Message 05155 [Homepage] [Navigation]
Thread: oxenT05101 Message: 7/14 L2 [In index]
[First in Thread] [Last in Thread] [Date Next] [Date Prev]
[Next in Thread] [Prev in Thread] [Next Thread] [Prev Thread]

Goal of a money reform? (was: Re: [ox-en] There IS such a thing as peer money)



Hi Michel and all!

2 weeks (20 days) ago Michel Bauwens wrote:
I would just like to clarify something, about the concept of peer money,
taking into account's Stefan's critique

First of all, I agree with Stefan that peer production should be exclusively
used to moneyless processes involving voluntary contributions and universal
availability of the resulting common value.

In this sense, peer money is contradictory.

Good that we agree on this :-) .

However, at present, peer to peer dynamics exist within a broader field
dominated by market (and state) processes,

Yes. Because peer production is still in its `expansion step`_.

.. _expansion step: http://www.oekonux.org/texts/GermFormTheory.html#expansion-step-the-germ-form-becomes-an-important-dimension

and it is of interest to peer
producers that the context in which it operates is as close as possible to
the non-alienating values of p2p.

Yes.

Thus it is legimate that it is our wish to move towards a peer-informed
society and context, at least until such time as a presumable fuller p2p
society would exist, in which even lots of physical resources could possible
be produced and distributed in such a way.

I think I understand what you mean by 'peer-informed society' - an
intermediate society between capitalism and a peer production based
society in its `dominance step`_. But is it possible to find a better
wording? May be I'm also just lacking some common English phrase here.

.. _dominance step: http://www.oekonux.org/texts/GermFormTheory.html#dominance-step-the-germ-form-becomes-the-dominant-form

Anyway, this is a very difficult question. Not that this is legitimate
wish - of course such a wish is legitimate. But such a move implies
difficult questions.

Foremost I'd like to ask: What is the goal of such a move(ment)?

I thought a bit about this question and the following possible answers
came to mind - more of course are welcome.

* I would like to live in a *future* peer production based society as
  soon as possible and therefore I want to accelerate this historical
  movement.

  If that is the goal then it is likely but not automatically given
  that some intermediary societal change will help. In earlier times
  people would have said that we need a revolution for that change -
  though in germ form thinking a revolution AFAICS is at best a small
  part of the whole change process.

* I would like to benefit from peer production processes *now* as much
  as I can and that is why I want to live in such a context as much as
  possible.

  Then it must be clear what in peer production is beneficial for you
  and what can be done to help you to get as much of this benefit as
  possible now. Then such an peer-informed context needs to implement
  these benefits for you. And you should have an idea of what is
  beneficial for you actually.

* I have a nice life now but it is part of my Selbstentfaltung to
  think about society and I like the idea of being a obstetrician for
  a new society.

  In this case an intermediary context makes only sense if it helps
  the birth of a new society. However, the time scale doesn't matter
  much.

I think that the goal of such a move(ment) is important and implies a
lot. To everyone with that wish: What is your goal?

The question then is how to accomplish such a move(ment). This
question is worth a couple of more too long posts ;-) . However, I
tried to start that discussion with the topic of current limitations
of peer production.

I think it is crucial to think about such distinctions,

Absolutely. Clear concepts - implying clear distinctions - and good
questions are absolutely crucial for a deeper understanding. In that
sense I want to emphasize that it is all but nitpicking to insist on
clear concepts - as I often do ;-) .

between peer money
and peer-informed money and processes, the latter not being a contradiction
in terms

Yes.

But I guess you agree that the current money system co-exists with
peer production. Funnily the same saying Marc used - "don't fix it
unless it's broken" - came to my mind some days ago when I thought
about these things.

For nearly all goals a move towards a peer production based society
IMHO should *improve* the conditions for peer production. And here I
can not see what's wrong with the current money system *for peer
production*. Regardless whether some money trickery would work or not
I'd like to know what problems of *peer production* a reform in the
money system solves.

(however, there remains a theoretical possibility of peer money: if there
were some unconditional way to reward peer producers, with some form of
value that were usable outside the peer production process itself, that
could probably be characterized as peer money?)

You don't need to reward peer producers. They do it because they like
it. They are rewarded by what they do already. We need to be careful
here.

