Global Resource Bank
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John Pozzi wrote:The Global Resource Bank is a direct democratic economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and medium of exchange are owned and regulated by a global community that utilizes GRB ecos as their medium of exchange, i.e., GRB socialism.What do "we" seek to use in your SOCIALISM as your medium of exchange?
I think, John, you are somewhat missing the point. Socialism is based on the idea of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". There is no exchange in a Socialist society, Socialism is a moneyless, exchangeless, fully cooperative society.What you are proposing is a variation on capitalism, i.e. those who have Capital use it to make profit from the unpad labour or workers who work for wages. Your idea, despite your protestations, is not that different from the tried and failed ideas of many reformers of capitalism, from the Cooperative movement to LETS schemes.Perhaps it would help if you went away and actually read some socialist literature, there are plenty of links on this website.What you propose is not Socialism, you are not a Socialist. What you propose is a utopian scheme to try and make capitalism, (a system that the exploitation of labour by those who own capital through the use of the wages system) slightly less unpleasant, (which won't work by the way).Socialists are interested in the abolition of the wages system!
And of course, where there are no commodities like natural light, energy, air, water, land, food, shelter, climate, law, biodiversity, exchange, and consciousness, there is no life. You are living in the world of Smith and Marx where the commodities (products) of labor were thought to be the base of the economy. The were wrong. The Physiocrats knew that it's the products of nature are the base of our economy. – Play with it. Consciousness is in your biology.
John, what makes the concept of socialism radical and revolutionary and, in turn, makes your own proposal into a relatively conservative reform is that socialism is the abolition of the exchange economy thus without buying and selling, there is no need for any medium of exchange such as money or even labour-time tokens. Society has no need for GRB to produce rationally and sustainably and to distribute justly and fairly.That is the stark truth which makes your idea superfluous and unecessary. And i'm afraid when somebody's world-view is shown to be a false vision – it hurts and takes time to re-evaluate your beliefs. But hopefully you can accept you may simply be wrong. Ours is not an arrogant position, even if it might sound as we are all know-alls and possess all the answers but having been in existence for 114 years, we have learned some things about capitalism. Maybe you think we have it all wrong and haven't learned any lessons after over a century of politics. In such a case, we invite you to prove we are mistaken and provide us with your evidence. Convince us you are right.Meantime, I suggest that you explore our website, John, and read the numerous articles and also dip into our archives since there has been many proposals about changing the form of economics, Major Douglas social credit being one, which became popular and were critiqued by ourselves.Try perhaps for starters reading an article of mine which may spur a few specific questions from yourself that we can respond to more positively.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2015/no-1327-march-2015/socialism-keeping-it-human-family
John Pozzi wrote:The Global Resource Bank is a direct democratic economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and medium of exchange are owned and regulated by a global community that utilizes GRB ecos as their medium of exchange, i.e., GRB socialism.What do "we" seek to use in your SOCIALISM as your medium of exchange?John, I was going go make more or less the same point as Tim. Exchange necessarily implies the exchange of property titles and consequently by definition precludes the notion of common property. It is meaningless and not sensible to talk of property titles being exchanged amongst those who own in common the property in question which in socialism involves the entire apparatus of production itself. If there is no exchange there can be no mderium of exchange – money Any kind of quid pro quo exchange involves both the acquistion of new titles and the forfeiture of old titles to the things being exchanged on the part of both parties to an exchange and therefore is based on some form of private property
Quote:You are living in the world of Smith and Marx where the commodities (products) of labor were thought to be the base of the economy.Maybe this is worth reading if you have not already read and dismiss its analysis. If the latter, where do you disagree?https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/
John Pozzi wrote:And of course, where there are no commodities like natural light, energy, air, water, land, food, shelter, climate, law, biodiversity, exchange, and consciousness, there is no life. You are living in the world of Smith and Marx where the commodities (products) of labor were thought to be the base of the economy. The were wrong. The Physiocrats knew that it's the products of nature are the base of our economy. – Play with it. Consciousness is in your biology.John you are jumbling up a number of different things under the general rubric, "commodity". Natural light is not a commodity – it is not bought and sold. Food for the most part today is a commodity although there is a still a vibrant peasant subsistence sector in many parts of the world where food is produced directly for consumption not for sale. Contrary to what you say Marx was fully aware of the significance of the "products of nature" as appropriated and transformed by human labour. He regarded human beings as part of nature different from other parts simply by virtue of being "self aware" and capable of reflection and abstract thought (though I think that is too cut and dried given the advances in our understanding of animal behaviour)
