[Wildwell]

Or paying shareholders, banks etc..

See what I'm getting at is not profit is evil or people that wish to make a profit have poor motives, they might be very good. There are plenty of examples of entrepreneurs and companies that use money to better the lives of people around them.

The point is, growth comes from profit, or net added worth. While in theory, given time, this pulls the whole of society up by its bootstraps, the nub or the issue is what is the net added worth used for?

When people say they don't believe in growth in a finite system, they are actually saying they don't like profits. This can be understandable from a number of ethical viewports, for example money can be corrupting or companies can gain power over aspects of society. Does the desire just to 'make a profit' always add to society? Not necessarily. Is the environment being destroyed to make money? Certainly, without doubt. Is the thirst for 'easy money' a good thing for society as a whole? Is real value being added - a good example is the housing market or payments to celebrities? Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

So if the system is defective, what can be put in its place given the limitations of the other systems, if anything? Do the removal of profits into a ‘mutual fund’ for society as a whole benefit it more than a simple tax system? We actually have a system to check free marketers, its called law, tax and democracy, but are governments just letting people get away with it?

There are plenty of people around that do things without a quest for profit or even a standing in society. For instance, a keen classic car lover may just like restoring cars for personal enjoyment or an animal lover may enjoy helping sick animals. Perhaps it’s not the system itself, but the people that inhabit the system?

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'T')o return to the main topic, one of the guiding principles of communism was to eliminate profit. Karl Marx wrote extensively about profit and capital, and he saw profit as the root of a lot of problems.

Of course, communism is only one way of running things eliminating profit. There are others. There may be small countries that have implemented other alternatives, but I don't know of any. Anybody is better informed?

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', ' ')Altruism may be part of our collective consciousness, and need to be part of a community, both our human community and the natural world in which we live in, but it is not an explanation of what drives economic behavior.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', 'T')oo sweeping a generalisation. Altruism is the saving grace of humanity. How does your bleak interpretation of human behaviour explain organ and blood donors? Are they making a small investment, purely in the hope of some form of ultimate personal gain?

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', 'O')h, and with reference to Wildwell's original points, 'profits' are not the problem - but the 'profit-motive' is. If we determine all our decisions on the basis of making an economic profit, we end up closing down a lot of potential opportunities for development and discovery, which we might otherwise discover obliquely.

[Wildwell]

In that case, high value: Porn, Gambling, blockbuster novels, fad diets, Movie stars

Medium value: Computers, Classic novels, mobile phones

Low value: Light bulbs, pets, bread, school textbooks, quality newspapers

No Value: Charity work, Airlines (which have never made a cumulative profit), Housewives, a favour to a friend.

Ah, I see what went wrong now..

[Jake_old]

Jaws has a valid point, the trouble is what people want is not necessarily what is good for them. If people wanted more charity then charity would be a booming industry. If people didn't want porn then porn would be a poor investment.

Ok so its what Wildwell said but I thought I'd put it in my own terms.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'B')ut profit is the only accurate measure of value. Profit occurs when consumers respond positively to a good offered on the market.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', 'S')o that gives 'Furbies' and 'Cabbage Patch Dolls' greater value, in your terms, than an anti-tetanus shot.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', 'T')he point is, growth comes from profit, or net added worth. While in theory, given time, this pulls the whole of society up by its bootstraps, the nub or the issue is what is the net added worth used for?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', 'T')he point is, growth comes from profit, or net added worth. While in theory, given time, this pulls the whole of society up by its bootstraps, the nub or the issue is what is the net added worth used for?

[zoidberg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobbyald', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ll human action is driven by profit

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') guess what I mean is we may be able to observe and control our actions but the original impulse for certain things is always there(instincts) and those instincts say survive. People who have no children to maximize their wealth over their lifetime, have just removed that bizarre trait from the genepool. Sorry 100 years from now that money means nothing but those trailer parks kids have a family numbering in the hundreds. Who won that evolutionary battle? (A rhetorical question)

He who dies with the most toys, still dies.

[untothislast]

Jaws, as usual, expresses his ideas with both force and clarity - and by virtue of that, they're always worthy of consideration - even if, like me, you occupy a position of belief probably at the opposite end of the spectrum.

While all of us here could possibly analyse, dissect and refute each others' arguments for the rest of time, let's not forget that the reason there's a 'PeakOil.com' at all, is because the depletion of oil has revealed the underlying fault structure running directly through the heart of our global economic model. And let's not pretend that it hasn't delivered. Most of us have had - from a purely materialistic point of view - much richer lives than any of our forebears. Unfortunately, once it started getting really successful and beguiling - so that everyone on the planet wanted to hop on board - the seeds of its own destruction were sown. Ultimately, it has calways relied for its success on an endless suply of raw materials - to make things, market them - then distribute the proceeds. Now, those raw materials are running out on all fronts. Oil may well hog the headlines - and for good reason - but others, like gas, coal, metals, uranium - won't be far behind.

