Re: [ox-en] Re: The nature of apple trees
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:46:57 +0200
Hi Michel and all!
Yesterday Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
2 days ago Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
There is a misunderstanding here: Changing monetary protocols is
exactly the (pointless) human intervention I was talking of.
you don't understand it for money, but your paragraph shows you understand
the general process of why changing protocols and design rules matter;
Of course. The change in the mode of production I see in peer
production is also a change in the protocol and design rules. However,
it's much more fundamental and - in the original sense of the word -
much more radical.
To overcome the deficiencies of exchange based systems this radical
change is needed. And I'm glad that peer production shows us a way
where - as it seem now - the bloodshed caused by such a radical change
is minimized.
it's
just you dont' want to apply this understanding to money, which is your
prerogative
I *did* apply this understanding to money. May be long before you even
knew of these money trickery schemes. However, from my knowledge I
came to different conclusions.
But I learn - once again - that it is pointless to discuss these
conclusions any longer. In fact it's a deja vu for me because I had
these discussions 15 years ago in the anarchist movements when there
suddenly popped up people calling themselves "free market anarchists"
or similar. To me and to many fellow anarchists at this time this is a
contradiction in terms. At that time these people have been called
right wing anarchists or Libertarians - don't know whether this term
is still used.
Complementary currencies have been counter-cyclical in the past, with high
growth in the depression, then disappearance, and reappearance since the
70's I think.
I agree. These are the Bonsais I talked about. Those Bonsais come up
when states retreat from their responsibilities, markets fail and
people fall into great need. I'm convinced that from this type of
great need there will come no alternative. In general you don't
develop sustainable alternatives when you fight for your life -
otherwise the poor countries on this planet would have developed these
alternatives long ago. No, the alternative is born in the upper middle
classes - just where peer production takes place.
But from then on, rather constant but slow growth, but no
real scaling of rather small local currency and LETS projects; so it's
rather the number of initiatives that has been growing, but each one limited
to a few thousand participants; a few, like bershares or ithaca time dollars
seem to be more substantial; for larger business participation, success has
been very limited outside the WIR and the JAK bank.
Well, the recent comments I read for Germany say that basically the
LETS movement is dead (once more).
it is this I think that is the game changer and represents a non-linear
potentiality for open money;
If it works it will turn the Bonsai apple tree in the well-known apple
tree.
another very important factor is that apart
from certain post-Marxist holdouts, the cultural acceptance for the
value-sensitive design of monetary protocols has been rapidly increasing.
Well, in peer production we see a use value oriented form of
production. And you get it for free.
This is not something that the scepticism of a few Oekonuxers is going to
stop, independent of the validity of your critique.
Well, at the end of feudalism there were also movements which relied
on the outdated forms of religion - unfortunately official history
usually doesn't tell us about such movements. The sheer existence of
such a movement shows that people feel there is a need for an
alternative. However, it doesn't mean that the alternative proposed
makes sense or will be relevant in any way.
Also I value the enthusiasm of course. I'd appreciate, however, if
people would not stuck in incentives which are fundamentally opposed
to peer production.
If you have an exchange based system which makes sense at all then
your wealth directly depends on exchanging as much as possible for
your goods / commodities / labor - i.e. to get the highest price. In
this case it is absolutely counter-productive to share things. You
have to make things scarce in your own interest instead of simply
sharing what you have. However, sharing things / external openness is
one of the very fundamentals of peer production. In this sense all
exchange based systems are opposed to peer production.
I don't think it makes much sense to talk about money as such. It has
to be considered in the historical context. A society where money is
used for minor trade is completely different from a society where all
of life is dominated by money. In short: The mode of production has to
be considered.
that is what I've been saying all along!!
But you are not saying you change the mode of production with money
trickery. You just want to do play tricks with the existing mode of
production.
What peer production shows is that in this mode of production we don't
need structural force any longer to make people produce useful things.
That is the way to enhance, build upon and speed up IMHO.
but we don't know yet how to make it sustainable outside of its reliance on
the current system;
The more we need to research peer production and its potential. And
not yet another exchange based system.
peer-informed exchange modes will be substantial
elements in making peer production sustainable for individuals
See above. I think this is really a false assumption. The Bonsais may
counter the retreat of the state. But they still preach the wrong
logic. They still tell people "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth". They don't teach people that openness is the way to go.
Though value cannot really be defined,
So we should better drop the word altogether then because we should
not use words we don't understand.
see David Graeber's long study on the
meaning of value, I mean it close to your own post-marxist understanding of
use and exchange value.