Not sure exactly where he is coming from yetI suppose we will have to wait and see; might be something to do with the wheat/bread theory of value. Which I think I might have mentioned just before he appeared? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiocracy The idea dropped out of the problem as to where surplus value or profit, or whatever you wanted to call it, came from. It was based on an accepted Adam Smith premise that value was based on labour. But ‘if’ labour or wage labour was purchased at its value, as was sort of presumed then where could surplus value ie the accumulation of wealth or additional income streams or whatever come from? Which was becoming too obvious to ignore in capitalism. The idea was that the agricultural labourers produced surplus wheat/bread/food* ie more than they needed for themselves. They would then exchange their surplus wheat/bread/food for manufactured products but would hand over or exchange more of it than was required by manufacturing workers themselves. The profit of the manufacturers/capitalists thus originated from the ‘surplus’ surplus wheat/bread/food produced by agricultural workers etc. And the manufacturing capitalist would use that ‘surplus’ surplus wheat value to buy more machines etc.Or fund and feed the workers making them etc This was all done through the medium of money which, as it was claimed, just obfuscated what was really going on. Actually the argument sort of reappeared in Russia in the mid 1920’s with the support of Trotsky. The idea being to screw a load of “wheat/bread/food” value out of the peasantry to fund industrialisation. It was ‘opposed’ by Stalin who then adopted it after he got rid of them; according to Raphael Abramovich. Something the Trots and Stalinist both choose to avoid like bargepole. Thus? The main chapters of the book were based on a paper read by him in August 1924 to the Communist Academy on The Fundamental Law of Socialist Accumulation, where he argued that the backwardness of the Soviet economy in the face of world economy meant that, in order to survive, it would have to industrialize rapidly until the productive resources reached the highest level attained in any capitalist nation……………..by the artificial fixing of prices so as to drain resources from agriculture and concentrate them in industry. There was no other way to accumulate the capital necessary for the development of new productive techniques and the expansion of the nationalized industries. https://www.marxists.org/archive/preobrazhensky/1921/fromnep/biog.html I suppose you could expand the surplus wheat/bread/food model into other things if you so choose?
To being you up to date, your URL points to 1995 GRB copy. Now, "GRB shareholders’ value (all of) the earth’s abundant wealth of natural resources at 6 quadrillion (q) GRBe. " The state is obsolete! Natural light, energy, air, water, land, food, shelter, climate, law, biodiversity, exchange, and consciousness are examples of the resources (commodities) of nature. No labor needed just TLC. https://www.grb.net/ and http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/%7Fglobal-resource-bank-grb
There was a little bit of a hat tip to the physiocratic idea by Karl as below Capital Vol. III Part VITransformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-RentChapter 47. Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent The physiocrats, furthermore, are correct in stating that in fact all production of surplus-value, and thus all development of capital, has for its natural basis the productiveness of agricultural labour. If man were not capable of producing in one working-day more means of subsistence, which signifies in the strictest sense more agricultural products than every labourer needs for his own reproduction, if the daily expenditure of his entire labour power sufficed merely to produce the means of subsistence indispensable for his own individual requirements, then one could not speak at all either of surplus-product or surplus-value. An agricultural labour productivity exceeding the individual requirements of the labourer is the basis of all societies, and is above all the basis of capitalist production, which disengages a constantly increasing portion of society from the production of basic foodstuffs and transforms them into "free heads," as Steuart [Steuart, An Inquiry Into the Principles of Political Economy, Vol. I, Dublin, 1770, p. 396. — Ed.] has it, making them available for exploitation in other spheres. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch47.htm
Yes!From http://www.grb.net/shaw Arthur Shaw on Copionics – The Theory of Global SufficiencyPlowboy: I want to ask you about the computer system – how does this function in solving our problems? You said you feed in the data of abundance and scarcity and compute a “free-flow” or, I suppose, a nearly ideal distribution. Is this feasible? Can it be done?AS: Yes, it can be done. Primarily and particularly because we are relying on the gain factor, the multiplier theorem which has acceptance and economic recognition. The expression of resource credit (GRB eco-currency) that I previously mentioned is the method and the means for justifying the exchange for “payment.” With that credit provided, which in itself is backed by the true facts of global plenitude, It happens, it occurs: We have the balance of Supply with Need. I like to state this in present tense because this is something which is accomplishable NOW. We do have it made. I mean, abundance is the condition of our world as an object, as an ascertainable, as a mathematical, as a realizable fact. And perhaps the word realization is the key. Because, in our knowledge that all men can benefit, we are presently divided. The fact of accumulation and its need is the cause of our wars and our dissatisfactions.Plowboy: Well, how would you then distribute . . . who would distribute this abundance of food?AS: If you look at the total idea as one of enlarging trade, I think the accomplishment becomes, not formidable, but easily comprehensible and assimilable. This, in effect, is what we do. We set forth that all the world is the market and that there is availability to supply all the world. The present channels, the present means, are continued. The mechanisms for distribution continue. It’s as though we come to you and say we can enlarge the Gross National Product of each country and the global product of the world. We are enlarging the market to encompass the two-thirds of the world that is not considered a market.Plowboy: Don’t you think it would hurt the present market system . . . keep it from functioning properly?AS: No. There would be no alteration of our methodology for trade. Certainly there would be a greater assurance for those who produce because of an assured market. This is a gain over present technologies. The larger gain is the profitable enlargement of the total market.Plowboy: With this increase of distribution – where everyone, everywhere would receive food – do you think it would be possible to maintain a constant level? I mean, there would be no famine or wasted harvests? Could we actually have one constant level?AS: Yes, that is our goal: Homeostatic balance.
