I don't claim to speak for the core OSE team.

Thank you for your input, Matt and gonzo. Sorry for the long text below, but I get the impression I need to express my concern in a bit more detail.

I think, I understand what the GVCS is about. The mindset behind seems to be, to allow people or groups the access to technology which is right now out of reach for them because of their cost or artificial complexity.

I was intrigued by the concept, when I learned about it I believe 3 years ago, because I took it that way, that it is an offer to the broad public to allow to escape from today's industrial oligopols, to actually provide the means to build a village on low budgets. Low budgets means low debts or ideally no debt at all, and if the infrastructure of a village or a town can be build and provided for without any debt the people who own this infrastructure and the land its build upon are set free. Eventually, this would open up the possibility to go back to a subsistence economy without any need for money (read Tony Waters on this, as well as Bob Blain or J.W. Smith), which is the true alternative to a capitalistic economy (till today most people think the antagonist of capitalism is communism, what is totally wrong, since communism is capitalism just with a different governance and power structure). So, in the end, GVCS could be a tool to revolutionize society with breaking the power of the global plutocracy by taking away their means to control society: debt. I am wondering, if this is (part of) the motivation behind GVCS and OSE.

However, I think I start to realize, that GVCS is not at all about liberating people and society from the clutches of suppression and exploitation of many by few (see: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html). It seems to be more of a noble attempt to change technology and access to it than to change society. That the latter could happen, seems to be accepted as just, well, happen-stance.

It is obvious, that OSE needs money to do what it is aiming for. Our world is constructed that way now, you can't put ideas to reality anymore without money. And big ideas require lots of money. So to be successful, OSE needs to earn money with its services and products. That's okay, but that is also the point where it is endangered to get assimilated by the system, if there is not a strong believe system counterparting the sweet temptations of possible wealth.

That's the reason for my questions. Is Marcin and his team promoting a geniously operating marketing scheme to lure people into helping them to achieve industrial success, to become a global industrial tycoon replacing other (unflexible and outdated) global industrial tycoons with cheaper, less complex and probably even better alternatives to their machines? Or are they genuinly out to help man, to help society, in the first place?

The open source part of the concept indicates that they are driven by some truly altruistic motivations. But I now read about production capacity, 7-figure budgets or globalized simultanious engineering efforts. I see charts with directorates and hierarchies, I see job offers and visitation slots you need to pay for. This is probably the only way OSE can achieve its goals in today's money fueled and driven world, but could it be, that this was in fact the goal from the beginning? Is Marcin a spiritual guru, a capitalistic industrialist, or an altruistic savior?

Despite everything, I'm very interested in GVCS and will use it for my project to build a city for tenthousand people which will live in a subsistence economy without money (more about this later this year on this board, since this is open source as well). I'm only wondering, if I will be collaborating with someone dreaming of material wealth after all, or if OSE and its community could be a like-minded partner in this effort. It is fine when there is a statement, and the answers above seem to indicate such, that OSE is not altruistic at all and in the end meant to provide a means of income to people. I just would like to know, if there is more than that.

I do not fear money, I just despise the concept. It's superfluous, outdated and potentially disastrous. But that's another topic.

My confusion simply is about if money making is the goal of OSE or a (possibly reluctantly) accepted necessity? If it is the first, I will happily take advantage of the project and support it mostly via promoting it (what I'm doing for quite some time already), if it is the second, I'm willing to contribute much more substantially to the project.

Thank you Eli, that wiki-article points into the direction I am aiming (and I took the opportunity to improve its German translation). It describes what I understood OSE is aiming for when I learned about that some 2 years ago. I was a bit concerned, that this, let's say philosophical, foundation of OSE is in danger to go missing with the success and the growth of the project, especially when realizing the effects of timelines and deadlines, of budgets and personnel, of peer pressure and public demands on the people leading it. The devils kiss of power and riches is never far away, when a good idea succeeds.

Very interesting Wiki article. I have never read it before and it is very well written. It does make the process seem much more easy than it is though lol. Although I suppose that it the hook of the article!

As for the talk about money. It is neither good nor bad, as it is a tool to be used. The question lies in how well adapted it is to modern society. While it could be debated till we are old and grey, I feel that there are much better accounting systems out there that would make far greater use of the available resources.

Then try to carry potatoes or tomatoes around,
changing them for the goods you need. So you can check how "outdated"
the money are.
When you assume the existence of a private property state, of course money is necessary.  It's "outdated" because its tracking and allocation functions can be replaced by far superior systems.

Money can have a much less influence on people's lives
if the governments would just prevent speculation and encourage job
creation. In that case, everyone will get a job and will be able to buy
the things they need.
The danger is in monopoly, price fixing, corruption and crime, not in money.
No, capitalism is quite the danger itself.  Private property and its creation of mass redundancy, the price system and its inability to internalize ecological costs, the need for full employment and the impossibility to fulfill that condition without supoptimal economic performance.
Plus, monopolies are natural and highly efficient in capitalism.  "Corruption" is just a word for trade that regular people don't think should happen.  If a road to profit exists, it will be traveled.

And yes, communism is not the solution. One reason is because it is
based on money as every other form of regime being practiced for the
last 5,000 years.
Communism in practice could not possibly be based on money, because money requires the existence of private property.  I'm not sure how it manages resources, and can't find any literature on that very quickly.
What is needed is a political system which does not
rely on money, what in consequence demands an economic system which is
not based on money.
A moneyless society with a political system would at least have a binary class system.  We don't need a different type of politics, we need the elimination of politics.
 Actually, there is such an economic system,
practiced till today in some parts of the world: subsistence. Just
follow this idea, and at the end of the day you will realize that money
is in fact not necessary to house, feed or cloth people or to provide
them with necessary services.
We can go more advanced than that.  It's important to intelligently manage our resources, and to create a significant abundance of materials and energy in order to protect against shortages.
I have figured that the minimal amount of abundance you want to have is equal to the mass and energy that would be consumed in the time it takes to boost production back to adequate levels.  Knowing this requires high-resolution measurement of supply and demand (individually, and directly, as opposed to the conflated encoding of money) and population growth. 
In fact, the mere creation of an economic system without property, and subsequent uplifting of impoverished parts of the world, along with access to birth control, would cause a drop in population that would leave the next few generations with a high abundance from the existing large production scale.  Not only that, but without the redundancy of products created by private property, and using centralized access, much of the work in having an abundance of products is already done.
In
general, people who talk like you will try to implement a new system
(like replacing capitalism with communism) without addressing the most
basic issues of economy. And in the end, when their new system fails,
they call each other "jerks" and they resign that "it didn't work".
That's exactly what happened with the communism.
None of the "communist" societies actually eliminated private property or classism.

Not only should capitalism be replaced, it will be unable to continue past a certain level of technology.  This effect is already showing up, and is one cause of the huge inequality in income across the globe.  Plus, there's the whole, we only have ~15 years before capitalism fucks us over with runaway climate change from fossil fuel emissions...thing.

Again, money assumes the existence of private property, which,
1. Creates redundancy through each person owning their own copy of a thing.
2. Requires a huge, expensive, and oppressive maintenance system.
3. Externalizes or dividies ecological considerations when a person is deciding on an action.
4. Creates exclusionary access to resources, an implicit type of class division, which is antithetical to freedom.

And to reiterate, intelligent management of resources requires direct accounting and management of resources, which an irreversibly encoded tracking system is unable to accomplish.  In all currently implemented forms, there is basically no penalty for accruing increasing amounts of wealth, in fact it is rewarded by its ability to make additional wealth gain easier.

What purpose does speculation fulfill?  It is a deadlock on a subset of resources that provides stochastic protection against shortages.  We can create deterministic protection against shortages, without using any type of semaphore, so there should be no need for speculation, either.

Money does not require the existence of private property.
Money is traded.
You can make money property, what is obviously done all
over, but this tool can exist fine without a concept of private
property.
How?  Also, money is a terrible tracking/allocation system.
All communist regimes we had so far have banned private
property but used money just as any capitalistic system.
Actually, they had state property, which is simply a different kind of private entity.
An
anarchy does not have a binary class system by definition.
Nor does it have politics, because that would imply a state.
We can't eliminate politics,
since we can't eliminate the necessity to coordinate communities and
their needs, what is called politics.
Politics are based on opinions, while a real society should be run based on the scientific method.


I have no problem with the rest of the post.

