Re: Fwd: Re: [ox-en] extrinsic motivation = coercion
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
- Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 12:11:34 +0200
Hi Markus,
On 2009-04-29 17:01, Markus wrote:
So the challenge is _not_ to compete on the same old playground,
but to create a new playground where the "old players" can't
compete on sucessfully. Look at Free Software or Wikipedia: They
created a new playground free from exchange and money (in its core
logic) and they are out-cooperating its proprietary opponents.
i disagree. first, running wikipedia costs lots of money and there
are therefore often calls for money by the foundation. closely
related, lots of hardware are donated by capitalistic corporations.
Of course! But this money was not earned by selling their products (this
would be the old playground).
second, wikipedia is very young (though its results and usefulness
are very impressive). but before i dare to say it "out-cooperates" (i
assume you mean that it outcompetes britcannica)
No, Wikipedia did not _out-compete_ Britannica (old playground), it
_out-cooperated_ Britannica (new playground). Britannica could not
follow on the playground of cooperation.
i would wait and see
how google's knol (or some other initiative which directly (!)
financially rewards the creator based on the quality of his/her
writings) work out in a few years from now. waiting and seeing is
especially appropriate if you want to justify a new world order on
this "new production form".
We are looking at these development since more than ten years. But
generally you are right.
third, what os software is out-coperating
proprietary software? linux (with a market share of less than 3%),
openoffice, the gimp? even firefox (to my knowledge the most
successful os application) has a market share of 30% (and the mozilla
foundation is an economic subsidiary of google). as i said, my
personal obsveration is quite to the contrary in that commerically
backed os software (openoffice) outcompetes os software that is not
commercially backed (who is using abiword?).
In the server field free software is really successful, the internet
would not exist without free software. On the desktop, you are right,
the breakthrough did not happen yet. IMHO the main reason was, that free
software came to late. Microsoft already established a defacto standard
(especially in document formats), which is proprietary. So a replacement
is much harder, out-cooperation is not so easy here.
indeed, this is what im having the most problems with. as much as i
like your basic ideas, i just cant see a real os success (in the
sense of outcompeting) story outthere - other than the apache
foundation with a budget of roughly 100 000 us dollar - that would
justify claims for a new, more effective mode of production. looking
at all the os outthere, i get the impression that the apache
foundation is the exception and not the rule.
We are living in a money world. Thus it is clear, that even free modes
are entangled with money. When analyzing free software as a germform of
a new mode of production ten years ago, the main question was not, at
what time world domination on all computers will be reached. The
question was (and is): Can this new mode of production be generalized?
And the next years show: Yes, it can. It spreads into many new fields
with more or less success. But I am quite convinced, that earlier or
later the new mode will succeed in all fields, and then you can visit
ancient operating systems like Vista in a technical museum like Pong
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong) today ;-)
sorry, i just cant picture a
world where everyone is free and basically does what (s)he
wants and things overall still work. there are just too many
boring, repetitive (even interesting, repetitive tasks often
become boring over time), and "servant" tasks outthere that
need to be done.
Indeed this is hard to imagine. But this is part of the
challenge of Oekonux to imagine and research exactly that.
one problem im having with is that you aim to kill money as a very
effective extrinsic motivation tool.
Yes, that is goal: replacement of extrinsic with intrinsic
motivation. Yes, I know, many people believe, that this is not
possible, but it is -- like sucessful projects show.
why do you want to eradictae an effective extrinsic incentive? it
helps a society to function effectively and jumps in when intrinsic
motivation aint there (who wants to do bookkeeping or cleaning?)
Because I believe in freedom and free will, which is not compatible with
coercion. And in the end motivated action is the most effective one. I
say "motivated", because "extrinsic forcing" (directly or indirectly) is
not motivating. Motivaton is always "intrinsic" and can never come from
outside. On the other hand, outside coercion can be internalized and
transformed into "intrinsic coersion". Thus the opposite of "intrinsic
motivation" is not "extrinsic motivation", but "intrinsic coercion".
But don't confuse the today *germforms*
living in a hostile environment with its "unfold" derivatives
existing in an environment strongly rewarding behavior of
individual selbstentfaltung, which is the condition of the
selbstentfaltung of all people and vice versa (network effect in
free society).
people are the way they are and
money causes them to do things that are needed.
... and they would otherwise not do. This is a coercive system. A
free society can only be a non-coersive system.
there is also coercion in Siefke's model
True, and this is the point where I criticize the model.
that seems to be one of the
front runners here. irrespective of that, i just dont believe a
non-coercise system is possible because humans are prone to act in
their own interest.
True, and this is a good thing. I name this selbstentfaltung.
logically, if more than one person is living
together, this causes a conflict of interest situation resulting in
one of them giving in (or adapting their behaviour or adjusting their
self interest) to the others around.
The challenge is to find ways of conflict regulation, where one does not
prevail on the cost of others. The goal is not, to avoid conflicts. On
the contrary, today conflicts are avoided if they are pre-decided due to
power-relations. The goal is to foster individual selbstentfaltung,
which is the precondition of the selbstentfaltung of all and vice versa.
A society based on these principles would be a free society.
If people can answer your question freely, where their lives did
not depend on the answer they give, then some developments would
not go so fast. That is true and in many circumstances it makes
sense to lower the speed of developements -- due to environmental
reasons etc. But any coersive system ("extrinsic motivation" is an
euphemism) like the money system is structurally blind for demands
which can not be expressed in terms of money or which are not in
the focus of profit making ("negative externalities").
Money systems can't do the right thing, they are structurally
(=independent of the will of the participants) destructive in the
long run.
you take a very long time frame on that given that money (and barter)
are here for a couple of thousand years and are more important than
ever in todays very efficiently functioning society.
Deadly "efficient", yes. But we only have one planet.
Ciao,
Stefan
--
Start here: www.meretz.de
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