Capitalist remuneration vs ParEcon remuneration

[The Dharma Bum]

Medius and X, you may be interested in Mutualism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)
It's a vision that implement human liberation in a market context. I find it acceptable from the standpoint of human liberation, even though I've kind of turned my back on the concept of the market.

Also, I am not personally concerned with owning a means of production in itself, but rather that it can be used to implement wage labor. One cannot implement wage labor unless one controls society in its entity, as a state does. It is necessary to enclose the common in order to facilitate wage slavery.

Property such as a small farm or personal brewery isn't a problem unless the common is all privately owned excluding the larger part of society getting the resources they need in order to extort labor from them.

It is specifically the extortion of labor from an individual that I am against. And of course if a segment of society uses it's political power to create an inescapable condition designed to facilitate this type of extortion it's an issue.

Anyway, the point is there has to be a lot of flexibility if liberty is to exist. I do realize that.

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

Mutualism is more acceptable to me.

However, maybe you can clear up some concerns I have.

My family owns more land than we use productively. Only a fraction of our acreage is actually used to farm herbs. The rest is rented out to our neighbours - for well below market value, yes, but it produces a small surplus for us, which we use to offset our costs.

Would this be allowable under such a system?

We also own a substantial amount of hardwood forest, which we use primarily for recreation. Every thirty years or so, we log it, both to make money and to preserve the health of the forest through selective cutting. Mostly it is there for our enjoyment, though. We allow family friends to camp and hunt there, but it's preservation is our biggest concern. Where does this fit into parecon or mutualism? Would the land remain under control of my family or would the community be able to develop it, if they wanted to?

[The Dharma Bum]

Yeah, well, that is kind of beyond the scope of personal property.

Ideally, no one would wish to rent land because they would have a share of what is available for their personal property. And I would say the forest almost certainly has to part of the common. Having more than one actually needs is an issue in the context of human need.

It's up to your conscious whether or not you could support a systematic human liberation or would rather wish to retain these privileges. I can't dissemble about that.

[exploited]

[The Dharma Bum]

Yes, I can indeed see the validity of what you are saying. Society will have to participate in discussion to investigate and discover the best way to maintain and preserve situations in which an important traditional heritage of protecting and maintaining a resource is in place and working. On a personal note I think that attitude is exemplary and should be emulated by everyone.

Before enclosure the forest was maintained by everyone, and the culture which had developed over hundreds of thousands of years worked with the principle of resource management. What most people think of as natural forest has to be carefully maintained, as you are well aware.

The problem we have here is that the ancient resource conscious communal culture that lived in and preserved the commons for tens of thousands of years has been stripped away, forgotten, and replaced with a more self absorbed consumer culture so probably the best answer for a situation like this would be to maybe appoint people in your family perhaps or in the local area who understand how to best manage these tasks as a facilitative factors in the maintenance task. You are correct it cannot be left unmaintained and unprotected and an adequate solution must be put into to place. I think the best way to find this answer is participatory management weighed in respect to the people most affected by the issue. Namely the people who live there and already understand and engage in the important task of managing the resource. I'm confident the most satisfactory resolution to the dilemma you present can be discovered if we act rationally and with conscious effort for the collective good.

Parecon specifically deals with this type of weighty issue, it's specifically an alternative to both market based and centrally planned economies. It takes work and the individual work discipline required is greater when you are self managed. It is easier just to be told what to do and do it, but that is no way for people to live. After a period of self management when most people are fully actualized and aware of the ramifications of their activities it will be because they can now see the objective results of those activities as managers instead of being worker drones.

No longer will society be atomized with the individual isolated and alienated, helpless to actualize in the face of social forces they don't understand much less have a say in.

I'm not sure about the finer details of resource management in the context of mutualism because I haven't read all that much about it.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Medius]

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

Damn this is a good discussion.