@Ackhuman:
When you assume the existence of a private property state, of course money is necessary.
The clothes on you must be private property for example. You don't want someone else to take them off from you whenever they feel like. Your food is for you to eat, not for others to take it from you whenever they want. Your computer is yours - you can keep your work on it so you don't have to lose it whenever someone feels like taking away your computer. However, I believe that the government should rent houses/apartments to the people, replacing the need to own a house. That's the best way to prevent speculation in the real estate market, and that will prevent future economic crisis. Once they do that, the need of money will be greatly reduced and the people will depend much less on money. Because in that case, even if someone is stealing all your money savings, you don't lose your house. Therefore, the point is to reduce monopolies and speculation, not to eliminate the money.

Plus, monopolies are natural and highly efficient in capitalism.
Saying that, you just proved how efficient is the system that tricks you to believe that we live in capitalism. We do not live in true capitalism, because we don't have control of speculation. The US govt. is constantly forcing companies to pay penalties for price fixing. Like for example this:
LG Display, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges for participating in a liquid crystal display price-fixing conspiracy and pay $585 million in fines - http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10095219-92.html
Why do you think US govt split AT&T into smaller companies decades ago? Because they know that capitalism doesn't work with monopolies, speculation and price fixing.
BUT, they "forgot" to deal with the real estate price speculation. Because they wanted to create the economic crisis. They know very well that capitalism doesn't work with speculation but they just pretended they don't know such a basic fact. Because the best place to hide the truth is in everyone's eyesight.

"Corruption" is just a word for trade that regular people don't think should happen.  If a road to profit exists, it will be traveled.
Profit can be in houses, land, potatoes/tomatoes/apple, clothes, sex, vacations, travel, and many other forms of providing pleasure. The road can't be traveled when you have tough regulation in place and when the people are vigilant to make sure the rules are respected. The real problem is that the people are not vigilant because they want the system to fix everything for them. You have been tricked to think in the terms our politicians want us to think: "a new system (without money) can fix everything for the people". We are trained to think that democracy means only freedom of speach and freedom to vote, and all we have to do is to find a system that is fixing everything for us. By the contrary: democracy means freedom to associate in the first place. We are not living in true democracy because we don't bother to use the freedom to associate in order to fix community problems. Our problems exist mainly because of us, not because of the system. Because we don't bother to create democracy.

Communism in practice could not possibly be based on money, because money requires the existence of private property. I'm not sure how it manages resources, and can't find any literature on that very quickly.
You need to have private property (for example clothes) and you have to provide something in exchange for getting that. So you have to provide either other goods or a currency. Money are just the best currency - an instrument. Real communism is based on shared private property - the people own together the factories (=cooperatives) or they own their small patch of land and they can make their own food.

We don't need a different type of politics, we need the elimination of politics.
Exactly. But in order to eliminate politics, we have to engage into building solutions and cooperatives. And that's very hard to do because the people are brainwashed very efficiently. They wait for a new ideology/system/guru/politician to fix everything for them. They want to steal private property and transform it into cooperatives instead of simply build new cooperatives. It's not the new system or the new ideology that can fix everything for the people. It's the people who can fix everything for the people. It's as easy as that.

@Ackhuman:
Again, money assumes the existence of private property, which,
1. Creates redundancy through each person owning their own copy of a thing.
Wow! You want to share your clothes? Your TV? Your computer? Are you happy if anyone enters into your house and do anything whenever they want?

2. Requires a huge, expensive, and oppressive maintenance system.
Rubbish. The money are the best currency. Try to replace money with another currency - like for example tomatoes. Then you will see what "expensive" means. It's much more expensive to carry 2 tons of tomatoes instead of $500.

3. Externalizes or dividies ecological considerations when a person is deciding on an action.
You can use money in order to buy land and then you create your own food and things. Then you can sell your extra products for money. So you can use money without externalizing anything.

4. Creates exclusionary access to resources, an implicit type of class division, which is antithetical to freedom.
Imbalanced access to resources is created by speculation and corruption

And to reiterate, intelligent management of resources requires direct accounting and management of resources, which an irreversibly encoded tracking system is unable to accomplish.  In all currently implemented
forms, there is basically no penalty for accruing increasing amounts of wealth, in fact it is rewarded by its ability to make additional wealth gain easier.
The penalty must be for monopoly, price fixing and speculation. In that case, the people will be able to access the resources they need.

What purpose does speculation fulfill?  It is a deadlock on a subset of resources that provides stochastic protection against shortages.  We can create deterministic protection against shortages, without using any type of semaphore, so there should be no need for speculation, either.
There is no need for speculation. The problem is that the speculation is tolerated - by our politicians and by us.

Well, gonzo, you obviously fell victim to the more of 60 years of indoctrination, coercion and propaganda your parents and youself were subjected to after WW II. But let's start at the beginning.
LOL, that is the biggest nonsense you can say. Sadly, I am one of the very few (or maybe alone?) who understands that the capitalism doesn't work with speculation, price fixing and monopoly. I understand that the crisis and speculation in the real estate can be prevented by having public housing. If the government is not doing public housing, then the people like you and me can make an organization that can do the government's job. I am calling the people to create public housing and to put pressure on the government to do decent public housing. I am calling the people to ask Habitat for Humanity to implement solutions (rent houses instead of selling them). I am calling the people to build cooperatives, unlike all of the communist/socialist leaders who are calling the people to steal already existing private companies. I do understand that we do not live in real capitalism, but our leaders just want us to think that we live in capitalism - they label a slavery based society as "capitalist". Please, show me one person who thinks like me, and show me anyone who speaks like me in newspapers/radio/TV ! There are so many Nobel prize winners for economy who don't even understand that capitalism can't work with speculation. And then, who is indoctrinating me, if nobody speaks like me?
On the other hand, there are strong indications that you are indoctrinated since you talk exactly like those money-hating "gurus" (like for example the leader of The Venus Project).

Greed alone is useless. It needs something to manifest in. You can be as greedy as you want, you would not get any satisfaction from having double the tonnage of potatoes than your neighbor, when you can eat only so much. You can't even sell it, because there is no money which could act as an intermediate to change one useless surplus against the useless surplus of one other person.
LOL, you can trade potatoes for other goods and services. Monkeys trade fruits for sexual favors for example. In rural subsistence economies, people pay with food and raw material instead of money. You can trade surplus potatoes for someone else's surplus. Of course you won't trade the potatoes you need to eat, you only trade the surplus!!

Greed can only thrive because there is money to allow to benefit from it. If there would be no money, there is a hard time to live out greed. I do not say there will not be any greed at all without money. But it would be much, much more difficult to act on it, and what is left, is not as damaging to society as greed combined with money as its weapon and fuel.
Absolutely false. It's like you blame the gun instead of blaming the criminal. Money are better currency than potatoes and that's all. It's just a more efficient instrument. A criminal can kill with with a rock, with a club, or with a knife. But it's insane to blame the knife instead of blaming the criminal. Sure, the criminal can kill faster with a knife, because it's more efficient but a knife is just a tool.

How would you fix a price in potatoes when there is not thing as the ability to arbitrarily set a price?
Very easy. You ask 10 tomatoes for 1 potato, instead of asking 1 tomato for 1 potato. That's price fixing. If only you have the license to produce potatoes, you can fix their price as you will, without need of money.
Look what someone said on another thread:
(In Zambia) In the event the corn is taken to the cities for milling, they are returned to the rural communities at exorbitant prices. - http://forum.opensourceecology.org/discussion/796/why-dont-we-have-a-mill
The mills charge many times in corn/wheat instead of charging in money. So if you take 10 tons of wheat to the mill, and instead of charging you a decent price (let's say 100 kg), the mill owner will charge you 9 tons of wheat. Therefore for 10 tons of wheat, you get only 1 ton of wheat flour, when you should get 9.9 tons. That is price fixing. The mill owner can do that because he is connected with the government / police and no one else can get a license to make a mill in that area. That's how corruption works and that's how it generates monopoly, speculation and price fixing, driving the people poor. You don't have to involve money into that.

The price of potatoes should be determined by the time needed to produce it, store it, and bring it to the family eating it. This is not set, this is measured and not subject to some "fixing". Only money allows to set a price completely outside of effort and time needed to produce it.
Absolute nonsense. If only you are allowed to produce potatoes (the corrupt govt only gives you the license), you can fix it's price as you wish. You can ask 100 kg of wheat for 1 kg a potato, instead of 1 kg of wheat for 1 kg of potato. So the price doesn't only depend of the time and effort to make it.