I'm sorry but I don't know much about post-marxists.
All I know is that use and exchange value are two attributes of goods
which relate to completely different things. In the absence of
exchange value the only goal of production is creating use value. This
is done in peer production.
So what is your choice here?
It would help me enormously if you could give a few definitions. For
instance I have no idea what you mean by "p2p". I just reiterated the
standard definition and unless I know what you mean I'll understand
this.
It's an onion thing.
1) Peer production in the most pure sense, as the 3-fold open-free input,
participatory process, commons output;
Ok.
2) it's insertion in pre-exisiting modes to form all kinds of hybrid forms,
such as corporate open source commons; in such cases, only 1 or 2 aspects
can be present
Understood. That is probably what I would call the expansion phase of
germ form theory. However, you have to check hard where the limits are
for these cases.
3) all kinds if distributed infrastructures which enable peer to peer
dynamics to occur in terms of free self-aggregation and the common
production of value;
Well, for me this perfectly describes capitalism. Capitalism is based
on distributed infrastructures - otherwise you would not need markets.
It enables an enormous amount of peer to peer dynamics - also mediated
by markets. Free self-aggregation is what companies are doing all the
time and the common production of (exchange and also, but secondary,
use) value is the whole program of capitalism.
for example, social lending has p2p aspects in that
sense, since we can lend to each other directly without middlemen;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is indeed something which I saw often: To get rid of the
middlemen. Frankly I don't understand why this should be a goal. All I
can say is that this is no goal of peer production as such.
in open
money systems, the value tokens are not issued by a central authority, but
by the value-creators themselves, and this is a p2p dynamic; the same for
credit commons approaches; if people can acquire their own solar panels at
home, and share or exchange surpluses, that is also a p2p dynamic for energy
production
This sounds all *very* anarchist to me. Though I certainly learnt *a
lot* from anarchism I think these goals are perfect for a world where
you can not trust each other - basically because abstract power (for
instance from abstract exchange) is perceived as directed against your
own freedom.
However, in peer production in fact *we see* central authorities -
like the Linux kernel developers or Wikipedia. Yet in general they are
not perceived as a problem but rather as useful institutions. For me
instead of blindly reiterating the wisdom of the past it is much more
interesting what exactly makes these governance schemes so different.
(Of course I think that it is the direct production of use value
without the interference of exchange value which makes the difference
- but this is only an abstract answer needing far more research.)
So I conclude that your point 3 is either capitalist or anarchist -
with the perfect mixture of "capitalist / free market anarchists".
Though I think it is important to know capitalism and anarchism it is
even more important to look at the reality of peer production and that
it matches neither capitalist nor anarchist thesises / preconditions
very well. Though this is yet another challenge for people I think it
is absolutely needed...
4) historically, as a new mode becomes dominant, it influences all other
modes that continue to exist; for examle, social enterpreneurship uses the
corporate form, but for social, partnership goals; fair trade uses trade,
but in a partnership mode with the producers (however imperfectly this can
be done, see the recent critique in the new statesman); for this trend, I
use the moniker 'peer-informed', to distinguish from true and pure p2p
dynamics
I think this is not really new. Capitalism even started with
well-meaning capitalists and for instance the cooperation movement had
very similar goals.
I don't believe that in the social world, we can use terms purely
scientically, since reality is often hybrid;
Indeed. But to understand things we need to blow away the fog of
phenomenons to see the concepts behind them. Thus though I agree that
reality is mixed it doesn't suffice to stop there. You need to extract
the more abstract concepts.
but we can make key
distinctions and be aware of the differences
More abstract concepts are a good way to find these differences.
Looking forward to it. I really hope we can sort this out this time
and find a modus of vivendi regarding this topic.
Maybe we won't reach it, if you mean the money thing,
Meanwhile I'm sure we won't agree on the money thing. But that is of
course no problem for me.
but hopefully we
educate ourselves and others
Yes. In fact I'm still learning from this discussion :-) .
In addition as the maintainer of this project I'd like to sort out for
Oekonux what is on-topic and what is off-topic. IMHO Oekonux is about
aspects 1 and 2 above. People interested in these topics will find a
place where they can discuss and research this.
People who are also / more interested in points 3 and 4 above can move
to P2P Foundation or to other places where this is discussed since
decades and stop flooding this project with exchange based stuff.
Grüße
Stefan
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