Re: [ox-en] Information goods as genuine societal goods
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz hbv.org>
- Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:18:37 +0200
Hi StefanS, although speaking to StefanMn let me comment on this:
On 2008-04-04 23:18, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
1. Information goods are not exchange goods.
Without wanting to get drawn too much into an ontological discussion
here, I'd like to point out that these things 'are' not anything in
themselves. Rather, they become what we make them. If we choose to
handle them as exchange items, they are exchange items.
No, there can only be exchange items when there is a necessity to be
exchanged. Why should anyone exchange something which is already there?
Please have in mind, that we are talking about the societal level.
This is totally unrelated to whether or not the act of exchange
involves 'matter' (no matter what definition of 'matter' you apply
here). And it is also quite independent from whether the exchange
process requires any effort (whether it is frictionless) or not.
The important relationship we should see here is whether a good is
appropriate for producing it in a *private* way. Only when produced
privately exchange is necessary. When produced societally the question
of "exchange" changes to the question of how to distribute the goods.
In the case of digitized information goods the problem is small,
because production and distribution can use the same infrastructure.
It is important to realize that whether or not the (re-)production of
goods, intellectual or not, do not intrinsically imply a particular
mode of production / exchange.
On a general level this is true. However, we live in a historically
specific situation, where capitalism gets huge problems to squeeze
information goods into the social form of commodities (needing
exchange). And this has to do with the nature of the goods. But you are
right, the goods don't tell us how to organize society. We should not
follow a techno-utopian path :-)
Ciao,
Stefan
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