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Re: [ox-en] Peer Economy. A Transition Concept.



Hi StefanMn and all,

it would have been more useful when using Christians mails about 
peerconomy, because my article is only a short review about his 
concept. Most of your remarks do not really apply. Here are the 
links to the five parts posted by Christian:

0: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04244.html
1: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04277.html
2: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04339.html
3: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04353.html
4: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04365.html

Of couse, reading his book is the best to grasp the concept.

On 2008-04-07 11:24, Stefan Merten wrote:
... information goods are
not so special compared with other goods which need the manipulation
of matter. At the moment they are special in two respects:

* Universality
  Digital information is universal in that it is able to encode very
  many types of information.
  In the material world this could map to a kind of matter which is
  similarly universal

What kind of matter is similarly universal?
Saying "matter is involved" is far too unspecific.

* Coypability
  The step to material production is only a small one: We need
  machines which transform information into some material form. And
  we have these. In a way every machine manipulating matter is such a
  thing - though probably only the more advanced like robots, fabbers
  or all those other cool machines making more and more people
  unemployed have the potential we are looking for.

I see the general potential of fabber, but this is far from becoming an 
real option. And robots or other production machines are another story. 
Anyway, they all do not bridge the principal difference between 
information and physical goods. So let me add the points you forgot:

Physical goods are of rival and thus of singular nature, they will be 
used up. Information goods are of anti-rival nature and using means 
spreading (cf. Steven Weber).

Therefore physical goods have to be produced consistently, and they 
consume consistently resources and effort for each single new piece. 
This is not the case for information goods. When created, using is 
spreading by copying.

Both types need infrastructures to get produced and distributed, and 
these infrastructures are physical goods which has to be produced, 
powered and maintained. However, while the internet is a common 
infrastructure for production and distribution of information goods 
(neglecting other forms of distribution like DVDs here), physical goods 
need "two" different infrastructures. The production infrastructure 
constantly consumes raw material and effort scaling degressively with 
output, and the transport infrastructure needs transportation means and 
effort scaling linearily (more or less) with amount. This is not the 
case for information goods.

Singular nature of physical good also means a singular utility. New 
utility implies new products implies new infrastructure. This is not 
the case for information goods. The universe of ultility of information 
goods to be created on the one infrastructure is unlimited. But even 
if really a totally new ulitility emerges (which in the realm of 
digitized information I don't see), the infrastructure has to rebuild 
once to open up a completely new realm. This is not the case for 
physical goods: Here each new product need a new infrastructure, 
athough the amount of changes can be (and will be) limited by using 
programmable production means like robots etc. -- reducing the amount 
of work as you mentioned.

I can not see why any of these aspects is generally limited to
digital goods. I mean there are already machines which are able to
move single atoms...

I find it really dangerous to draw on a perspective solely based on 
technical means.

Starting point is the consideration, that people have to spend
efforts during the production of their living conditions.

I think this starting point is wrong. Effort as an economical
category seems to me a mostly capitalist notion and thus not very
helpful for other economic systems like pre- or post-capitalist ones.
Effort in this abstract sense maps to abstract labor - which I think
is not a useful category for peer production projects.

Nope, effort is a general term and has nothing to do with abstract 
labor. Every society needs effort to produce their living conditions.

And from my experience I also can not see that effort plays much of a
role in peer production projects.

Every action needs effort, thus peer projects too.

While capitalism uses
the market as an »indirection« to allocate produced
goods---although afore it is not clear, if they are needed or can
be sold---peer production does not distribute goods,

Of course distribution is an important point for peer production. It
is one result of the openness.

You are right, "let the users take the products" is a kind of 
distribution. The point here is: peer production does not use indirect 
means like a market and exchange, but the relationship between needs 
and products is "direct".

but the effort to produce them.

Sorry, but this wording implies that there is some external goal
which needs effort which is then distributed.

This is a misinterpretation. Due to the direct relationship between 
needs and products there is no external goal. Every society distributes 
its effort in some way (capitalism using indirections via markets).