John, an apple for example, is an apple. It has a use value to us, it is food and we need food to survive. An apple only becomes a commodity when it is produced for sale on a market. A market economy requires banks. If society produced apples and other things for their use value and not for sale on the market then there would be no market, no commodities and no banks. Not even a GRB. Only people making things directly for use and not for sale. Socialism/communism. We can have socialism when we have a majority, so the sooner you join up………..
Ok so we are going “nationalise” the oil wells, mines, wind-farms, agricultural land , intellectual property rights etc. They will be in collective possession and an income stream will be obtained from them by renting them out?????
there is some stuff here on the corn theory of value; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theory_of_value
There is a lot of this kind of stuff scattered around volume 4. I suppose what is interesting in the quotes below is how far ahead the English were of the Germans in the labour theory of value! From ‘Our friend’ William Petty circa 1670. The first question is, what is the value of a commodity, or more particularly, of corn? “If a man can bring to London an ounce of Silver out of the Earth in Peru, in the same time that he can produce a Bushel of Corn, then one is the natural price of the other; now if by reason of new and more easie Mines a man can get two ounces of Silver as easily as formerly he did one, then Corn will be as cheap as ten shillings the Bushel, as it was before at five shillings caeteris paribus” (p. 31). “Let the production of a Bushel of […] Corn he supposed of equel labour to that of producing an ounce of Silver” (p. 66). This is, in the first place, the “real and not an imaginary way of computing the prices of Commodities” (p. 66). b) The second point, which has now to be examined, is the value of labour. “The Law… should allow the Labourer but just wherewithal to live; for if you allow double, then he works but half so much as he could have done, and otherwise would; which is a loss to the Publick of the fruit of so much labour” (p. 64).The value of labour is therefore determined by the necessary means of subsistence. The labourer is impelled to surplus production and surplus-labour only by being forced to use the whole of the labour-power within his capacity in order to get even as much as be just needs to live. However, the cheapness or dearness of his labour is determined by two factors: natural fertility and the standard of expenditure (needs) conditioned by the climate. “Natural dearness and cheapness depends upon the few or more hands requisite to necessaries of Nature: As Corn is cheaper where one man produces Corn for ten, than where he can do the like but for six; and withal, according as the Climate disposes men to a necessity of spending more or less” (p. 67). And even Hobbes; doesn’t sound like much but this is Marxist theory touchstone. Labour power: “The value, or worth of a man, is as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power” (l.c., p. 76). “A man’s labour” (that is, the use of his labouring power) “also, is a commodity exchangeable for benefit, as well as any other thing” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add1.htm
Hi Eugene, Thank you for Sylvia Pankhurst's and Marx's son-in-law's confirmation of natural abundance that Shaw proves.The GRBe system is not a proposal but a tested computer operating system. The GRBe Currency System below is the abstract.Everyone owns 1 share in the GRB, the shareholders’ value the earth’s abundant wealth of natural resources at 6 quadrillion (q) GRBe. The GRB converts US$ assets to GRBe. The GRBe reserve supplies shareholder accounts with e50 per day for 20 years. The GRB invests e1.5q in ecosystems and e250 trillion (t) in the GRB network (GRBnet). The GRBe income account earns ecos from an ecosystem impact charge on shareholder and commercial accounts and balances ecos with the GRB reserve to maintain equilibrium. Two percent of GRBe income maintains the GRBnet and e50 per day supports GRB shareholders for life. Shareholders invest 5% of their GRBe income in ecosystems. The shareholder value of natural resources and GRBe percentages adjust to shareholder feedback. After 1 year of inactivity GRB accounts revert to the reserve. The majority chooses the GRBe system manager. I am working on finding a programer that can duplicate Aaron Lieberman's work in 2000 which was lost in a server transfer in 2007 so we can again demonstrate how simple the GRBe Operating System is. Basically, their are two directories of Shareholders and Commercial Accounts, plus the GRB reserve account (e1.7q), GRBnet account (e250t), GRB ecosystem account (e1.5q) and GRB income Account that are shown on the GRB balance sheet.GRB accounts are transparent except the Shareholder Accounts (only by choice) The GRBe system can be demonstated online using off the shelf software. I'm not a computer programmer.
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