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Re: [ox-en] The refutation of illusional refutations



On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 03:16:02 -0800 (PST), Michael Bauwens
<michelsub2003 yahoo.com> wrote:

Sorry Dmytri, but it is at times difficult to discuss with you.

I'm glad, only with difficulty is anything worthwhile achieved.

 
Claiming that you have refuted my arguments does not make it so, you have
stated your opinion,

Certainly not, the fact is I have refuted them, this fact is easily 
illustrated as I can repeat my refutations and your can only respond
by ignoring them or questioning my character.

You subscribe to the "immaterial, non-reciprocal" definition of peer
production. As any mode of production must account for it's material
inputs, and any spcialization of labour implies reciprocation, this 
mode of production can not exist, and as such, any production you 
are witnessing that seems such is simply a super-structural 
phenomenon which has another mode of production as it's base.

That is the refutation, not simply my claim of it. These are the
facts of objective reality, not simply my opinion.


shown that you could not understand mine and others
arguments about it. 

Exactly. I can not understand them. And accepting arguments I do 
not actually understand would be a disservice to both of us. 
If these arguments are valid, demonstrate them logically so 
that I can understand them.


Each time you say that you have refuted my arguments,
I'm not going to do like a child and say 'not so', 

But that is precisely what you are doing every time I repeat 
the logical basis of my refutation.


You have not refuted any of the empirical evidence that exists
for non-reciprocal peer production,

No such empirical evidence exists. Free software exists. That 
in no way indicates that its production comes form some magical 
non-reciprocal mode, all empirical evidence shows it's 
producion is financed by corporate and state-based finance.

Once again, you are arguing that the fact that there is milk 
in the store means that milk comes from stores, and thus cows 
are no longer a factor of it's production.


and offered no arguments to prove that
free software is market economy, a command and control economy, or a gift
economy. 

IMO, none of those are modes of production, nor are they 
mutualy exclusive.

As I understand it Kin-communal, manorialist/feudalist, capitalist, 
etc are modes of productions. 

My usage of peer production describes another mode of production
where independent producers employ a common productive stock. 

Unlike the "immaterial, non-reciprocal" definition this formulation
can account for it's material inputs, it's labour specialization, 
it's means of capital formation, etc, and also better describes 
the productive basis of free software as well as more closely
relates to the topology of peer networks from which the term 
is derived.

Further, this formulation also is better rooted in history, as it 
describes historical examples of commons-based production such as 
cottage agriculture and cottage industry as well.

"immaterial, non-reciprocal" is nothing more than an illogical, 
unfounded red-herring.


You have simple pointed out that it has a material basis, which
everybody here knows and is not rocket science.

I have never claimed anything I say is rocket science, particularly
novel, or based on any great scholarship. I make my arguments with
simple logic, and expect the same in response.

This material basis, simple as it is, has a very important 
implication: All surplus wealth resulting from immaterial assets 
will be captured by owners of material assets.

This simple fact, basic and self-evident as it is, obliterates 
any possibility of a change in the distribution of productive 
assets (the rent-capturing kind), emerging from the collective
ownership of free, immaterial assets.

And without a change in the distribution of productive assets, 
there can be no change in distribution of wealth, or any reduction
in class stratification.

 
So, after a contribution like this, I'm very much inclined to say, I'm
not
interested in having any discussions at all with you. Strange, it is the
first time in my life I would take a decision like that ... which in my
mind means that I have rarely encountered so obtuse a character.

I don't believe you, Michel, we are in this together, and we will 
continue our interactions. This "I'm not going to talk to you 
anymore" reaction is just a symptom of your entering the second 
stage of grieving for the "immaterial, non-reciprocal" mode 
of production that could only be described as dearly-departed 
had it ever existed at all.

What you likely have rarely encountered is somebody who actually
cares enough about your ideas and arguments to engage with them
deeply enough to chalenge them.

Also, when we finaly actually meet each other, I have no doubt we
will get along very well. 

Duro says Hi, he has been here in Berlin for Transmediale, he 
describes you as an extremely nice, kind man, I have no doubt this 
is true, and thus do not expect you to be so stuborn as to hold a 
grudge because of a mailing-list debate.


Let me and others be the judge if you have refuted any arguments, and not
yourself. Doing that means that you are living in your own sollipsic
world,
not in the world of mutual discourse.

Don't judge, refute, and do so with unequivocal reasoning, 
the "discourse" we can save for the bar.


Cheers.


-- 
Dmytri Kleiner
editing text files since 1981

http://www.telekommunisten.net


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