[ox-en] Epistemological status of the five step model (was: Re: There is no such thing like "peer money")
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
- Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:51:16 +0100
Hi Raoul,
thank you for your great mail, you grasped the real intention of
five-step-model. It is not about defining, but about analyzing a
complex and highly dynamic situation we face.
Let me comment on a few points.
On 2009-01-06 10:21, Raoul wrote:
necessary. I am not so familiar with the 5-step model. I know it
essentially by the “Fundamental text” ("Germ-form theory: Peer
production in a historical perspective") you and Stefan wrote.
That's the best reference we have today.
I find
that theory very useful. I think it is borne out by the history of
the past transitions between social systems, especially from slavery
to feudalism and from feudalism to capitalism.
Initially it comes from an evolutional theory within the framework of
german critical psychology, but the founder Klaus Holzkamp was a
Marxist, and possibly the transitions of societal forms could have been
the inspiration. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_psychology
It should be a helpful
tool for understanding the present transition to a post-capitalist
society, even if this transition is qualitatively different from most
of past ones, since its is not a transition between two systems based
on exploitation but a movement towards the end of exploitation.
True. I would like to come back to this point later.
My concern was to situate in the framework of the 5-step model the
specific moment when the question of a peer distribution of material
goods is actually posed. That moment requires that an important share
of the material means of production have become collectively owned
and begin to be managed according to peer principles. You say, and I
can agree, that this corresponds to the transition from the 3d to the
4th step "where the peer economy becomes dominant". I just want to
make two remarks about that.
1. The definition given by the text is coherent with the Marxist
concept. It reads: "Now it is its principles that determine further
development", or, "The new form (...) determining the system's
direction of development." [I suppose that in this last formulation
it is "society" which is meant by "system"].
In our context, yes, however, "system" is meant very generally in the
text.
The definition of the status of “dominant” for a mode of production
is often misunderstood. It is assimilated to a simple question of
share of people producing according to the principles of that mode.
For example, if the share is superior to a given percentage, the mode
would be dominant. In the Marxist conception, a mode of production
can be dominant without involving the majority of the producers. It
is a question of dynamic. Marx considers that capitalism becomes
dominant as early as the 16-17th century, since the further
development of society is already essentially determined by the
still-young capitalist reality.
Exactly. There are really interesting investigations about the huge
"dominance shift" we had in europe around 1620. Eske Bockelmann wrote a
book ("Im Takt des Geldes" -- roughly: "In the beat of money") about
this qualitative historical transistion. He took two examples -- music
(and poetry) and science -- and showed, that the understanding and
feeling, of what music (or science) is, changed dramatically. In case
of music there was a shift from a kind of a "material beat experience"
(every beat within a part of music has a distinct meaning) to an
"abstract beat experience" (the beat was abstractified through
decoupling from the meaning: the modern understanding of abstract
"beats" was born). The same applies to poetry and the understanding of
science.
The reason for this huge shift was the generalisation of money
relationships in europe and the emergence of the first "world market".
Exchanging changes itself from a means to obtain goods to a means to
make money, in order to buy commodities. This process was a process of
learning what "real abstraction" is, and this changes the way how
people hear music, read poetry or view the world.
2. Considering that the beginning of the extension of peer production
principles to the "material" sphere opens the transition to the step
of "domination" constitutes an important point of reference.
This being said, I have been somewhat surprised by an aspect of the
Stefan Merten's presentation given recently at the Kerala conference,
concerning the advancement of peer principles in the 5-step
model/scale. If I understand the slides he published in the ox-en
list (which are inevitable very short) Stefan makes a distinction
between two levels or spheres: one is "software" and the other is
"society". He writes that "For software: Free Software is well in
phase 3, disseminating and expanding"; (...) "For society: Peer
production is in phase 1: emerging of the new."
I think that Stefan Merten's concern deals with an important reality.
It is true that peer principles are clearly "disseminating and
expanding" in the software sphere, The recent Study on the Economic
impact of FLOSS in the EU, confirms that clearly (see S. Merten's
mail of 30dec08). We can even see some proprietary corporations being
obliged to produce "peer products" and to adopt some aspects of peer
principles for producing them (IBM for Linux, for example). In that
sphere, peer principles of production are, as Merten says, "most
developed and most visible". In the sphere of science and culture,
where most of the goods produced are digital or information goods,
this is also the case, even if at lesser degree. But in the
"material" sphere, dealing with non-freely-reproducible goods, peer
principles are hardly visible, leaving aside the fact that material
production is irreversibly and rapidly becoming more and more
dependent from software and science.
I agree with StefanMn's estimation.