Doing this it will only be produced what is needed---

That is not true. There are many reasons to produce.

When something is produced, then it is needed. Like in free software. 
But you are right when pointing to the motivation of producing as an 
end in itself. This, however, is part of the needs, and not separated 
from them.

the relationship
between needs and products is »direct«.

True. But in the first place it does apply only to the needs of the
producers - not the consumers.

Above you addressed the contrary (if I understand you correctly). The 
relationship between producing and consuming is bidirectional.

Intensity,
extent, and duration is determined by each person themself. On the
other side peer projects depend on contributions and will do
everything to be attractive for participation.

I don't think peer production projects to "everything to be
attractive for participation". From my experience it is far more
important to attract *the right* contributors.

Agreed, but this isn't indeed a contradiction to the goal to be 
attractive for participation for any contributors.

Peer production bases on so called Commons being ressources without
owner controlling the usage.

That's at least not exact. Copyleft controls ways of use and most
licenses do.

But the owner does not. That's the point.

Free cooperation is an additional fundament of peer projects.

I have serious trouble with the term "free cooperation" as coined by
Christoph Spehr. I prefer "voluntary cooperation"

As you wish. IIRC free cooperation does not refer to Spehr.

Coercion
as a mean to organize the production does not exist, because means
of coercion are absent.

They are not absent - what should remove them.

How should you force someone to do something you want?

But they are counterproductive for wanted volunteers - and this is
why they are not applied to wanted volunteers in Doubly Free peer
production projects. On unwanted volunteers, however, coercion is
applied regularly. And this is good.

Accepting contributions is one the questions Christian discusses in his 
book. Please read.

Inside peer projects formal status
and its symbols, but also other criteria like gender, origin, age
etc. don't play a role.

I always thought that women see this differently...

Also education plays a major role here. That is often also used for
discrimination.

The topic of discrimination is discussed in the book as well.

What counts are the contributions one makes. They
determine reputation, credit, and confidence one gets.

Yes. In that respect they are similar to capitalism.

By far not. It is similar to curent peer projects.

Now, how can needs of the producers be coordinated with the needs
of the consumers?

What for? At least on a general basis. If one wants to create a
question here then it needs to be something like "How can it be made
sure that all needs are supplied?". Which in this generality probably
can not be answered at all and there probably never was a society who
answered that question...

The question about the needs (of producers and consumers) *is* a central 
question of a free society. If not, we could stay in capitalism.

Peer projects of physical goods have to demand an adequate
compensation for the taking of goods requiring each time anew an
effort to produce them.

No, not in general. The main difference is that for digital goods the
means are part of the common infrastructure and are nearly as
available as natural ressources - i.e. for free. I can see no general
distinction why this is not possible for less virtual goods.

Some points are given above.

But which contribution is adequate? This question is decided by the
project. It weights the contributions using the time duration
inversely proportional to its popularity: unpopular tasks only
require a small contribution, while popular tasks require a big
contribution. This sounds similar to role the economic value is
playing in market economy.

I'm not sure I understand this. Anyway: The duration a contribution
took needs to be made more specific.

If you think of abstract time like in abstract labor then from my
experience I'd refuse this: The bare time spent for a contribution
doesn't matter much - and why should it.

Even when you refer to the concrete time spent for a task it doesn't
matter much. I mean if a bloody beginner does something in six weeks
which someone skilled could do in five minutes - which in software is
not completely impossible - then why honor the ineffectiveness of the
beginner?

It is nor about abstract time neither about concrete time. It isn't 
about time at all when running (my examples when speaking about "hours" 
are only illustrations, there is no measurement or comparision like in 
exchange). It is about effort of a contribution being weighted by the 
demand and supply. Read the book.

The economic value maps complex actions on simple once. However,
while always complex actions are manifolds of simple
once---resulting in less volume of spending---a generalized peer
production tend to function the other way around: Simple tasks no
one likes to do will be highly weighted to guarantee its execution,
while popular and often highly qualified tasks get a lower weight.

