Thanks for responding, but your stance is not clear to me, so I want to make sure you understand my claim.

Do you agree or disagree that the Users (or the more traditional term “Consumers”) should be in control of the physical Sources of Production? This is, of course, in glaring contrast to the Marxist dream of Worker control.

This not just a stab-in-the-dark without purpose. User ownership of physical Sources creates an interesting dynamic where costs are ‘internalized’ (eliminating externalities); profit becomes meaningless except as User growth; abundance and low prices are never a threat; employment is understood as a cost to be minimized, not a need in itself.

When Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen speak of Freedom in the virtual realm, it is always “User Freedom” that they are concerned with. Free Software enables every User to gain control of that information, and is not restricted to the Authors (original investors) or to any other group such as qualified Workers or any withholder of intellect.

I hope we can work together to write an inter-owner trade agreement in the spirit of the GNU GPL that can be applied to some collectively owned physical Sources so that ownership (and hence control) will flow to each User as anything they pay above cost (what would usually be called profit) would become an investment for them in more physical Sources so the society that forms around that joint-ownership will be truly free.

Thanks for your time. I will continue to check back here for your reply, but email me directly if you prefer.

Your peer,
Patrick Anderson

Let us organize and begin to purchase some physical Sources of Production which we can hold between ourselves under a special contract that requires each and any new user to become a partial controlling shareholder in those Sources (or in new investment of similar Sources) each and any time that consumer pays a price above cost for those goods or services.

This will cause ownership, and therefore control to flow according to the amount each consumers is willing to invest (as what is usually called ‘profit’ at that transaction would be an investment in that consumer’s name toward more physical Sources of that kind).

Why will that not work?

Wouldn’t it be great if we (the consumers) OWNED a cell-phone network? Price would approach cost and control would already be in the proper hands.

It could be thought of as PropertyLeft, as it is a generalization of the GPL from our prophet Sn. IGNUcius into the physical realm.

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