Without money, that would not be possible. With money, those in the power to fix prices are in the power to accumulate wealth.
False, I proved it above. Without money, those in power can accumulate wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. and then they can trade it for land/work/whatever.

Without money, you reiterate facts which are set by physical law and are not object to manipulation.
There are lots of people manipulated with religion and that doesn't depend on money, to give just a single example. The corrupt government can give a lincense only to you, and then you can manipulate the people with it. That's how monopoly works, and it doesn't depend on money.

Yes, corruption is done with other means of payment besides money as well. But this does not free money from being the main agent for corruption. Without money, the most potent and most widely used means of corruption would simply vanish. Corruption would still take place (in case the removal of money would be the only change of society out of the necessary four), but much less frequent.
Wrong. Money are the most efficient tool for trading. But it's the organized crime that is guilty for corruption, not the money. And it's the people like you who just complain about the system and do nothing or almost nothing to implement solutions who are even more guilty for allowing organized crime to thrive. Blame the criminal, not it's gun.

Yes again, crime is done for other reasons but money as well. But simply look up what crimes are done today, and for what reasons they are done. You will find that more then 90% of all crimes are done with getting money as its final motivation.
If you eliminate money, then trading will be much more difficult. It will be very expensive for you to send 10 tons of potatoes to Samsung in South Korea in order to get a new smartphone.
Technology can't be developed fast enough without an efficient currency. We would have to return to a very primitive life. And that would not prevent crime. You can ban knifes but that won't stop the people to kill. The same with money.

gonzo, simply avoiding the red pill will not make the problem go away.
That's exactly what I have to tell you. Just banning a tool that can be used to hurt people won't make the crime to go away. Treating the effect of an illness won't cure it. You have to go to the cause, to the root of the illness and to treat it. Have you seen anyone calling others to ask the government to prevent speculation? Have you seen anyone calling the people to ask Habitat for Humanity to implement solutions instead of wasting money? Replacing a system with another system won't fix problems. It's only the people who can implement the solutions, not a system or an ideology. Unfortunately, almost no one want to even talk about solutions, they just want another system to fix everything for them.

It is true, money makes a lot of things easier, but it is simply catastrophically destructive in the end, as we all can see today, where the end comes into sight. Besides religion, there is nothing in history of man which has brought more unjustice, death and sorrow to man than money. If there would be no money, there would be no reason or motivation at all for much of the evil billions of people are suffering from in the past and this very day.
This is a wonderfull example of a primitive and fundamentalist thinking promoted by people like Jacque Fresco. In the rural area of the poor countries people are exploited without even using money. And they are the majority in the poor countries. They simply can't get a license to make basic tools and they have to pay too much of their food for buying the tools they need. Because their corrupt governments maintain monopolies and price fixing.

Why do you think slavery, crime and human exploitation existed before money?
That one is easy. It is because you do not need money to enslave people, but physical power. Money only adds motivation to slavery, because it makes it much easier to make a commodity of man. The same is true for crime. Crime means to violate rules. Nothing more, nothing less. Again, with money you have additional motivation to commit crimes, since it is an easy way to come to money. Without money, most acts of crime do not make any sense at all anymore, because you won't profit from it. What would be the profit for the drug dealer, when he can't get money for his goods, because there is no such thing as money? Sex? Well, the day has only 24 hours .... Human exploitation is as old as humans are: The strong demands things from the weak under threat of dire consequences if they do not follow. That was done long, long before the concept of money was thought of.
The drug dealer can get wheat instead of money, and then he can pay with wheat the workers who make him a bigger house, they can pay in wheat the raw materials, the cars, the TV's and so on.

--------

What you wrote about cooperations as part of the solution is completely correct. And - if our civilization would be based on cooperation instead of profit, we would actually not have any need for money anymore, since we would cooperate to fulfill needs, not to trade to generate profits.
Yes we should but no one would. That's the sad reality. Check the Occupy Wall Street forum for example. They only call for stealing existing private companies, instead of calling the people to build cooperatives. Nobody wants to talk about building communism. They just want a new system to fix everything for them!
I so much wish to be wrong and people talking about building solutions to exist, but sadly I am not wrong!

--------

The swords and polearms of the robber barons have been replaced by lawyers, judges and their textbooks. This, however, does not make it anymore right. What is different in today's time is the fact, that the have-nots have no chance anymore to escape, because the whole world is now property of someone.
Nonsense. The have-nots can start to work together, they can start even with non-lucrative activities (like cleaning the street) in order to learn to work in a team. Then they can move to profit-generating activities. They can at least accept donations for starting cooperatives! Have you seen the recent Kickstarter project Ouya gaming console? They got $7 million in no time, without the need of having their own money. The have-nots don't need money, they need to start working together and they need to accept donations for that. But they can't even be bothered with that! They want the benefits of democracy without creating those benefits! They just want a slave government to give them all the benefits!

If you are one of the vast majority of the world's population of today who have virtually nothing, you have no chance at all to acquire something without the consent of those who possess already.
But at least you can talk about building solutions. And you can start some activities. And you can accept donations.
Look for example I was calling the people to build solutions and cooperatives and I got only two comments:
How to create democratically run workplaces and communities - http://occupywallst.org/forum/how-to-create-democratically-run-workplaces-and-co/
Activists around the world, unite! - http://occupywallst.org/forum/activists-around-the-world-unite/
The problem is much deeper than just politics. The problem is also in us. - http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-problem-is-much-deeper-than-just-politics-the-/

Or check my comments (gonzo1) at this OWS post where I ask the original poster to call the people to build cooperatives instead of calling to steal the private companies. But of course he can't be bothered with building. He is focused on fighting and stealing private companies, like all the other socialist/communist leaders: http://occupywallst.org/forum/capitalism-exploitation-and-involuntary-agreements/

Absolute nonsense. Monopolies are fueled by greed.
Which is caused by covetry for money, which is essential to survival in our current societal paradigm.
Money are just a currency. People used currency way before money.
See for yourself:
"Originally money was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia, then Ancient Egypt." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency

Any system which is based on self-maximization through the trade of privatized resources will be more or less identical to the current system, or quickly approach a similar state.
See? This is the kind of nonsense the "gurus" are pouring. Absolutist statements like "any system which .. will be identical". Apply some critical thinking, and then you will see such statements are rubbish. There is no decent proof or indication to sustain such statements.

Corruption is done for other goods also: products and services
Yes, privatized products and services.
Umm.. privatized products like food for example? In primitive societies people make too many children without thinking if they will have enough food for them. And when they are too many, they kill each other for food or water.

Crime is done for many many other reasons: sex, jealousy, boredrom, religious fanaticism, etc..
But the vast majority of it is for money or because of socioeconomic inequality.  Even "religious" wars were really over property.  "Religious" conflict like in the Middle East is over property.  
Money are just a currency. Replace money with another currency and the people will still commit crime in order to get the new currency. Even if you replace money with data in computer memory, they will still do crime in order to rewrite those computer memories.

Jealousy is covetry, which only happens when you consider something "yours".
And what is your point? Are you going to try to program the way all the people feel sexual attraction?

Well, you see, that's exactly what is missing - cooperation. Check for example the Occupy Wall Street movement - they want to steal the already existing private property in order to transform it into cooperatives.
Well, where are they supposed to build cooperatives?  All land in the United States is owned already.  With what materials are they supposed to build the cooperatives?  Occupiers are generally there because they've been screwed by society into poverty.
Yet some people could start OSE, others started Ouya, etc!
Other people started cooperatives too, so they also can. They can accept donations, I already told you. Those who have jobs can save some money to start the cooperative. They can start even with non-lucrative activities, to learn to work in a team.

You will never see any communist / socialist leader who calls the people to build cooperatives.
You will never see a communist leader because communism is a stateless, classless society which precludes the possibility of leaders.
Someone has to show the people how to build communism. You can call them "leaders", or "speakers" if you like.
But anyways, let me rephrase it: You will never see any communist / socialist speaker who calls the people to build cooperatives.

