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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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A library economy doesn't mean you can't own anything. If you want to own something you can make it or check it out indefinitely. For an example of this, let's think of checking out a phone.
You'd check it out indefinitely, and you can consider it yours. Since there's no money or profit incentive, the phones are designed to be durable, easily repairable, and have interoperable parts. Because the library is the means by which we manage the commons, parts are readily available and you can return the broken part (or entire phone) to be recycled and get the replacement.
Then the question is where does the incentive to do it that way and the incentive to innovative come form?
Dude. Capitalism kills innovation. I hate that myth so much. Capitalism is more likely to stifle innovation than create it. The goal of capitalism is profit and nothing else. Innovation requires risk, which could cause a loss of profit, so it's a last resort. It's more profitable to hinder your opponents than to create something innovative.
Here's a good breakdown of some of this.
For example, much of our innovation in our society comes from research universities. These are, generally, outside of capitalism. They do research and make discoveries for the benefit they bring to society, or sometimes just to improve our knowledge. They don't do it for profit.
Humans like to improve things and to learn things. There's no need for it to be profitable. Creating a system that prioritizes this is possible, but it isn't capitalism.
From competitions, individual interests, passion, necessity, etc. We don't need money or markets for people to seek innovation. A library steward should also be responsible for automating means of production as best as possible, which would also drive scientific advancement.
The problem then is that all of those, besides nececities aren't really good at encouraging any innovation.
Yes, inventing something like a heater so people don't freeze to death or a plow to make tending to a field easier could come out of necessity.
But the dangerous part is that it creates a risk of people just going "yeah, we are comfortable enough already" and the technological development just stopping. If you go back 40 years and 99% of the people would have said that they are perfectly fine living with a CRT TV and a landline phone. There would be no reason for doing any research into any further technology
Can you explain why you feel that way? What do you think drives innovation currently?
Part of it is my personal feelings about the current technology. I'm using a phone that is around 4 years old now and sure some of the new foldable phones do sound interesting, but I really have no need to upgrade mine, it makes calls, I can watch YouTube videos, look up where I want to go, and play some games. I don't really see a need for anything to change for something new and if someone asked me to pitch in for research in phones I would ask why?
As for what drives innovation, I won't deny that any of the examples that you listed drive innovation, but I guess it's more about the pace of it.
Right now the companies pour resources into creating a product that meets requirements and that the customers will pick over the competition and give money to the company that created a product that they wanted
Using your example is the perfect illustration that capitalism isn't good at creating innovation. The market for phones has settled and the market leaders have no reason to use resources to create something new that might even be better. That would risk their money and it'd also risk their dominant position in the market. It's more efficient (if profit is your measure of efficiency) to hinder competition.
If profit isn't the incentive and experimentation is, people will play around with new ideas and create new things, much of which will suck but some won't. Just look at makers online. They invent new things just for the fun of creation. Sure, some profit from viewership online (we've all got to survive and we live in capitalism), but not by focusing on the profit of a product. Occasionally something groundbreaking comes out of those spaces, and frequently they create small innovations that improve things.
The same stuff applies to open source software. Reddit became horrible because it was chasing profit, but now we have Lemmy, Mastodon, and the rest of the Fediverse entirely independent of profit motives.
My problem with my example is with the individuals in our society.
I honestly have no idea why people still want to buy the newest models of phones since they don't really bring anything new to the table.
But, in my opinion, it's a failing of the individuals rather than a failing of an economic model. There really is no negative for a company to release new models with minor updates if there are enough dumbasses that will give them money for it
But the model creates incentive to not do something new, which you had an issue with. There's incentive to not shake things up too much. They just produce the same crap each year with a larger number in front, because that's the most profitable thing they can do. It isn't to see what they can change to improve it or create something entirely different.
They like it and it does something they like, or their old one wore out and it's the most interesting one available.
Is needing a new thing because your old one wore out, "being a dumbass"?
Really you need some help for your depression if you can't imagine other people being happy with something.
I feel you with existing tech, my phone will probably last me quite a while even though folding phones are pretty cool. I might have some software suggestions for contributing to phone development, but I'm not particularly interested in that either.
If we had a library economy, I'd seek out other areas I'm passionate about and contribute my piece there instead. I feel like I have a lot to contribute to computer science, and would love to drive innovation in that area. I also like my current job. I'd continue to do what I do now, even without the coercive force of money; though I'd probably scale back my working hours. Instead of asking yourself "why would I contribute to that", ask yourself "what do I want to contribute to". That's the idea behind a library economy in a moneyless society.
My problem in that regard would be that there is nothing that I'm passionate about.
Sure, I have 100s of different interests that I have dabbled with, but for all of them, I have stopped at some point, before forgetting about them entirely or picking them up again sometimes years later.
That's ok too! You shouldn't be compelled to work on something you don't want to, and you shouldn't face homelessness for wanting to take extensive breaks from performing labor. You should also be able to freely contribute to whatever has your attention at that moment. Library economies are highly adaptive to the needs of people, and there's always room for more help.
What rockslayer said isn't wrong but I want to add a little.
On the side of having no specific passions, you can absolutely choose to contribute with your labor on whatever needs the most help. We'll still need janitors and bus drivers and construction workers and countless other tasks that have value to society that don't have to include innovation. But if you do have an idea when you're on the job you have the opportunity to suggest that without a boss ignoring you or someone stealing it to profit themselves. Because bosses and profit wouldn't exist.
And if you do develop a random interest, it would be much easier to talk with experts in that field which might stir a passion that was previously stifled under capitalist cost of entry or its need to to turn it into a profitable endeavor. And you could easier step back from whatever job you were previously doing without fear of losing your livelihood, and it would even be easier to go back to said job if the passion didn't stick.
That's what we want, to make work a choice.
Gimme back my headphones jack
The Wright brothers were fairly wealthy business owners before kittyhawk. You don't know what you are talking about re: "innovation motivators"