
Post-Capitalism: Rise of the Collaborative Commons - nissimk
https://medium.com/@cjdew/post-capitalism-rise-of-the-collaborative-commons-62b0160a7048
======
jjoonathan
I don't see it as post-capitalism, just a change in what constitutes the most
efficient means of production. Cuts out middlemen.

If rent-seeking accounts for an increasing fraction of economic activity (a
big IF, but let's assume it's true for the sake of figuring out consequences)
then it will eventually surpass the inefficiencies of small-scale generalist
production and we'll break into "communes." Scare quotes because there's no
reason they have to be anti-technology, anti-capitalism, anti-trade, anti-
government, or any of the other scary associations that follow the word
around.

Especially for "unskilled" (or otherwise marginalized) labor, this sort of a
model would seem to make sense. Employers would be forced to beat the value
proposition of "work x days a month, do whatever you want with the remainder,
your ability to secure food and shelter is guaranteed unless you screw up big
time."

There's a ton of work to be done before it's a viable alternative. Hell, I bet
it's even going to get VC funding someday (better to sell the shovels,
right?). Neat stuff, but right now I'll just watch from the sidelines. Robotic
farming (GVCS), DIY circuit board / chip manufacture, DIY chemical industry
(stock up on popcorn when they get to Haber or Frank-Caro), 3D printing of
structures... am I missing anything? Is there a mailing list I should be on
(FBI forgive me)?

EDIT: We should talk about the big sticking point, which will be "how would
one replace or compensate specialists that haven't been marginalized by
capitalism yet and don't contain bunches of 'hippies,' for lack of a better
word"? In other words: doctors. This is why I'm on the sidelines for now ;)

~~~
bryanlarsen
"If rent-seeking accounts for an increasing fraction of economic activity (a
big IF)"

Is this really a big IF? Software revenue is technically rent (since the cost
of production is 0), and that's definitely growing as a fraction of economic
activity.

~~~
zzalpha
In what world is the cost of software production zero?

You _are_ aware software developers are paid, you know, money for services,
right?

To be honest, your argument, here, is exactly the trouble economists have
trying to understand economic rent. Rent is to economists what pornography is
to a supreme court justice: they know it when they see it.

There simply is no concrete theory to define rent, and so it's extremely
difficult to provide any kind of proof of increased rent seeking in modern
economies without relying on personal judgment, and therefore bringing to bear
personal bias.

Which is, of course, why you think software is rent while someone else might
not: it's in the eye of the beholder.

------
bcheung
I question the post-scarcity assumption. If you described how people live now
to someone who lived 5000 years ago they would think we live in a post-
scarcity world now. We have such abundance now, yet we still have "poor"
people and humans still want to consume and control more. It's human nature to
want more. Maybe in the far future people will want their own planets and
anyone who doesn't have one will be considered living in "poverty". I don't
think it will ever end unless the biology of human nature and the animal brain
changes.

~~~
Scarfleece

      It's human nature to want more.
    

You pulled this out of your ass, and it's nonsense. Any anthropological study
will tell you that hunter-gatherers are/were satisfied with what they could
get. Anecdotally, there are vast amounts of people around the world who don't
"want more".

~~~
bcheung
We all came from hunter-gatherers. If hunter-gatherers didn't want more then
logically they would have stayed hunter-gatherers. So, why do we have the
current civilization? I suspect because being cold, not having medicine,
refrigeration, running water, plumbing, transportation, etc sucks.

~~~
Scarfleece
You're making the presumption that people adopted agriculture because it "gave
them more", when there could be a vast number of other reasons for adopting
it.

More than likely, the first tribes that started becoming farmers did so
because the area they lived in become bad for obtaining food (whether due to
the extinction of big game events, or moving to a naturally inhospitable
area). Because of the nature of agriculture, this gave them a lot more power,
and they started conquering tribes.

When your choice is between "get slaughtered by the farmers", "have your food
supply diminished by the farmers", or "become a farmer", guess which choice
you pick?

This is all speculation, though. I'm merely trying to get you to realize that
there are many reasons for technological progress (esp. the adoption of
agriculture), the least of all being that "it's human nature to want more".

~~~
bcheung
They had no game and thus no food. So they switched to agriculture because
they wanted food.

(food > no food) == more

~~~
Scarfleece
"Wanting enough food" is not the same as "always wanting more".

------
Loic
This post is basically a copy/paste of the latest book of Rifkin:

[http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-
Collaborati...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-
Collaborative/dp/1137278463/)

Book, which is by the way very good.

------
terravion
The premise of this piece is that we are close to satisfying the demands of
society and that we'll be living in a post-scarcity world. But everyone I know
wants to vacation on the moon (i.e. we have an unlimited capacity to consume
new things). At current prices, just my 30 closest friends going to the moon
for two week every year is about the same level of consumption as the total
global economy.

We only live in a post scarcity world if you believe that humans have a
limited capacity for consumption. Everyone who has bet on that thus far in
history has been proved wrong, so capitalism or no, we need to deal with
scarcity.

~~~
zzalpha
_We only live in a post scarcity world if you believe that humans have a
limited capacity for consumption._

I think that depends on how you define "satisfying the demands of society".

If that means everyone is essentially comfortable (ie, all essential needs are
met, including things like basic recreation... I consider "play" a basic human
need), I'd say that qualifies.

Will there always be people with ambitions that outstrip their resources? I'd
certainly think so. But there's an awful lot of people out there who don't
share your ambitions for space travel.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If that means everyone is essentially comfortable (ie, all essential needs
> are met, including things like basic recreation... I consider "play" a basic
> human need), I'd say that qualifies.

There's considerable evidence that "comfort" is driven largely by perceived
_relative_ economic conditions, not _absolute_ conditions, so as long as most
people aren't doing above average compared to what they perceive around them,
we won't achieve that.

> Will there always be people with ambitions that outstrip their resources?
> I'd certainly think so. But there's an awful lot of people out there who
> don't share your ambitions for space travel.

Even if only _some_ people had unmet needs, the society would still fail to be
post-scarcity, since post-scarcity means rationing is not necessary because
there isn't contention for resources. Even if there are only a few people who
will always want more (though there is no reason grounded in the reality of
actual human behavior to believe that there will only be a few, no matter the
objective conditions), they will eventually place other people into a deprived
position without a social system for allocating scarce resources, hence, no
post-scarcity.

------
KaiserPro
I just dont see it happening, that those with great capital resources would
allow themselves to be undermined in such a way. The innate human power
structure is such that those with the most resources make the rules. (Feudal,
mercantile, and democratic)

I would suggest reading the second half of "road to wigan pier" which will
both provide history and an excellent critique of this style of thinking.

------
pjonesdotca
I have a feeling that anything other than "free market capitalism" is going to
be shunned around these parts. :)

Great read. And the predecessor as well. [https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-
obsolescence-of-capitalism-340...](https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-obsolescence-
of-capitalism-340ad9fafd8f)

~~~
tomjen3
In all my travels (on the interwebs) I have seen two articles arguing against
capitalism that were worth reading. Easily twenty times that failed.

So yeah, my bayesian filter is going to shun anything but free market
capitalism. Especially because for many it has become a political stop-word,
even though we sit in the greatest luxury in history. For me, any article that
wants to replace capitalism first has to explain how it rolf-stomp every
system that came before it, and how their new proposed system will augment
capitalism.

~~~
Estragon
What were the two good ones?

~~~
tomjen3
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-
plenty/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/)

Is one of them. It made a totally convincing argument for why socialism should
rofl-stomp capitalism for production efficiency (which is quite something in
that capitalism strength is rofl-stomping every other system in production
efficiency).

The other I have forgotten, but it basically proved that poor peoples minds
worked differently (as a function of their environment) and so they really
couldn't pull themselves up.

------
dmichulke
Capitalism - that word again. I don't think it means what you think it means.

PS: Post-capitalism implies capitalism was or is present and unless the author
wrote this piece in Hong Kong or Singapore he should not even remotely apply
that word any present or past "economic system"

PPS: Much like democracy.

~~~
dragonwriter
The term "capitalism" was created to refer to and defined by the early
industrial economic system of the more developed countries of Europe in the
19th Century. It is _quite_ odd to claim that it never existed anywhere other
than Hong Kong or Singapore.

~~~
dmichulke
OK, I see your point :)

Here's what I mean:

Capitalism is (as democracy) not a yes/no thing. Instead, it is one extreme of
a scale and every state has a value on that scale and can can be more or less
capitalistic (democratic). Less capitalistic in this context means more
centrally planned, typically by an actor of the state (government, council for
economic planning, ...).

The problem I see in the typical use of the word "capitalism" is that many
flaws of the current system are blamed on the "too capitalistic" side while
I'm convinced the reason lies on the "too centrally planned side", i.e., we
have too little capitalism.

Hence my reaction to the word "post-capitalism" which sounds to me as if
someone against torture wrote an article about "post-humanism" as a follow-up
to "the obsolescence of human dignity" (where clearly humanism and dignity
aren't the problem, rather it is the lack thereof).

So, yes, we had and have capitalism to some extent everywhere (including
Soviet Russia) but plain capitalism is very hard to find and even more so in
the last 50 years. In fact, even Singapore has a central bank and I bet HK has
one, too.

~~~
dragonwriter
Sure, even approximately pure capitalism has been dead in the West for more
than 50 years (closer, I think, to 80) because capitalism was because of many
of the problems it caused for the vast majority of society that were
identified by the critics who named the system in the 19th century (though the
replacement wasn't generally what those critics advocated though it
incorporated some elements of it to form the modern mixed economy).

But, while that has in some cases mitigated or showed the growth rate of the
problems that caused poor capitalism to be rejected, it hasn't chef them, and
those same problems are often the things that provoke criticism of the current
system.

I don't think that the problems that were mitigated by a retreat from pure
capitalism will be further mitigated by a return to it.