Money are not dangerous. Greed and the will to be above, to enslave others is dangerous. Slavery existed way before money.
Greed is caused by:
1. Fear for survival: Today survival is not an issue in terms of resources and technological development; It is only those who lack property that are unable to survive, and those that own far and above what they actually need do not help those that need it.
There are poor people in Africa (Zimbabwe I think) who got their own land and they ruined it. It's not only about lack of property, that's also about lack of knowledge and minimum intelligence. On top of that, it's also those who can't get license to create/provide basic products and services. In Papua New Guinea the people are not using money yet they even eat each other! And they don't need to do that in order to survive..

2. Operant conditioning: The members of society which are most rewarded are those that are the greediest.
Wrong. Poor people are also greedy. I am living between poor people and I have seen many. They just don't have the right connections in order to manifest their greed.

Why do you think slavery, crime and human exploitation existed before money?
Please provide one or more sources that show:
1. At what point slavery was invented
Slavery exists even in the animal world - see for example ants who enslave other species of ants. So it was invented millions of years ago. In the human communities, it definitely existed way before money. Tribes went to fight and enslaved other tribes, way before money existed. Many native Americans populations were not using money yet they had crime and slavery.

2. At what point crime was invented, and how it could exist without codified law, which followed the invention of money
Wow! So you suggest that stealing/murder committed before codified laws existed were not crimes? That's a tough one!
Crime and stealing exists in all the animal world. It exists in the human communities since forever. Doesn't matter if it was codified in law or not. Those cannibals in Papua New Guinea are committing crime when they kill other people to eat them, it doesn't matter if they have codified law or not, that's still crime.

3. At what point money was invented
The history of money begins around 3500 years ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money

4. That all these things preceded the invention of enclosure.
Sure. And what does that prove?

I do understand that we do not live in real capitalism, but our leaders just want us to think that we live in capitalism - they label a slavery based society as "capitalist".
1. What makes this capitalism not "real"?
Our system is not capitalist because it doesn't control speculation as it should. Germany had no real estate speculation and they had no crisis. It's as simple as that. The US government is very aggressive against speculation, EXCEPT real estate speculation. Because they wanted to create the crisis. You can call the system as you like, but it's not real capitalism. A simple label can't change reality.

2. How did we get from "real" capitalism to "fake" capitalism, and how would we prevent subsequent fixes from reverting back to this version of capitalism?
It never was real capitalism, it was just a better capitalism. The process is very easy: The governments encouraged speculation (price inflation) and our (US, UK, France, Spain etc.) economic systems choked. In Germany they have good public housing, and that prevented a real estate bubble (price inflation, which equals speculation). Why would you pay a fortune for a house if you can rent one for a decent price? To prevent reverting back to current slavery-based system we just have to prevent speculation. We have to eradicate all price fixing, not only the electronics price fixing. We need tough regulations against speculation. How can you survive if a monopoly or a cartel will inflate tomorrow the prices of food for 100 times? If you look back in the history, even hundreds of years ago, in some societies there were tough penalties for food price speculation.
Yes, Germany have real capitalism (or very close to real capitalism) - which is reenforced by public housing (which in turn can be seen by some as a "socialist" or "communist" feature). That's why I said that capitalism and communism are very similar when they are "real". Of course, fake capitalism is very different than fake communism. But the real capitalism is very similar with the real communism.

3. How could capitalism not be slavery-based, when it requires private ownership of the means of production, and compulsory, full employment of every member of society, wherein their very survival is contingent on them working for the rest of their lives (except, of course, those who own the means of production)?
It can be slavery free of course. You said there a lot of things that are not true. In US there are lots of cooperatives. So the people can create their own means of production. The people retire at 67 in US, so they don't have to work for all the rest of their lives. Fight monopolies and price fixing and that will create real economic opportunities for everyone.
The people can create cooperatives quite easy - I explained in the previous post how. Also, if the government can't handle the unemployed, at least it can give them land so they (the poor) can make their own food. The government can nationalize land or it can buy it at a determined (i.e.: decent) price. The government can make companies that create food, clothes, houses and can employ people in those companies. If the govt. doesn't have money, then at least it can give to the people a share of the result of their work. The govt. has police/secret service/prosecutors to check those companies and to make sure they are free of corruption. The US government is paying a lot of unemployed people right now - have you ever wondered why it's not asking those people to do some work in return for that help? It's because the US government WANTS an economic crisis. It will last for a few more years, until United States of Europe (USE) will be created. People of Europe have to be very scared in order to accept USE creation. And US is helping to create that scare - that's all with the economic crisis.
You just have to throw away your belief that "money" and "property" are the root of evil for 10 minutes if you truly want to see reality.

There are so many Nobel prize winners for economy who don't even understand that capitalism can't work with speculation.
Capitalism can't work without speculation, either.
That is BS! And you talk about indoctrination!
Cartels and monopolies are created in order to speculate the prices (to inflate prices) of basic commodities. Capitalism is choked and can't function when you have price fixing.

Because of its basis on the private property paradigm,
Private property has nothing to do with price fixing. If you want the system to work, you have to prevent price fixing - either in a capitalist or a communist economy. A group of cooperatives can also create cartels, monopolies ant can fix the prices. It's not about capitalism/communism but it's about regulation. Speculation should not be tolerated.

it has no built-in mechanism to ensure ecological considerations are made part of cost calculations, or that if they are, they are according to global impact rather than private impact.  In other words, capitalism cannot exist without negative externalities.  Whether or not there was speculation on fossil fuels, there is still $20 trillion worth of fossil fuels that must stay in the ground in order for the planet to remain healthy.
Yet it's the first world capitalist states who are making the biggest efforts for using green energy :)
So you are wrong in your logic somehow, isn't it?

Absolutely false. It's like you blame the gun instead of blaming the criminal.
It's like you blame the criminal, instead of blaming the violent, traumatic event that caused the criminal to commit violence.
Then you have an excuse for anything. Sure, people who suffered trauma must be treated and cured. And above all, trauma must be prevented. And the best way to prevent it is to make sure the economy works and there are enough resources to take care of those in need.
But you can't ask for the criminals to be left free to damage others as much as they please, because "it's not their fault", that would be insane. They must be handled: prisons, hospitals, etc.

Money are better currency than potatoes and that's all. It's just a more efficient instrument.
Money is fundamentally different from barter in its effects:
1. Accretion of products requires increasing amounts of storage and management infrastructure
That's why money are a more efficient currency.

2. Accretion of products provides diminishing returns, because products are not universally coveted, and never in a magnitude approaching that of currency
That's why money are a cheaper and more efficient currency :)

3. Accretion of a product does not increase your ability to acquire more of that product, without lots of external inputs (e.g. getting potato seeds, trading land for potatoes, trading farming equipment for potatoes, trading storage for potatoes)
That's why money are a cheaper and more efficient currency :)

4. Products, especially food, can only be traded at certain times, and only for a short period before they go bad.
That's why we use money instead of potatoes :) Someone was thinking about all those above before, isn't it?

5. Again, because a given product is not universally coveted, owning the majority of that product will not necessarily increase its value.  If you possess most of the moeny in circulation, it will be far more valuable to everyone else.
Exactly. And a big cooperative needs to trade big values with other entities. That's why a big tomato-producing cooperative needs money instead of potatoes when they sell their tomatoes.
If you ban money, then trade will be extremely expensive and hard to do - you proved with the above true statements.
Sure, it will be slightly more difficult for a warlord in Africa to buy a BMW but not something he can't handle. But then it will be almost impossible for an average African to buy a computer or an internet connection.
Less technology and information will lead to more isolation, which in turn only encourages the rise of corruption, crime and warlords in remote areas.

Funny, it seems that there are lots of things called "companies" which are large groups of people cooperating for a common goal.
We don't need to be slaves of corporations. We need to make cooperatives. There is quite a lot of difference.

Then there's also this website you are posting on, where people are cooperating to develop industrial technologies
And they are so very few..

which they very cooperatively provide instructions for anyone else to build.
That's not enough. There are people here who try to convince others that they have to buy an entire workshop if they want an open source washing machine. I dont want to spend $20,000 to make my own workshop, I just want to buy a $300 (or something like that) open source machine and when I need a component, I want to be able to buy it. So if OSE will deliver only designs then it will be a failure. OSE has to provide (sell) machines and parts so that the people can get used to using open source technology. For the moment I'm not even sure if OSE will implement the full solution.

And however, OSE is just a small fragment of the solution. But we have to talk about all solutions. I can't do everything but I can participate in 10-20 projects like OSE, with my money, time, energy, ideas, suggestions and so on.

Oh, but Occupy Wall Street.  Right.
Yes, if they want communism, why they don't build it?