That means that the 5-step model may describe different degrees of
advancement of the SAME germ-form in different spheres/layers of
social production. But, at the same time, it should describe the
whole process, it should measure the degree of advancement at the
global scale.
Yes. You have to always make clear, what your "system" is (software or
society), and what you assume to be the germ form in that respective
system (free software in both cases).
That may seem complex or contradictory. But that corresponds to a
very frequent reality in nature, grasped by the fractal
images/equations. "A fractal is generally 'a rough or fragmented
geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at
least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,' a property
called self-similarity." (Wikipedia in English)
We could thus say that, simultaneously, in the software layer, as in
the science and culture one (even if at a lower degree), the
advancements of peer principles is in phase 3, expanding and
disseminating, and, in the "material" sphere, it is in phase 1,
emerging. Or rather in phase 2, crisis of the old, as Merten
precises. (A burning issue by these days, when capitalism is
confronted to its first really *worldwide* economic crisis).
Yes.
But what about the global, the social level? In which phase is the
germ-form "for society"? Merten seems to identify that phase with the
lowest in the partial spheres: the phase in the material sphere.
That sounds sensible, since the material layer remains the foundation
of prevailing social relationships. Also because the "visibility" of
peer production at a global level is heavily dependent of its
visibility in the material sphere.
I think so, yes.
But, if the 3d phase is strictly defined by "disseminating and
expanding" or "germ form becomes an important dimension", then we
must consider that "for society", for the whole, peer-production is
in phase 3. The quality of the different spheres is not crucial here.
Capitalism expanded first in secondary sectors of production: weapons
and luxury products. Software and science are "secondary" to material
production, but they also are more and more determinant in any
evolution of it.
The question is: What is the dimension, the measure, where we proof the
germ form to be in a phase of the germ form model? As you explained
before, the measure is no a quantitativ one, is must be a new
qualitative influence the germ form reached in the process of
expansion.
For the realm of software this means, that not the share of free
software in world wide software usage is the measure, but the
application of free software types of development and utility -- even
in proprietary software development! If no important company is any
longer able to realize their profits without applying free software
modes of production, then the fourth step -- the dominance shift -- is
reached. And we are on the track, that's the third step.
Now back to society, what in this case is the measure? The measure is
not the material production, which lead to somewhat weird debates about
the portion of non-material (informational) production within the
material production. The measure is the type of social mediation. This
is hard to understand for those, who do not have any notion of
"mediation". Simplistically said it is the way people organize their
"division of work" or yet better: "division of doing". In capitalism
markets and money are the powerful social mediators, they bind the
isolated individuals together (if the individuals are able to
participate at all, of course). I can completely understand the aims of
all of the money botching approaches, which want to conserve this
mediation power. However, according to five step model, they all must
fail, because they do not have any qualitative new mode of social
mediation, they only want to modify -- of course: improve -- the old
mode. Whether some money play can help to advance the real qualitative
step making money and market mediation superfluous is unclear.
Thus it is very legitimate to aim to conserve the given level of
societal complexity, no future approach must go below this level. But
in some sense capitalism is too complex and under-complex at the same
time. It is too complex in areas where compitition, isolation and
privatization leads to absurd tendencies of making products technically
and socially "incompatible" which other products or social practicies.
This is the way proprietary software works. On the other hand
capitalism is under-complex in solving global problems by simply using
the "money lever" (e.g. trading carbon dioxide emissions).
Thus a qualitative new type of societal mediation and production (which
in a free society is no longer separated from each other) has to reduce
stupid complexity -- as free software does via free cooperation -- and
has to increase wanted complexity -- as free software does concerning
what is named "governance model" to integrate the needs of the
participants. In _this_ sense free software itself is a germ form of a
free society. However in the sence of producing all the necessary
goods, it is not.
Free software at its very core is based on selbstentfaltung including
the selbstentfaltung of others, free communication and cooperation lead
by specifically own demands of the projects (sometimes called
self-organisation), decoupling of taking and giving (being free of
value and exchange), and a global focus and global cooperation. This is
the core of the germ form, because it can constitute a new form of
social relationships, of societal mediation, which reduces stupid and
increases necessary complexity, because it is based on the needs of the
people. Thus, concerning the dimension of a new mode of societal
mediation beyond money and markets free software only indicates its
germ form status within a current societal system being in a deep
crisis -- and this means step 1 and 2.
It is always difficult to make schemes/patterns, by definition
simplistic, in order to understand a living process, which is complex
and contradictory. But they are an important tools.
:-)
Ciao,
Stefan
--
Start here: www.meretz.de
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