The Cooperative VS. Competition

Some have expressed their desire for a world where everyone works together for the good of everyone. For these people I would like to suggest the concept of the cooperative. It is already being done all over SL in many different forms.

The cooperative is a group of people that come together, pooling both their cash and work together to come up with a benefit to everyone in the cooperative. Many of the private islands that sell nothing act in this way. Everyone pitches in on the building process, and many people pool their money together to afford the cost of a private island. Sometimes the percentage people give varies, as I've heard of several private island owners that build and fund the project among 2-3 people and then provide the benefit of the island to a much larger group. This method of existance is fully available to any and everybody that wants to implement it. All you have to do is find people that want the same thing you do, and work together to get it.

Market competition is a method of creating a world that is built around what people spend money on. People will always spend money on sex, gambling, violence, and other high demand entertainments. The more people will spend on a paticular good or service, the more people will come out of the woodwork to produce what is wanted. Sometimes the good or service is simply the act of going away if you are paid, such as the mafia does in real life and the "Impeach Bush" guy does in Second Life. In real life, you often have people doing unethical things like putting their workers through unsafe conditions to make things cheaper than the competition. In Second Life you may have farming shops in other countries that use Second Life to make money while paying their workers barely enough to live on. Competition can have its down side, but it is the most efficient way of getting what people want to the people. It bypasses the need of finding the people for the cooperative, because the people will find you.

Second Life is a good place to use the free market method, since it less likely that people will be abused from the seeking of lower production costs. If something does pop up that does lead to abuse, there can always be regulations made like I hope will happen about the "Impeach Bush" signs to regulate the free market. Even in a Second Life built around a free market system, a cooperative can still exist. For all those that want a cooperative, I suggest you make your own.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, telling the world that Communism
does not work. Its now 2006 and people still haven't learned.


com·mu·nism

NOUN:

1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective
ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common
advantage of all members.

Communism will never work because the human spirit always aspires to be above average.

Ignorance, oh ignorance... what have we done to thee?

Why must we constantly impaled be with the words of thy minions, such as these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative

Note: I just pasted the wikipedia link, beacuse I'm too lazy to copy paste all the 146,000,000 links that google search spun up in 0.26 seconds on the topic.

By the way... weren't you the one who started the "OMG OMG, there is no more basic account stipends.. we are doomed!!!" type of threads?

I am not suggesting that Second Life move into communism. I'm suggesting that even in a free market a group of people can work together to achieve the group benefits they seek. We see all over Second Life places that do not rely on a purely producer/consumer system. The two can exist in the same system, and yet not destroy each other. Just because some people in Second Life prefer the capitalistic system of free market, does not mean it is impossible that no one else can create what they consider to be a more ideal environment by working together. Some cooperatives could even work together to try to gain the benefit of turning a profit. I think most active cooperatives in Second Life are seeking other benefits however.

For the record, I am one of the people that prefer to work in a competitive free market over a cooperation between a group of people trying to figure out what it is they can all agree they want. I'm simply hoping that people that think Second Life only allows for one system of creating your virtual world will see that there are alternative methods of making things work even without removing the overall free market.

lol dark, don't bother trying to make sense with our two "leading economic minds"

there is no reason why a cooperative or barter network could not work within SL within a sub-community. Heck, my network of friends is practically a cooperative of some sort... we're always exchanging goodies, tips, donations of time/service, etc... i can see some people wanting to formalize it more, and i'm sure some have already done so

People working toughter for a common goal are not communist. Ia America I think it is called a co op. What is the problem with people pooling there resourses for the common good? This is a form of social contract and is not forced as the Communist would do.

Does everthing have to make a profit to be good?

For those interested in exploring the tension between competition and cooperation, I suggest two seminal works:

Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene (1976), in which Prof. Dawkins explained his valuable concepts of "Kinship Theory" and "Reciprocity Theory," by which groups of kinfolk (individual organisms related by DNA or common circumstances) tend to cluster together and tend to behave altruistically toward each other. By so doing, they tend to support their kinship group (colony, tribe, flock, swarm, school, whatever) in its competition with other groups and organisms for limited resources.

Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation (1984), in which Prof. Axelrod proposed a theory by which cooperation evolved, based upon his "investigation of individuals who pursue their own self-interest without the aid of a central authority to force them to cooperate with each other." Axelrod found that this cooperation evolved not only in sentient beings, but in animals, even microorganisms, and concluded that the phenomenon is independent of thought and altruism, but a characteristic of the mathematics of game theory.

His theory has been further developed by others since then along the lines that cooperation evolves as a response to the need to compete or fail. Once you get your head around that seeming contradiction, you're prepared to start a thoughtful consideration of how cooperation and competition feed on each other.

Soon, you'll be ready for Schumpeterian Creative Destruction and maybe Clayton Christensen. But that's another story.

I'm cloning this posting to the listing of readings recommended to Law Society members, found in its group forum (link in my sig).

Please take into consideration, your "network of friends" does not
represent the general populous of SL. What you do and how you do
it is not transferable to the masses.


Lets also not forget, the Linden Dollar is a "Tool for Trade". Instead
of bartering land plots for sexy bikini wear, everybody uses the L$ to
buy and sell goods and services. Using the L$ is a much better tool for
trade than anything else. The issue at hand is the value of
the tool we all use for trade and it's exchange rate to the US Dollar.