That does not require the existence of private property.  Why would someone take off my clothes whenever they feel like?  If they had access to the clothing they need, they wouldn't.
Your clothes are yours, so it's private property. In order for the people to have their own things they need, we must have a corruption-free society, not a money-free society.

However, I believe that the government should rent houses/apartments to the people, replacing the need to own a house.
Oh, but then people would just take your house whenever they feel like it.
No, because they can't take something from a functional government whenever they feel like it. If the government is renting houses, it doesn't mean it has to ban all the private property - it will just create a healthy alternative and positive balance to the private market.
The solution is not on having or not having the private property. But the solution is into having good regulations and to enforce them. Nobody should be allowed to enter your house (private or rented) uninvited.

Capitalism is defined as a system in which resources are allocated privately to individual agents based on the market system.  By definition, we live in capitalism.  Your particular definition of captalism is not "true" capitalism just because you think that it works better that way.  Capitalism is a well-defined concept, the criteria of which are met by our current social paradigm.
I am talking about functional capitalism. Only a functional capitalism can be real. The way the capitalism was defined is not perfect. It must be adjusted to fit the needs of the society. But yes, I have seen people who struggle to keep the capitalism dysfunctional just because they want to preserve the "purity" of capitalism (applying it as it was defined in a poorly thought manner). The very definition of capitalism has to evolve because it's not perfect in the first place. We have to adjust the capitalism to make it functional, we don't have to make the people suffer just for preserving the "purity" of it's (idiotic) definition.
And a definition of capitalism that doesn't include control of price fixing is of course, incomplete, dysfunctional, and therefore idiotic.

LG Display, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges for participating in a liquid crystal display price-fixing conspiracy and pay $585 million in fines - http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10095219-92.html
That's a cartel, not a monopoly.
Cartels and monopolies have the same goals: price fixing (speculation).

How do you propose to prevent the formation of cartels?
Exactly like with measures like the one quoted above. The goal is not only to prevent cartels, but also to prevent speculation and price fixing, no mater who is doing it. On the real estate market, the price fixing is created by a large group of the population at the expese of the rest. Public housing can prevent such bubbles. Check Germany and Austria for example. Their unemployement diminished after the crisis started. And yes, they have good public housing, and houses are very cheap there, comparing to other countries!
Unemployment rate in Europe (2002-2011): - http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?wai=true&dataset=une_rt_a

There are many penalties the big companies payed for inflating prices along the history:
Microsoft twice abusing a dominant position..
In May 2004, a class-action lawsuit accused Microsoft of overcharging customers in the state of California. The company settled the case for $1.1 billion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation
also check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Largest_Pharmaceutical_Settlements
 
So, there are many ways to fight and prevent price fixing.
 
You mean like how there's tough regulations against organized crime, fraud, negligence, pollution, and other forms of socially irresponsible economic activity that happen all the time?
Eliminating money and property won't eliminate such corruption.  People will still enslave others, they will still have property, while on paper everything will look ok. The police, prosecutors, judges will close their eyes exactly the way they do now.

Really, how can you believe in such a charlatan who is teaching you that eliminating property will transform people into angels?

I do share my clothes, TV, and computer.
You know that's not what I meant. It's your computer (private property) so you decide if you want to share it, no one else. I can't believe you can be happy if someone else uses your computer whenever they feel like, in the name of banning private property.

Do you think people are just constantly trying to enter my house, and the only thing stopping them is that I own the house? That's not how reality works.
If it's not yours, then it's someone else property, therefore someone owns it. And that entity has exclusive rights, and can delegate the using rights to you.
But in a society where nobody owns anything, random people can enter into the house where you live.

I'm talking about private property, not money.  Private property requires a huge system of maintenance and control, like legal codes, court systems, police, prisons, banks, guards, fences, gates, alarms, lights, sensors, cameras, weapons, storage facilities, keys, and identities.  All of these cost probably as much, if not more, than the value of the things they are supposed to be protecting.
Money are the cheapest currency, and we started to talk about money in the first place. But ok, let's switch to private property:
You need all those things legal codes, court systems, lights, etc. in any society. "Communists" also promised a life like in heaven like the one you are picturing but they also failed. Because a new system won't change people into angels. Corruption and crime still exists, with or without property. Because the people want privilege even before property. And you won't re-program the people by eliminating money and property. But you can educate them in a functional society.

Okay, so you don't even know what an externality is.  Go read what externalities are before you try to argue with me about it.
We were arguing about money, not about externalities :)
And using a fuzzy language like "Externalizes or divides ecological considerations" doesn't help you to be more convincing, just more unintelligible.
If your point is that money hurt ecology, then yes, you are wrong. It's the people's desire for privilege that hurts ecology.

Imbalanced access to resources is created by speculation and corruption.
No, they're not.  The first piece of land that was enclosed (made from commons into private property) created the very first imbalance of access to resources.  One person had exclusive access to that piece of land, while everyone else had no access to it.  Speculation did not exist for thousands of years afterward.
In the beginning there was plenty of land and without speculation, the prices of land were decent, so the property was not the real problem. However in the Middle Ages, the majority had no right to own land, first of all (Serfdom). It was a small elite enslaving the vast majority. It was the desire of power and privilege that made them to enslave others. Property is just a tool for them to satisfy the desire of power and privilege. Find a more efficient tool for them to satisfy their goals and they will forget about private property and will use the new tool.
However, the government should rent land to the people, not sell it. Everyone should be able to rent land from the government if they want. A patch of land big enough to produce enough food but not bigger than that. If they want more land, then they should buy from the free market. That would also prevent speculation and market bubbles. But that doesn't mean private property should be eliminated.

As for "corruption", define "corruption" and explain the differences between corruption and normal acquisition of private resources.
Ok I will do it but you will also have to answer my questions and define therms I am asking you to define.
Corruption has many forms. For example the you convince the people in the government to give only to you the license to have a mill. Then you can fix the prices. For milling 10 tons of wheat you charge 9 tons instead of 0.5 tons. So you have monopoly and fix the price. The government officials are corrupt and you share the wheat with them. This is one of the most common form of corruption. That's how price of rice is bigger in Philipines than in Denmark. And Philippines is exporting rice to Denmark.
Now, normal acquisition of private resources implies the government is not corrupt, and they give mill license to others who want it. Then you have competition. Then you have to give a fair price for milling. Then you get only 0.5 tons of wheat for milling 10 tons, and that is "normal". The price you charge is determined by the amount of work and energy spent for the service you provide. That's how it works in a healthy economy, free of corruption and free of speculation.

The penalty must be for monopoly, price fixing and speculation.
1. There are natural mon-/olig-opolies that will exist whether or not you "penalize" them.
Yes, but in a better economic environment, they have to charge a fair price, they pay penalties for abusing dominant position for price fixing and for making cartels, and also they have to give money back to the people they overcharged. So, in a real, functional capitalism, they can't hurt people, because the government won't let them hurt the people.
Cooperatives can also fix the prices and create cartels. Therefore the solution comes not from the ideology (communism/capitalism) but the solution comes from good regulations and from enforcing the rules.

2. Penalties do not prevent entirely a behavior from being exhibited.
Penalties can be big enough so the monopoly won't play with fire again. The penalty can be in returning money to clients. The company can be split (see AT&T case) or it can even be dissolved if that's necessary. With a functional government, the monopolies can't hurt the people.

3. You are entirely ignoring my point about the fact that wealth accretion is always rewarded in increasing amounts, in order to continue rambling about the same shit you've already repeated dozens of times.
LOL look who is talking! It's you that repeat the same nonsense blaming the gun instead of the criminal! You don't need to eliminate money and property in order to give to the people a better education and to reduce criminality. Criminality in New Zealand (capitalist) is much lower than say Venezuela (communist), and it has nothing to do with existence of money or property.
Wealth accretion is always rewarded in increasing amounts because privilege and hidden property is always rewarded in increasing amounts. If the system is eliminating property, it doesn't mean the property won't exist anymore. Some people will still have hidden property and they will use it to bribe others who also want hidden property.

There is no need for speculation.
No shit, that's what I wrote in that thing you are supposedly responding to.
You are indoctrinated that capitalism can't exist without speculation. Look what you said above: "Capitalism can't work without speculation, either."
You must "prove" somehow that capitalism is evil so you insist suggesting that capitalism can't exist without speculation. My answer was that capitalism doesn't need speculation, and also we don't need speculation at all, in any kind of society, either communist or capitalist. By the contrary, capitalism can't function while speculation exists.