So, we can talk about the intricacies of supply and demand, profit and loss, albeit in a very entertaining fashion, for quite some time. However, to do so would be failing to recognise that our thinking is hitched to an increasingly obsolete paradigm. All economic systems are constructs, originating in and reflecting given points in historical time. We're not going to be able to run the present model without the raw materials - end of story. And until we know exactly how severe the new set of circumstances will be, we're not going to know how society will - or should - function within them. What we can be sure of though, is that survival is going to take more of a front seat than any ideas of economic 'value' or 'profit'.

Reality is a harsh taskmistress.

On the philosophical front, I've always felt that humans should try to live their lives causing as little negative impact on the planet as possible. That we haven't is the cause of our present undoing. I've never seen any convincing argument why any creature on the planet should be considered more important than any other - so I do give equal respect to the needs of wildlife. For the most part, they seem to have sustained a more equitable relationship with their immediate environment than we have.

As for the altruism part. It's something to aim for - but as others have rightly said, it's an indulgence only made possible because of our fairly comfortable lives. Whether such niceities can be maintained when I have to fight for the last loaf of bread in the supermarket, remains to be seen.

Sorry for any typos, but I have to post this and get on with my work!

[MrBill]

An interesting article in the context of what we have been speaking of in terms of 'the profit motive' versus 'altruistic motives' although not sure how this helps to explain socio-economic models of governance other than to say supporters of one or another model may be those who benefit the most from it and opponents may be those who feel excluded. A kind of economic exclusionism or moral relativism.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ommon wisdom holds that people have a set standard of morality that never wavers. Yet studies of people who do unpalatable things, whether by choice, or for reasons of duty or economic necessity, find that people's moral codes are more flexible than generally understood. To buffer themselves from their own consciences, people often adjust their moral judgments in a process some psychologists call moral disengagement, or moral distancing.

In recent years, researchers have determined the psychological techniques most often used to disengage, and for the first time they have tested them in people working in perhaps the most morally challenging job short of soldiering, staffing a prison execution team.

[CARVER]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'M')arket value is determined by marginal utility. If we don't have a tetanus outbreak, there's no point in manufacturing tetanus shots. We're just wasting resources. If we really did need tetanus shots its market value would rise far ahead of furbies and lots of shots would be produced.

You're confused about the origin of value. The old value paradox (why are diamonds more valuable than water when we need water to survive) was solved a long time ago. The solution was that value is based on marginal utility. We have water everywhere. We don't need one more drop of water.

Why are tetanus shots worth less than furbies? We don't need one more tetanus shot as much as we need one more furby.

[CARVER]

Maybe to pinpoint the problem we first need to define the goal? What is our goal? What is it that we want to optimize? If we want to design a system that helps us to reach our goal, we need to know what it is that we want. Which I think is not easy to figure out, because usually when we get what we wanted, it does not live up to our expectations, and we want something else.

It can be difficult to define and measure what it is we want. It is difficult to put a price tag on everything and we keep revaluing things. Some of the side effects of our actions are difficult to measure, and we don't always see the connection. Take 'profit' for example, how would one define that? What would be included, only that which we can measure?

How would one define 'wealth distribution'? For example, someone could be a billionaire, but maybe he lives just like you and I, and doesn't consume more resources than I do. Say the only difference would be that he owns a lot of stocks. He owns the pie, but he doesn't eat a bigger piece of the pie than I do. What 'profit' he earns, he reinvests in something that benefits the public, instead of building a castle for himself that the public is not allowed to access for example. In this case, is wealth distributed evenly? Because both of us enjoy basically the same standard of living. Can the billionaire do whatever he wants with his wealth because he 'earned' it? If it was you, would you feel some obligation to invest and allocate your wealth wisely, to the benefit of the public? Do we teach our students to be responsible with the wealth they will accumulate? A lot of people are annoyed when they see that a CEO gets a bonus of a couple million dollars, which is not important. What is important is what the CEO does with that money, get another house or fund a public library for example. Who's to say that money would be better spend (invested) if it was distributed equally among the public. Not everybody seems to be able to make the right investments.

I think what matters is what we do with the limited resources, which also includes skill. If you have the skill to do life-saving surgery, would you use that skill to do plastic-surgery instead because it pays better? If you have the resources to build and run a hospital, would you use those resources to build an island on which you build a seven-star hotel instead? If you see someone is making a mistake, would you try to correct him, or would you try to take advantage of it? Would you invest in something knowing you won't profit from it (get less back than you invested), while the public in general would profit from it? Would you base your decision on profit only, always sell to the highest bidder, or would you maybe sell to the one that needs it the most?

I think a good start would be to take a close look at the effects of our money system: The Future of Money.

[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', 'T')he point is, growth comes from profit, or net added worth. While in theory, given time, this pulls the whole of society up by its bootstraps, the nub or the issue is what is the net added worth used for?