Apart from that I'd say that in this case the meaning of the money
"outside the peer production process" dominates. It makes sense in
this "outside" and thus is clearly a part of it. For the peer
production process itself it is thus also something outside. Therefore
I would not call it peer money.

So, one of the questions is then, how to reform the market structures?

To accomplish what for peer production?

A crucial aspect of this reform is to reform/transform the monetary system,
to arrive at a peer-informed monetary system.

See above. Unless it is shown that the current monetary system is a
problem for peer production processes I do not see the improvement. So
why bother?

This involves refusing the
built-in infinite growth protocol of existing capitalist money, and using
money and finances with value-sensitive designs.

I often argued that in the sentence above the words "existing
capitalist" are superfluous making your whole point absurd. The
essence of money is to be abstracted away from real society and *that*
is the problem you are trying to deal with. You either need to destroy
that abstraction - and then it is no longer money you are talking of -
or accept the same problems - and then it makes no sense.

Otherwise we arrive at the, in my opinion, absurd position of Stefan, which
basically says: until such time as we have a peer to peer society, we are
happy to let capitalist money be, 'because it's all money anyway'.

Well, you know that I would have omitted "capitalist" in the sentence
above which makes it a trivial sentence and not absurd. IMO it's all
about

* What is money?

* Are the characteristics of money we observe inalienable features of
  money or can things be changed to result in something different?

I and others argued over and over again that money is based on labor
and abstraction and that the abstraction lives a life of it's own and
*this* is the problem. You seem to deny that. However, I can not
remember one case where you said why. Why?

But see this post for a couple of other points - especially: Where
does peer production benefit from a money reform?

Such a position is similar as the one saying: fascism and the keynesian
welfare state are all manifestations of bourgeois society, there the same
anyway, so  we don't choose one over the other.

Well, let me say it this way. I'd be glad if someone would be able to
"fix" the money system - or at least make a money based economy a
safer and more humane place. *But* even if this is possible I can not
see what this has to do with peer production! Not even remotely!

IMO you could equally well argue that everybody has to become a
Christian/Hindu/Moslem/Buddhist/... or wear blue shoes or ... and that
this would help peer production.

Any money reform of the sort you are suggesting all the time is at the
very best an internal change inside the money system.

The only thing I can see why this could be useful for peer production
is that peer production still needs some time to take over. In *this*
sense it would be useful if capitalism / money based systems could
still wait some decades until they finally break. If some money reform
can help here that's great.

No, they are not the same, and neither are the current system producing the
financial meltdown, and alternative value-conscious, peer-informed monetary
systems that have totally different results for social and natural
externalities.

I'm sorry but so far this is pure theory. Or even worse: Where these
models have turned into practice - such as Argentina - they failed
miserably. And for exactly those reasons I'm pointing out all the time
[1]_. The hype about LETS_ also came down during the last few years
and today I think it is clear to everyone that LETS_ are no real
alternative.

.. [1] In Argentina it was foremost the lack of a power monopoly (aka
       state) preventing counterfeit money.

.. _LETS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS

Peer production on the other hand emerged as a *practical phenomenon*.
It is not born from some theorists and is growing since 30 years. This
convinces me.

The money trickery stuff you are suggesting is at least a hundred
years old and it is really boring to hear it over and over again.

I can also not think of a single instance where a peer producer
concerned with real production thought about this or even asked for
that type of money reform. Therefore it seems to me that this whole
discussion is completely alienated from real existing peer production.

So, in this sense, a project like Marc's called peer money for convenience's
sake, is totally legitimate and important,

Well, I think Marc's project ignores a lot of important insights and
absolutely resembles the patterns of (capitalist) money. But of course
I might be wrong and in ten years time I can see that

* the model works and

* while being on a large scale avoids the same problems of standard
  money.

So go ahead. After all meanwhile there are lots and lots of people
saying very similar things so it should be easy to make a start. I'd
love to see them being successful so we can watch things in practice
instead of discussing things which IMO are at best not thought
through.

In any case I can not see what Marc's project has to do with peer
production. In the contrary: As Patrick found and I emphasized in my
last post Marc's project is obviously opposed to common peer
production practices such as making competition superfluous. So I
guess you'll have a hard time to explain why such a model is helpful
for peer production processes.


						Grüße

						Stefan
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de



Thread: oxenT05101 Message: 7/14 L2 [In index]
Message 05155 [Homepage] [Navigation]