Dude, seriously, you are not having a discussion here.  All you're doing is reiterating one point, which you have not really supported with any reasoning or evidence, and then acting like we're all a bunch of twits for not agreeing (not even disagreeing) with you.  I would like to maintain civility on this forum, but f___ __u.
No worries, I was quite tough in my last post so it's no problem.
I was giving lots of indications and evidence, reality facts, links, reality described by someone in Africa, etc.
It's not my fault that you believe in a charlatan and that you want to believe in a miraculous solution (money are evil so we eliminate money and then all problems are gone).

If Jacque Fresco is an honest man, then why he doesn't even have a web forum? Why he doesn't care about people's ideas, suggestions and questions?
He can't answer to all questions but at least he can answer to the most popular questions. He should answer questions in a public space, so everyone can see the answers.
People might have good suggestions and they might find each other to start activities.

Because he is just like Osho, Muktananda, Babaji & co: a guru who wants followers.

I am your friend and the guru is the enemy of your mind. The guru is not answering to your questions and he is not interested to debate with you. But I am.

We are talking about speculation in the dimension which threatens our economy, environment and civilisation, not small scale local barter. For this speculation you need money as the tool to allow for it. You surely know that nearly 99% of speculation is done via computers shifting Dollars around, not via real world goods? How do you want to do that without money?
You don't need to eliminate money in order to eliminate speculation. The government can simply prevent speculation. I proved it above. And anyways, the speculation that created the economic crisis was not done with computers shifting money around. It was done by allowing real estate speculation. Germany and Austria had no real estate speculation and they had no crisis. The speculation with the basic necessities of life (water, food, house, etc) hurts the most.

Absolutely true. But that is just crime. As soon as someone else builds a second mill, this won't work anymore.
That's crime in the form of price fixing. Doesn't matter if it's encoded by law, it's still a crime.
But I was talking about corruption there, not just crime: The government decides to give license only to you and then no one else can make a second mill. That's how monopoly is maintained by corrupt governments. And it doesn't have to involve money.

If a society is governed by fist law, any common sense is gone, and you can even organize price fixing based on wheat.
Most of the poor countries are governed by fist law: African countries, Belarus (dictator Lukashenko), Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, etc etc etc. They will be corrupt with or without money. So there is no miraculous / mystical solution like Jacques Fresco wants you to believe.

Money is not the reason for any and all of today's crimes, and never was. But for the vast majority of it.
I guess you believe the same thing about private property, right?
Most of the domestic violence is done by men who get drunk.
Do you really believe that Russia had less domestic violence when they were "communist" and had no private property? Do you really believe that men getting drunk has anything to do with private property or with money? You can't be so naive. It's only about alcohol and education.

Just because there still will be rape without any money involved is no reason to take away the reason for 80% or 90% of all other crimes: Substituting for missing money, or trying to acquire more money.
Criminals need money and private property in order to get privilege. If the government eliminates them both, then the people will still desire privilege and they will acquire private property that they will hide (hidden private property). With enough corruption, the criminal groups will get as much privilege and hidden property as they like, while on paper it will look like they have no property or privilege. In the "communist" countries, there was a lot of corruption and poverty. The government was educating the people that property is bad, but with no effect. Jacques Fresco's society will be the same: people will be educated that the property is bad, but they will do their best to get privilege and property. Children are not only educated by the community, but also by their parents, who love privilege.

You can't imagine something replacing the concept of money, you are as convinced that money is the holy grail as creationists are convinced that their god has put dinosaur bones into the earth just for a laugh.
Wrong. I have no real problem to live without money. I just understand that eliminating money/property won't solve anything. On the other hand, you want to believe that there is a miraculous solution, and you want to believe that blaming the gun instead of the criminal will solve anything. The solution is not a new ideology or a new system, but the solution is in the people who must make sure the abuses will not be tolerated.

Obviously, you think the drug dealer who has just pocketed 100 bucks from the kid would just happily accept 200 pounds of potatoes instead, right ... Of course, he has that big secret storage facility outside of town with all the tonnage of potatoes, tomatoes and baseball caps, from which he sends 80% of it every week to the drug baron in Florida, who again owns a giant fleet of ships travelling from the US to Colombia bringing all that food to cartels over there as payment for their products.
No. But he will search for the most efficient currency, like for example diamonds or gold. They will trade it illegally.

And the Colombians of course pay the local Mercedes dealer with a few tons of now 2 months old tomatoes and very ripe potatoes for his new car.
No, they will pay with gold. Or if the Germans want wheat, they will pay in wheat. Or even with fresh potatoes/tomatoes.

Or see that investment banker who gets his annual bonus of 25 tons of apples for his succesful operations like this one today, where he moves some 125 shiploads of wheat from Chicago to London and 10 seconds later that same load from London to Hongkong and another minute later from Hongkong to Rotterdam, all for a whopping profit of 25,000 pumpkins! I see, you have thought it all through ...
As criminals do, they will do their best to find the best currency: precious metals, jewelry, even drugs, etc. And the criminals are extremely inventive by the way! Or they will use the currency of the last country that has money. They will always find a solution to trade what they are stealing.

Well, if you want that all these things are supported, just stick with money. Take the money out of it, than try to find a way how to make screwing over everybody and raising giant profits not only possible, but feasible.
Criminals have are much more resourceful than you or me into inventing ways to trade stolen goods. Germany is using money and their criminality is lower than US, and they had no crisis. So you must be blind not to see that it's not about money. They just have better prevention of speculation and that's all. They will even create their own country with it's own money or an "underground" country or they will make their own money from precious metal. They are inventive beyond limits!

When you start to realize that money is the main reason to make a lot of injustice and suffering in today's time possible and feasible, you may begin to think how we could serve the trading needs of our civilisation with something different then money.
I am never going to realize that because I don't plan to believe in a guru who promotes a miraculous solution.

You are much better than Jacques Fresco because, unlike him, you answer to questions and you do debate ideas.
But he doesn't want to answer the questions in a (archived) public space, like a web forum, blog, or web site. He doesn't want to talk with you. He just wants you to listen and follow him.
Ya mon, fallaw da leader, fallaw da leader leader..

TVP should have started projects like OSE since years ago - OSE is a step forward towards a resource based economy. But they don't. Because they just spread the philosophy of their guru and nothing else.

I agree that we have to live in a resource based economy. But that has nothing to do with the mystic solution of eliminating money or property. The solution is for the government to offer access to resources to everyone. The government should rent land and houses to the people. Then the speculation can't even affect the people. You won't be affected by speculation of luxury watches or paintings of Rembrandt since you don't need those things in order to survive and to live decent.

Can I ask you a few questions:
Do you agree that the economic crisis was created by the housing market bubble?
Do you agree that price fixing and speculation can be prevented?
Do you understand that good public housing can prevent a housing market bubble? People won't be affected by increasing house prices if they can rent a house from the government at a decent price.
Do you understand that the government can rent land to the people at very cheap or even for free, so the unemployed and the poor can make their own food?
Do you understand that the government can make state-owned companies that give work to the unemployed people? The Norway government has a lot of such companies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-owned_corporation#Summary

thanks

tip: before adding the text to the form, copy it into a Notepad window and then copy it from there in the form here. Then it won't break the lines into those ugly columns

Oh, and by the way, I am really glad that we could agree at least on some things.

"Obviously, you think the drug dealer who has just pocketed 100 bucks
from the kid would just happily accept 200 pounds of potatoes instead,
right ... Of course, he has that big secret storage facility outside of
town with all the tonnage of potatoes, tomatoes and baseball caps, from
which he sends 80% of it every week to the drug baron in Florida, who
again owns a giant fleet of ships travelling from the US to Colombia
bringing all that food to cartels over there as payment for their
products. And the Colombians of course pay the local Mercedes dealer
with a few tons of now 2 months old tomatoes and very ripe potatoes for
his new car. But wait, the Colombians are not dumb! They don't want the
potatoes, they want the Mercedes! So the Floridian drug baron brings the
potatoes and tomatos to the Miami Mercedes dealer and buys the car with
that and sends the car to Colombia, reducing the tonnage of produce
slightly. Or see that investment banker who gets his annual bonus of 25
tons of apples for his succesful operations like this one today, where
he moves some 125 shiploads of wheat from Chicago to London and 10
seconds later that same load from London to Hongkong and another minute
later from Hongkong to Rotterdam, all for a whopping profit of 25,000
pumpkins! I see, you have thought it all through ..."


