Profit requires Scarcity.
And most Investors require Profit as Return for the risk they take.
So it would seem we *must* seek Scarcity - for how else could we repay
our Investors?
...
But a certain group can accept Product as the Return for their risk.
This special group already pays all the Costs of production anyway,
AND they also pay Profit (Price above Cost) because they buy the
Product late.
This special group are the people the Product is supposedly being made
for, and yet they must continually beg the Owners to do the right thing.
And yet those owners really *cannot* do the right thing for the
pleading Consumers because their Investors have conflicting goals.
...
So imagine a scenario where Consumers invest and become the co-owners
the Means of Production for their own, mutual benefit.
This is different from a traditional cooperative because the Product
is not sold and so there is no chance for Price to be above Cost.
Profit is *UNDEFINED* when Product is ROI because there is no sale.
The final transaction does not occur because the Product is already in
the hands of the person who will Consume it.
This short-circuit across the usual need for trade is an optimization
in that the Product is "pre allocated" to the person who needs it so
the Product is not bought or sold; it is already the user's property.
Governments cannot tax or interrogate the missing transaction. See
http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent for a subset of the issue.