I think this is really wrong. It reduces the manifold reasonings and
consideration in any(!, also capitalist!) real world project to a
single number. This is purely capitalist logic but IMHO only useful
for capitalism - and even there it can be questioned very well.

Nope. All criteria of capitalism are absent. Concerning effort (or time) 
the "single number" is an arbitrary means only driven by the weighting 
process reflecting the societal relationship of demand and supply. This 
sounds familiar with market economy, but it is a completely different 
mechanism of regulation. My only critique is, that this type of 
regulation based on *coupling* of giving and taking is necessary at all.

One point is that whether or not someone considers a task
Selbstentfaltung is a very individual thing. Similar to "given enough
eye balls all bugs are shallow" (Eric S. Raymond) I'd say "given
enough Selbstentfalting people all tasks are a pleasure".

Yes, I strongly support this. However, it seems quite illusionary to me 
to assume that it solves all societal requirements and problems. The 
strengh of Christians book is, that he goes into detail for whole 
society and presents a well reasoned concept for all of these details. 
Read the book.

distribution pool. Depending on the type of goods the ways of
disribution differ, from flat rate allocation to preference
weighting.

I don't know what this exactly relates to. However, in open projects
it is one of the key factors that everyone can take - not only those
who contribute. Otherwise it is a closed project anyway and thus
hardly a peer production project.

Read the book.

It is remarkable, that Siefkes concretely discusses a number of
critical questions, which are usually avoided by refering to a
future »where everything will be solved«:

Sorry, but from this review I think Christian is more trying to map
capitalist logic to peer production. I outlined above where I think
this happens.

Your outline is based on my review and misinterprets heavily Christians 
concept. So when bashing you have to address me writing such a bad 
review. However, it is not easy to give an overview for a whole society 
concept.

How will limited resources and goods be distributed?

At least in the review there is only talking of abstract labor.

This is at least a misinterpretation. I didn't wrote about it.

What about infrastructures and meta-tasks? How will
decisions be made, how conflicts be solved? How will global
projects be organized?

Questions which in the realm of Free Software are resolved since
long.

This is a very optimistic position.

Are laws further on necessary?

What certainly *will* be necessary is that social systems need rules.
But that is so common wisdom it is really an uninteresting statement.

Nope, it is interesting, and Christian discusses this point.

To my opinion the presented concept is a pragmatic transition
model, not a general model of a post-capitalist society.

For a pragmatic transition model the questions posed are wrong. For a
pragmatic transition model I don't need answers for the most
fundamental and abstract questions I can think of. I just need
solutions to just the next problem. This is a key difference.

The next problem of what on what way to what goal?

I'm also not a fan of general models of a peer production based
societies. I think we are not in a position to even think about it -
because there will be so many things different. In particular I'd
leave this set of most fundamental questions to those who need to
answer them. And I'm absolutely sure that they have different ones
than we have.

Yes, this in general is the position of Christian too. However, these 
questions base on my phrasing summing up more detailed ones concerning 
his model. Then they might appear too abstract, but they are not. Read 
the book.

Main limitation is the
interlinking of contribution and taking. However, it is well
imaginable, that the strict interlinking between contribution and
taking during the phase of competition to capitalism will be
resolved after its overcoming.

<irony>
And as everyone knows real-existing socialism is the first step to
communism.
</irony>

As we all know this was not the case.

I don't think it is doing anyone a favor to project capitalist logic
onto peer production.

This only takes place in your interpretation, it is not the case.

I guess Christian is not very pleased with my reply - which is
understandable after all the effort he took in his book.

Maybe you are not happy with my reply. Summing up most of your 
objections base on misinterpretations, because you didn't read the 
book. You only wrote down some impressions based on my review (which 
may be badly written -- I don't know).

I feel that you could argue against the model even when read the book. 
This would be fine. And it would be fine to discuss arguments based on 
knowing of what we talking about and not based on more or less free 
associations.

Ciao,
Stefan

-- 
Start here: www.meretz.de
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