This is probably the funniest thing I have read all week.  Thank you, Rabert.

The fact that you continually use the phrase "ban money" means you have absolutely no understanding of the argument at hand.  At no point have I advocated BANNING money.  At many points have I advocating ENDING the use of money in favor of systems that work better than money, but you seem to simply ignore that.
Then why don't you, the supporters of TVP, start your own community where you end using money? People like me would be very interested to send you some money in order for you to buy your own land/tools so you can make your products. And then you won't need to use money anymore. It's a very interesting experiment from my point of view. OSE is a step forward towards a resource based economy. Why TVP is not doing such steps? Why TVP supporters are not putting into practice their own philosophy?

Of course, people like you can create a functional community but they can do it because they are honest, not because they are not using money. With or without money, their society will be more or less the same. But anyways, why they are not doing it?

Jacque Fresco has been for me, one of the most inspiring visionaries of our time. That is just a personal statement of course, but it could be pointed out that most visionaries are not around to see their ideas manifest. His ideas ARE amazing in there implications for human civilization, and yet if they do come to pass it may very well be a couple hundred years from now. I find it important not to get caught up in the impossibility of an idea. If it inspires, that is enough. Inspiration can have a domino effect over time that may bring about the very thing that caused the inspiration in the first place.

Since I am dealing with this ideas for some decades already, I eventually stumbled over Jacque Fresco a few years ago and know a bit about his Venus Project. Just for the records: I think that he is much to technocratic and his vision is much to complicated and elaborate to be realized anytime soon. His ideas how to shift our civilization into his proposed version is simply not feasilby at all.
Yes I also found The Venus Project in 2007. The idea of a resource based economy looks wonderful and inspiring to me. But then, I was disappointed to see that he talks about the magic solution of eliminating money and property instead of creating a resource based economy step by step. If the government rents land to the people then those people will make their own food, they will trade the surplus, and many of them won't even need money anymore! So that's a solid step forward towards a resource-based economy. If the people have no houses, then the government can give jobs to the people to create houses, and then it can allow them to rent the houses in return for their work. Again, another solid step forward. OSE-like projects will allow you to buy an open source machine and when something breaks, you buy only that component, and you can consult forums on internet where people discuss how to repair them. That will greatly reduce waste, improve recycling, reduce hours wasted with non necessary work and so on. Another solid step forward. There are many other steps the people can do towards a resource based economy
But the problem is that Jacque Fresco acts like all the leaders and TVP acts like most of the organizations in this world: Doesn't have a forum, doesn't answer the questions, not interested about your ideas, doesn't encourage the people to debate, to start groups and actions together. He just repeats that elimination of money and property will automagically fix all problems: incompetence, alcoholism, crime, corruption and so on.

Rape is a cultural problem in South Africa for example. Do you really think that rape will be gone the next day if the people there will stop using money?

On the other hand, making steps forward a resource based economy will gradually reduce the need to use money. If you buy open source hardware then you will use much less money to repair them for example. If you have your own land, then you don't have to buy your food, and so on.
There is no need of a fanatic jump into the unknown. If the people won't use money, that doesn't mean that they will automatically volunteer to do research to develop new technology and it doesn't mean that they will become capable to manage big research facilities. But if the government will do it's job, then everyone can have a decent life with little hours of work per day, and those who feel like volunteering will help projects like OSE, and in time they will grow communities like OSE where they will do research without being paid. It will take time for the people to learn that.

Jacque Fresco has been for me, one of the most inspiring visionaries of our time.
What it's good in his philosophy is the "resource-based economy" concept. But the way he wants to create it is a disaster.

That is just a personal statement of course, but it could be pointed out that most visionaries are not around to see their ideas manifest.
If he would have asked his supporters to do concrete actions towards creating a resource-based economy, then he might have had a chance to be around to see his ideas manifest.

If it inspires, that is enough. Inspiration can have a domino effect over time that may bring about the very thing that caused the inspiration in the first place.
Well, his idea is somehow very similar with the idea of communism. It inspired a lot of people. But there were no debates about HOW to implement a real, functional communism. "Communist" leaders promised a life in heaven to the naive who followed them, and then those leaders became slave owners. So the domino effect was disastrous. That's what happens when the people expect a new system will fix everything for them, instead of building the new system, step by step.
The people were not engaged into debates about how to implement communism. There was no talk about how to build cooperatives, how to grow them, how to make them functional, what kind of regulations they have to respect, etc. I have never seen any communist leader or speaker to call the people to build communism. They only talk about taking over (stealing) the existing private property.
And The Venus Project is very similar - it doesn't engage the people into building the future resource-based economy. And the effect can also be disastrous. The future leaders who will promise a resource-based economy can very well become slave owners, if the people will expect the system to fix everything for them.

I am very much for a resource-based economy. But if we want to create it, then we have to talk a lot. We must learn how to manage all the community issues. We must understand how to create the resource-based economy, and how to keep it working. We must be prepared to handle challenges and even dangers (yes, there might be people or entities not happy about a community having a resource based economy). We must talk about and do a lot of things. Just listening to a leader who wants followers and promotes a magic solution is not enough.

You mean the problems with capitalism can be prevented by providing resources to everyone that needs them, free of charge?
Not for free. The government can rent houses and land for a decent price. And that will prevent speculation of prices of land and houses. The price must include all the inherent costs: a decent tax to pay the police, people in the government, etc; the cost of maintaining the building (things break sometimes so they need to be repaired), and even a little bit of profit, so the government can buy/make more houses and land to supply to everyone who needs. A capitalist system needs to apply some socialist concepts in order to work better. I don't believe that the "unemployment help" is included in the definition of capitalism. Yet, a capitalist system needs to apply such a socialist measure in order to work better! The same with renting houses and land - they are socialist measures that a capitalist system needs to include, in order to be functional.

Sounds kind of like a resource-based economy.
Yes. It is possible to make solid steps forward in order to create the resource-based economy (RBE). You don't have to start with ending to use money and private property.

That's not true at all.  I emailed TVP with a few questions and got a response in less than two days.  He doesn't encourage people to start TVP-like communities because, as he rightly points out, those communities will be assaulted by capitalists once their system begins to fail.
I think OSE is in the spirit of resource-based economy. And it's not assaulted by the authorities. Also, all the work done in the spirit of Open Source is another step forward towards a resource-based economy. These kind of things should be supported by TVP and especially by Jacque Fresco.

Look at the response to Occupy; recently, in Oregon and Washington, OWS activists' houses were raided by feds wielding automatic weapons, who were specifically looking for anti-establishment evidence.
Well, considering the fact that the members of the OWS talk only about stealing the private property and fighting the government and they never want to talk about building cooperatives and communism, it's no surprise to me that they were raided. Some of them call to action like "building" communism with force, with guns. You said they can't build cooperatives but they also have rich supporters like Michael Moore who can afford to sponsor creation of new cooperatives. The fact that cooperatives already exist is a proof that cooperatives can be made. Also, don't forget the fact that since the communist ideas were born time ago, they had more than one century of time to build cooperatives, even in the times of prosperity. Never wandered why people talk about communism only when they are poor? When they had a good life they could easily start to create cooperatives. They had plenty of time to do that.

He also does not say anything of the like, in fact, he repeatedly says that "[TVP] isn't a utopia or a perfect solution, it's just a hell of a lot better than what we have".
But in the same time he says there will be no army, no police, no prisons. That really sounds like an utopia. So he contradicts himself.

Why are you so focused on TVP, anyway?
Because you can recognize a TVP supporter by the way they speak. They totally hate money and private property and they complain that it's all about government fault, and they have an excuse for not starting creating the RBE, because, isn't it, it's the government fault! The thread was started by a TVP supporter and I could detect that instantly.

The viability of RBE is neither contingent on TVP, nor is TVP the only advocate for it. I found out about OSE through the Zeitgeist Movement, which is not only much more well-known than TVP, but is made up of a much larger and more diverse population, with all kinds of projects going on that are exactly opposite to the claimed problems you have with TVP.
But in the same time, Jacque Fresco doesn't encourage people to start TVP-like communities. TVP doesn't even have a forum, where people like you and me can debate ideas, even at the risk of getting angry. Debates are necessary in order to make things clear, in order to honestly answer to questions, in order to find a way to build the future RBE.

