Hi all, just wanted to give some context and help explain the purpose of the For Product model.
In 1999, as a young father, I suddenly realized I had no control of the food we need.
After struggling alone in a garden, I stepped back and wondered “Why can’t we organize in groups for our own benefit?”.
A regular business organizes groups of shareholders and workers, but if you “hold shares” in a restaurant, you are not a real owner, and so the price you pay is the same as any other customer, which is generally more than if you had prepared the meal in isolation. Many workers do not “have enough money” to be shareholders, and also rarely could afford to eat where they work.
So I began a quest to discover the origin and purpose of price, and found there are many theories , but no proof Theory of value (economics) - Wikipedia
After some time I realized there are two, very different ‘economies’.
- Business as Usual: When you own the Means of Production (such as an Apple tree) to sell the results, you may be concerned if there is an abundance of Apples, because the scarcity of a product (generally) increases the price, and so abundance can be ‘dangerous’.
By the way, many blamed overproduction for 1930’s “Great Depression” in the US.
- Home Economics: When you own the Means of Production (such as an Apple tree) to consume the results, you do not buy the product (Apples) from yourself, because they are yours already, and so the price you pay as a consumer is exactly the costs you paid as an owner, and profit simply does not exist, because the final transaction (of purchasing the Apple) has been eliminated.
Most business (even non-profits) are structured to sell the product after production, and so cannot ignore price, and generally fear abundance because they may not even be able to “recover the costs of production”.
Most home gardens are owned by the few people who will use those results, so those owners can ignore the price of those products and laugh at abundance since it cannot harm them.
The For Product model applies the structure of Home Economics to groups of groups to build Minimum Viable Villages, each under the direct control of those occupant-owners.
To do this, we must change how we fund, work, own, and govern real property.
-
We separate funding from ownership by selling a Fungible Token (coin) to those with deep pockets (you might say whales). Like bitcoin, this coin represents no utility, no governance and no ownership, so we can safely sell it to the highest bidder without concern.
-
We re-connect ‘buying’ with ‘working’ by trading “future production” (called Product Tickets) for “future work” (called Work Contracts). This means you can be poor (and even in debt) and still join by simply* committing to work in the future.
-
We re-connect working with owning by vesting real property ownership to those who complete Work Contracts. You receive the results of the Product Tickets you selected and also (slowly) receive the land ownership and water rights and other Means of Production used to deliver those goods and services. Also, and especially during the “BOOT” stage, each occupant must receive a “Basic Outcome” of essential goods and services until the onsite production is fully operational. Those costs are included when setting the minimum_bid of the coin for that parcel.
-
We change why you are a “shareholder” (but actually a real owner). You own land and water rights and productive assets to avoid paying profit or rent to other owners. This causes profit and rent to safely approach zero for predictable goods and services.
-
We re-connect governance with ownership by enabling occupants to directly control the Means of Production using a map-like interface where you may ‘vote’ for changes you would like to see on land that you own (personal) or co-own (in a group, or in groups of groups, or groups of groups of groups, etc.).
-
As an owner, when selling surplus, you may charge any price, but, some profit must be invested for the consumer who paid it. This causes all users to eventually gain the ownership required to also regain control of that production. This is similar to the GNU GPL Copyright license’s requirement that every user gain access to the “Sources” of the products they use.
The primary document describing the tokenomics and other details is at:
