JJM 777
19th September 2009, 12:18
In Capitalism we waste economical resources in many ways. Artificially created short product life-cycles, mass unemployment leaving part of the population totally unproductive, and so on...
I am greatly interested in the potential benefits of "shared ownership", compared to "individual ownership", of many types of property.
For example, I have a black-and-white laser printer. I print only 1 page per day with this printer at home. My 10 neighbours probably also have a printer of similar quality, and also they probably print 1 page per day with their printers.
This is an example of quite ineffectively invested resources: everyone in our apartment building has his own printer, which is rarely used. We could get a higher standard of living with the same economical resources, if these 10 neighbours:
1) Buy together one very good printer-fax-copier-scanner system, worth 10 times more than the simple printer that each of us has home, and use it in a shared network. Print remotely from home to the printer, which is in a commonly accessible room in the corridor. This would mean that we get a much better machine, with better printing quality (bigger paper size, more colours, more options) with the same invested money.
Or if we want to save money, instead of improving the quality of the machine, we can:
2) Buy together only one simple printer, instead of 10 people buying their own printers, so everyone saves a lot of money.
I can see many examples where "shared ownership" would improve the actual standard of living of people, so that we get better quality for the same price, or we get the same quality for a much smaller price, if people invest into commonly used resources, so that the resources are more actively in use, and not lying idle most of the time without anyone using them.
I am greatly interested in the potential benefits of "shared ownership", compared to "individual ownership", of many types of property.
For example, I have a black-and-white laser printer. I print only 1 page per day with this printer at home. My 10 neighbours probably also have a printer of similar quality, and also they probably print 1 page per day with their printers.
This is an example of quite ineffectively invested resources: everyone in our apartment building has his own printer, which is rarely used. We could get a higher standard of living with the same economical resources, if these 10 neighbours:
1) Buy together one very good printer-fax-copier-scanner system, worth 10 times more than the simple printer that each of us has home, and use it in a shared network. Print remotely from home to the printer, which is in a commonly accessible room in the corridor. This would mean that we get a much better machine, with better printing quality (bigger paper size, more colours, more options) with the same invested money.
Or if we want to save money, instead of improving the quality of the machine, we can:
2) Buy together only one simple printer, instead of 10 people buying their own printers, so everyone saves a lot of money.
I can see many examples where "shared ownership" would improve the actual standard of living of people, so that we get better quality for the same price, or we get the same quality for a much smaller price, if people invest into commonly used resources, so that the resources are more actively in use, and not lying idle most of the time without anyone using them.