No one even mentioned Jacque Fresco before you did, and promptly proceeded to poison the RBE well by claiming that Jacque smokes crack.
Yes, because someone hating money and private property so much is most likely Jacque Fresco's follower. Many of your claims are also derived from the beliefs he is spreading. So I wasn't insulting you, I was attacking the one who is trying to trick you do believe in a miraculous solution.

If you live in a community where there is no property and money, then how can you make sure no one enters uninvited in the house where you live?
1. Why is that important?
2. Why would someone who has access to their own house and any product they need or want, want to enter someone else's residence uninvited?
Because there are a lot of idiots and there is a lot of crime in this world. Like it or not, it's a fact.

3. Seriously, why is that such an issue?  If someone comes in your house uninvited, ask them to leave.  It's not like this is prevented any more by private property, in fact, there's more of a reason to do so, since lots of people don't have houses, and others will enter your house to steal your shit and hock it.
Sometimes the criminals do it just to make fun of others. If the people stop using money and private property, then it doesn't mean they will become angels overnight.

Not necessarily, since the prevalence of drug use and violent crime is strongly correlated with socioeconomic disparity.  Intelligence is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status (SES), which itself relates to access to higher quality and more education.  Nobody is saying that all problems will be solved overnight (stop using straw men, we're not that dumb), but with no socioeconomic disparity and the elevated SES that a high-tech, classless, propertyless society would have, most of these things would disappear in one or two generations.
That's true. But that can be achieved by building a better society. Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway have much less criminality than other countries. That's because they have a better system: A capitalist system, reinforced by some strong socialist measures; Also they have some other good features. Building a better society and creating a RBE society has nothing to do with eliminating money. By the contrary, in a better society the people can have the choice to easily give up using money if that's what they wish. Then they can find others like them and live (almost) without money if that's what they wish.
Anyways, you agree that not absolutely all criminality can be eliminated. In that case, there is still need for police and prisons, even if in less quantity. Fresco said there will be no police at all.

If the TVP supporters want to live without money and private property, what stops them from doing that?
Maybe the fact that I live in a country that taxes my very existence, and has one of the largest police state apparatuses in the world? Or the difficulty of finding people nearby who are willing and able to do so?  Most people are not technical experts, or even technically proficient.
But ending to use money won't solve the incompetence problem. On the other hand, by making open source machines and even houses, will greatly reduce the need to be a specialist - you just consult the documentation and then you know how to repair your things.
Anyways, I think TVP has enough supporters so they can move all together and they can build the society they dream about. Sure, they will still have to pay taxes to the government and will have to pay for services like internet. But inside their own community, they can live without using money or private property. The more successful they will be, the more people will join them, until eventually one day everyone will join them. But it's insane to refuse to build such a community, just because they don't want to pay the internet. Then they can have an excuse forever for not starting such a community!

Most of my friends consider me some kind of wizard because I'm capable of repairing things and building machines.  People in our society are generally specialists.  Try talking to someone about a subject not related to their academic or career discipline.  They'll either not say anything, say they know nothing about it, or attempt to say something and sound like a total retard.  Intelligence is partially due to global networks in the brain; in other words, a generalist will be more intelligent than a specialist, given equal education.  Really novel technologies are interdisciplinary.
But if they will participate, then they can accelerate the development of open source machines, and they won't need to be specialists anymore. They will be able to fix their own things without calling a specialist to do that and without becoming specialists on their own. And then they can have the time to acquire multidisciplinary knowledge. And not only the open source hardware can improve the situation: also some minimum regulations. They can participate for creating those regulations.
So it's not only the government's fault that they are so "robotic". It's much more their own fault because they don't try to build a way out of that situation.

As previously mentioned, trying to just go without money is not going to work for very long, because the establishment wants everyone to be subject to compulsory wealth extraction.  Even an entire country would have great difficulty going without money/property, because many important resources are in specific locales, and would therefore require trading with those countries that own them.  An agent that is trading, whether a person or a whole country, is an owner of private property.
I understand what you mean: for example Norway has a lot of oil. Most of the money of the International Monetary Fund are coming from Norway because Norway has too much excedent of money. If they decide to stop selling oil (they simply don't need all those money), the world would be in big difficulty to supply their oil needs.
But if USA lives without money, then it can sell its own surplus (food, industrial products, etc) for money, and then it can buy oil from Norway with money. But just because you are using money in order to trade with external entities is not an excuse for using money inside the community, in order to supply resources for everyone. Until you can find an alternative to buying a specific resource from outside, you can use money but only for trading with the rest of the world
So in my view there is no real excuse for not starting such communities.

With amount of your personal time that you have committed to this thread Gonzo, you could have designed, built, and done a load of laundry in your open source washing machine...just a thought ;)

Thanks for the detailed information.

.. most of these have already been sold to investors to ease the load of debt a bit for the city.
They live in privately owned flats and the city pays their rent to the owner.
That's very strange. Because, if the city owns those apartments, it will be cheaper for the city to allow the poor to live there, instead of paying their rent to the owners. So, by selling those apartments, the city got some quick cash but in the long term it will be more expensive so it will make even more debt. Therefore the government is cheating you.

So, no crisis in Germany, yet.
Why? What prevented the crisis to occur in Germany, in your opinion?
And another question: I heard that in Germany it's much cheaper to buy an apartment than in Italy, France, Spain or UK. I heard about prices like 35,000 euro for a small apartment or even 25,000 for a small flat. Is that true?

There is a difference between property and the right to use something. The first allows you to just have it, without actually using it or needing it. The second allows you to have it, as long as you use it. And as long as you use it, and you got this right to use legally, no one can just take it away from you. If you don't use it anymore, it becomes public property again.
But then the right to use it should be encoded in the law, don't you think? Because Ackhuman seemed to have a problem with the encoded law, and I thought you probably agree with him.

And the public decides who will get the next use of it, not the quickest or the strongest.
Hmm... it looks like in Germany it's the people in the government who decide what happens with such public property. They decide to sell, in order to create more public debt, while they claim they want to reduce public debt. So it's not the public who decides, but the people in the (local) government who decide. And that's the case exactly because the public doesn't bother to involve into the issue.

How will the junkie get his next fix, when there is no more motivation for the criminal anymore to distribute it, because he can't earn any money with it anymore? And please don't come with apples, tomatoes, potatoes or sex again, that just can't be a basis for a criminal career.
Anything they can find suited as a currency, they will use it: gold, silver, platinum, diamonds (artificial diamonds are not dirt-cheap also), the currency of another country, and who knows what else they will find.

What would you buy the alcohol with, when the currency is the time you have worked?
Where do you register that time? In a computer database? What if someone hacks the database and modifies the currency everyone in a city has? If you go to a shop to buy something and their internet connection is down, that means they can't check the database. What's the difference between stealing money and stealing hours worked in the registers?

Ackhuman for example suggested that there should be no money and no other currency at all, and no trade also. What do you think about that?

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@Rabert, Ackhuman, Gonzo

While I found the first few posts still a tiny bit interesting, the thread now is IMO just boring. The old same arguments repeated over and over again.
Any discussion will lead to no results if most basic values aren't shared by the participants.

@Rabert
The questions in Your first post have pretty well been answered. Your opinions, Your anticipaty against money, capital and capitalism aren't shared by the overwhelming majority of peoples involved in OSE.
Draw the consequences, Rabert: Don't invest time and effort in OSE, please look for a new playground.

Mike

@Rabert
How do you know, what the majority of people involved in OSE think about money, capital and capitalism, and where do you draw the conclusion from, that the majority don't share my opinions? I would be very much interested in learning about that.
Well, I can't see much support from other forum users for Your opinion, except Ackhuman.

Matt_Maier has explained that and why OSE needs to make profits. In the link from Elifarley, things like purchase, trade money are mentioned a lot of times. The only other one frequently active in this thread is Gonzo; and it doesn't look like he is a fan of Your ideas :D
Maybe there are several OSE fans who dislike capitalism. But Your aversion against capital, money and property isn't shared by many folks here and I know of no OSE documents talking about eliminating property and money.

But I've seen several documents promoting the startup of open source enterprises, and all these are based on property, money and profit. And they all need some capital for starting. Like it or not, Rabert.

Maybe I am less social than You, but nevertheless Your ideas don't really fit here and thats probably the reason why more than 95% of the lines in this thread have been written by only 3 people.

Mike