RE: [ox-en] word social forum/stallman/patents
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 07:16:25 -0500 (EST)
On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, Kermit Snelson wrote:
The people who attend the World Social Forum have many conflicting opinions.
But the common idea seems to be that information (the bit) is ontologically
distinct from matter (the atom), and that the increasingly
information-driven character of modern economies will consequently lead to
the overthrow of today's atom-based social norms.
Of course, this means that the World Social Forum essentially shares the
metaphysical world-view of its Davos-bred opponents. The difference is that
whereas the Davos crowd wants to enable an exchange-based economy for
"information products," the WSF generally wants to prevent one. To
accomplish this, Davos advocates stronger legal restrictions on the
transmission or use of information, whereas the WSF generally advocates
weaker ones.
mmm. I'm puzzled here (not about what you're saying, but about the reality
behind it). You're saying this is on both sides a 'metaphysical' view, and
I can see your argument for that. On the other hand, Davos forms the
tactics for the owners of the current economy, where the people attending
the WSF are largely people from or associated (eg Oxfam) with the very
poorest countries. For those countries disputes over patents for medicine
or crops are not just metaphysics, and the tactics they follow are
important in the real world. The Davos people's decisions have even more
direct real-world effects. So I don't think there's any argument that what
the two sides are arguing over has considerable real world importance, and
any tactics eg. in relation to TRIPS that come out of these conferences
are also important. But what does it mean if the tactics are derived from
a 'metaphysical world-view'? Are they necessarily wrong? Or does it weaken
the arguments and make it harder to get support for them?
Davos, in other words, believes that information should be
bought and sold and that artificial scarcities should be introduced by law
in order to make such markets possible. Porto Alegre, on the other hand,
believes that information, which naturally lacks the scarcities inherent in
atom-based markets, should remain completely unrestricted and thus remain
res extra commercium.
That's my latest theory, anyway. In any case, it may indicate at least one
way in which Negri, Stallman and Raymond might ideologically overlap.
Since everyone keeps mentioning him, guess I'll have to read some Negri (I
know nothing about him). Can you recommend any particular work to give me
some idea?
Ciao,
Graham
Kermit
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/