Commodity price chaos

[Little John]

Sortition.....

Like it, like it a lot

[another_exlurker]

The problem is, that due to resource depletion (existential threat to industrial civilisation) and climate change (existential threat to the human species), all of this is moot.

The various economic, political and social systems that have been thought up since The Industrial Revolution are not going to survive either resource depletion nor climate change. If anything, we'll most likely return to some form of feudal system.

No matter what happens, the people at the bottom strata of society will still be repressed.

[Little John]

....No matter what happens, the people at the bottom strata of society will still be repressed.

bollocks

When times are not so bad, we get "greed is good"

When times are bad, we get "there's nothing that can be done". Which is the line you are obediently trotting out. I'm not suggesting you are doing this with malicious intent. Just that you are doing as you have been conditioned to do.

And, of course, when times are really bad, the narrative is allowed to shift in order to allow the extreme right to run things since elites can still do business with the right. Or, at least, they think they can (see recent German history for details).

Yes, climate change looks set to hit us. The same with resource depletion.

However, notwithstanding the physics of the above, when it comes to human affairs and how we organise ourselves in response, nothing is certain. Nothing is inevitable.

[another_exlurker]

....No matter what happens, the people at the bottom strata of society will still be repressed.

bollocks

So the psychopaths that will eventually rise to the top won't exploit everyone below them for their own advantage?

[Little John]

Please see edit I made while you were posting.

[Mr. Fox]

The mere existence of a 'Bottom Strata' is in itself inherently repressive.

Sortition might help prevent the psychos 'rising to the top' politically, but we need to look at how to prevent economic and social stratification occurring in the first place.

I feel this is a fairly urgent question, as I think that the current unfolding crisis may well present an opportunity to re-think the whole notion of 'money' (as nature abhors a vacuum) once it's inevitable demise has run it's full course.

[another_exlurker]

Please see edit I made while you were posting.

Ah, that joys of cross posting

When times are bad, we get "there's nothing that can be done". Which is the line you are obediently trotting out. I'm not suggesting you are doing this with malicious intent. Just that you are doing as you have been conditioned to do.

Oh, how little you know me. I do so enjoy it when people try to pigeon-hole me. I'm not taking the piss out of you here, or trying to belittle you. I genuinely find it amusing when people who don't know me very well do this. Misinterpreting my position based on the preconceptions and prejudices of their world view, with varying degrees of distance from my true position.

I have spent pretty much my entire life outside the system (as much as is possible) observing it because I realised fairly early on in my twenties that it was something I really didn't want to be a part of. I reject Industrial/Urban Civilisation, everything that has resulted from it (except some of the music and especially electric guitars, the effects pedals and technology that can create some amazing sounds. But they're just tools to take me on a journey somewhere else), everything it stands for and what it has turned the human race into. Even if that transformation was probably inevitable and is probably inevitable for all sapient life-forms that are tool users throughout the universe. Which is probably why we haven't, so far, discovered any signs of technological non-Terrestrial life.

The thing is, as laudable as your desire is to bring about a more egalitarian society and I mean that most sincerely (in fact I encourage it), it has one major flaw. It is based within and born from the paradigm of Techno-Industrial Urban Civilisation. A system of society that is destined to fail due to resource depletion and climate change.

And none of that actually answered your question did it?

So, how do you propose that the lower strata of dieing civilisation is adequately protected from exploitation by psychopaths?

That took longer than I expected to word properly. Sorry about that.

[another_exlurker]

The mere existence of a 'Bottom Strata' is in itself inherently repressive.

Sortition might help prevent the psychos 'rising to the top' politically, but we need to look at how to prevent economic and social stratification occurring in the first place.

I feel this is a fairly urgent question, as I think that the current unfolding crisis may well present an opportunity to re-think the whole notion of 'money' (as nature abhors a vacuum) once it's inevitable demise has run it's full course.

So that would mean asking: "How can we create an egalitarian meritocracy and then ensure it doesn't turn into an elitist plutocracy/dictatorship?"

[Mr. Fox]

Well, I was thinking more of "What can we do to make sure that *whatever* fills the void as a 'medium of exchange' isn't just the same turd in a different wrapper?".

Thinking of the thread title, we have 'commodities' - real things - and their 'prices' - abstract notional numbers underpinned by a mutually agreed belief system.

I came across this the other day, which I think highlights an important difference:

The product of labour – the sweat and effort of ordinary people – is subject to the natural laws of entropy. The farmer’s produce spoils. The manufacturer’s product too has a “shelf life”. It deteriorates, or is superseded. The product of labour is compelled by the natural laws of entropy to find a buyer promptly. If it does not, the producer – who has no personal use for surplus – inevitably suffers loss. He wears the “carrying cost” of deteriorating product if it remains unsold.

The possessor of currency, by contrast, has an unfair advantage, if his currency is not likewise subject to entropy. Simply by means of the unspoken threat to “shut his wallet” and withdraw temporarily from the marketplace, taking his non-deteriorating currency with him, he may force the producer – compelled as he is by the law of entropy – to lower the price of his ever-deteriorating goods.

This is the inevitable – and inequitable – consequence of adopting a form of currency that can also be perceived as a “store of value”. The Supplier of currency (the buyer) is granted an unjust and unfair power over the Demander of currency (the producer/seller). The very form of currency itself naturally encourages its possessor to mistreat and humiliate his fellow man, by taking advantage of the relative weakness of his bargaining position.

(from here)

Not sure I'm on board with everything the chap's saying, but he makes a good case for demurrage.

[Potemkin Villager]

The most revealing insight I ever gained into the operation of markets was a documentary years ago where some sort of youngish city commodity trader was being interviewed about what he did at work.

It soon became painfully obvious that whilst he clearly understood what was expected of him and what he needed to do to "make money" he simply did not have a clue what was actually going on at a functional level and how it worked. Furthermore, and more worryingly I must say, was the fact that he appeared so effortlessly confident whilst so blissfully and totally unaware of the depth of his ignorance whilst quite convinced what a clever, vitally important and deserving chap he was......