. Most people prefer publicly defined fair shares over individual arbitrariness. This includes the ability to control both, the share and the guard, by consensus. If it doesn´t work well, it can be improved if there is enough public interest. Corrupt policemen exist everywhere, in Germany as well, but bribery at the border is very very uncommon.
That directly connects to this “argument”. "Governments " are not some kind of odd robots - they are people and you can be one of them if you find enough supporters. Yes, people have covered the planet and control vast parts of it, however, “practically every inch” is far from true - much rather “theoretically every inch”. The mere existence of governmental claims do not imply factual control, see the obvious case of Ukraine, but this issue exists basically everywhere. As long as there is no political control per algorithm, people may and do object to political control. Government as an entity is irrelevant, what matters is governance.
That’s also why the whole “government baaad” discussion is scratching on the surface of how people govern. It happens not on one but on many levels and it does not necessarily include legal regulations as you can see from the Croatia example.
What you are trying to say is that the only reason why large infrastructures have been set up by governments is that there was no free market. I absolutely agree on that. What you forget to say is that in a free market system we would see DIFFERENT infrastructures, because they would be formed by those with the necessary funds. (EDIT: I might mention that there are already such regions, townships, for instance or also infrastructures in so called “failed states”). In many societies decision taking depends on solidarity. Not everyone pays the same, but everyone pays the same share and everyone has the same voice in the taking of the decision, no matter how many funds you have. Of course, solidarity may exist in free markets, but not as an ultimate principle. The ultimate principle is the individual decision of those who have the funds and others who cannot build roads are dependent on their intent to solidly unite with the poor or to do whatever they like to do. Free-marketeers like to believe that the free market means equal freedom for everyone. The truth is that on free market subjects are still affected by power, only that this power = economic potential and not public opinion.
I agree that there is a problem for democratic decision taking and Spain is actually a good example: Some people prefer to opt-out from national solidarity, particularly in the economically richer regions of Catalonia and Basque Country. The national law does allow having a plebiscite, but not on a regional level. This IS a political problem. The point is, it is not easy to solve as some people in this thread suggest. The debates that already took place in Spain provide enough arguments to demonstrates that: Let´s say the Spanish national state would step down from the common regulation that only allows plebiscites on a national scale and allow every region to decide on its own about independence. Other problems quickly emerge (and effectively emerged in the public discussion): Who is allowed to vote? Are people who are not originally Basque (so called “immigrants”) allowed to vote? And who is “originally Basque”? What is a “region”? The problem is not “government”, the problem is that there are different ideas of collectives and non-duplicable space/ressources.
Why do you think that movements of independence usually arise in economically rich regions? Because those who are in economical advantage develop the feeling that they have a lack of political power. They argue that the greedy people with less ressources steel from them (via taxes). The argument CAN be valid, but I think its usually made from a very shortsighted perspective: In the EU there is a “solidarity fund” for infrastructures that affords all national states to pay an equal share into a EU fund that is redistributed to economically weak regions - the intention is to create comparable infrastructure conditions mid to long term. Of course those who pay in complain and claim to have more words on how distribution takes place. Many bavarian politians do this on a federal level. They want to pay less and argue that they are financing welfare in other counties - they are “robbed” as some here would say. However, if you look back in history, in the sixties, Bavaria was one of the biggest “taker” and profited from national solidarity. What can we learn from this example? I think it shows very graphically that people and entities like to think about fair distribution on a ahistorical scale. Western societies have exploited and are exploiting the south over centuries. Today anyone likes to feel responsible about the circumstances. If money is given to the south it is called “charity” and “good will”, which I find highly hypocritic. The strongest voice for deregulation comes from those who managed to gather a lot of ressources and now dislike that the society asks them to pay their share.
You know, I am all in favor of anarchist setting up their own political utopia, I really am. If you want an anarchic system, you should convince people to do that find a place to build your “state” - but don´t expect people who believe they “own” this place to just hand it over to you. I certainly wouldn´t if it was a minority decision.
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Not really, assuming that these social safety nets you are camaigning for are as important to everyone as you claim they are. The only thing I did was point out that people donate to what is really important to them. Do you not believe social welfare is really important to people? See if you believe that “charity” doesn’t work when trying to raise funds for a social safety net that will benefit society as a whole then what you are saying is that society does not value what you value as much as you would hope they do and so you think you need to compel them to value it. Also keep in mind that if we just stopped spending so much on wars, corporate welfare and politician’s pocketbooks we’d have oodles of money to spend on other stuff or to just leave in people’s pockets.
True, eventually disabled people will be measured in a fair way and picked from the valuable people! ironyoff
lol, human beviour is per definition decentralized since we are autonomous beings with own will - ironically you dream of centralization and state the opposite.
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You know how many people opposed the Iraq War in the US in 2002/3? Just out of interest…
ethereum is powerful tool in this discussion. One could create an opensource solar farm using a POS system with automated contracts programmed into the software. The software could have the ability to purchase it own land and resources to create it own project. profit then can be shared out in a trust less system. voting in this system can take care of quality control where the human can interface with the system. other contracts to be created to help maintain and expand the system. A charity contract software tool can reprogram by voting again what charity has the most need at the time.
We are now only limited by our imagination with decentralized programmable software and hardware.
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