Re: [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
- Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 17:38:09 +0200
Hi Stefan and all!
On 2010-06-21 11:33, Stefan Merten wrote:
I'd like to make some comments with the goal of improving and
completing this and posing a few questions.
Thanks for commenting! I'll just reply to points which need further
debate from my pov.
The production of goods requires resources. Though sometimes
nothing is produced, already existing resources are used and
maintained. In this case the resource itself is the good, which is
considered to be preserved—for instance a lake.
A nice idea to capture sustainability!
This is important, because in international debates the aspect that
goods are a result of a productive activity, the fact that they are
produced, is often neglected or underestimated. This has to do with the
tendency of the "traditional" commons discourse to take natural goods
for granted (like a lake: "it is already there").
A good becomes a _commodity_ , if it is produced in a general way
for the exchange (selling) on markets. Exchanging has to occur
because, in capitalism, production is a private activity and each
producer produce separated from the others and all are ruled by
competition and profit searching.
I'd not limit this to capitalism but every social form which is based
on abstract exchange.
You are right, there are other societies producing commodities which are
exchanged, but only in capitalism this mode is dominant.
A good maintains the form of _subsistence_ , if it is not produced
in a general way for others, but only for personal use or benefit
of personally known others (family, friends etc.). Here, exchange
does not occur or only for exceptional cases, but the good is
relayed, taken, and given—following any immediately agreed social
rule. A transition form to commodity is barter, the direct
non-money mediated exchange of goods.
As a result all those alternative projects like self-governed
companies are in the category of subsistence - where they are not
subject of market. In fact an idea which explains my long-standing
feelings in this regard very well.
Some projects simply do a subsistence production, but many more or less
alternative projects also produce in order to sell products on markets,
because they need the result as a source of financing. Here, all
criteria of commodity production apply.
A good becomes a _commons_ , if it is generally produced or
maintained for others. The good is not exchanged and the usage is
generally bound to fixed socially agreed rules. It is produced or
maintained for general others insofar as it neither has be
personal-determined others (like with subsistence) nor exclusively
abstract others with no further relationship to them (like with
commodity), but concrete communities agreeing on rules of usage
and maintenance of the commons.
I'm not completely happy with the relationship thing. What is the
relationship between me as an Ubuntu user to the Ubuntu community? In
which way is it different from me as a Windows user [1]_ to M$?
.. [1] I'm sorry for this coming out but I'm forced to be a Windows
user at times by my job :-( . And believe me: I hate it! [2]_
.. [2] Ok, I'm not representative here because my relationship is
really emotionally different ;-) . But there are others who
have less emotions in this regard. What about their
relationship?
Contrary to you I'd say the relationship of a user of a commons good
is the same as the relationship to a commodity - minus the exchange
relationship of course. In both cases the use and the flow of the
goods are subject to societal regulation and though the regulation is
different the relationship is the same.
You are right, because free software is an open access good. However,
the fact of being available by open access (under a free license) is the
outcome of "concrete communities agreeing on rules of usage and
maintenance of the commons". Here we are at the tipping point, where
"concrete" in the sense of "special" turns into "general" in the sense
of "like me". This "concrete general" is not the same like "abstract".
You may remember the discussions about the difference between "abstract
general" (abstrakt Allgemeines) and "concrete general" (konkret
Allgemeines).
More practically: For M$ the individual is only relevant as a buyer
(license payer), which is completly an abstract relationship. For free
software each individual is a relevant concrete user of the software, in
a general sense. This is part of the selbstentfaltung, because I need
the others to reach my goal (as they need me).
Clearly this is somewhat broken due to the fact, that isolated
individuals can treat proprietary and free software in the same way,
because they only know it that way. They will only get an impression
that there is something different, if they get in touch with the
community (e.g. if they seek for help). The Ubuntu community is a very
good example.
Legal form
The legal form shows the possible juridical codes which a good can
be subjected to: *private property* , *collective property* , and
*free* *good* . Legal arrangements are necessary under the
conditions of societal mediation of partial interests, they form a
regulating framework of social interaction. As soon as general
interests are part of the way of (re-)production itself, legal
forms can step back in favor of concrete socially agreed rules as
it is the case within the commons.
I'd not make this distinction. To me legal forms are only a
crystallized form of concrete socially agreed rules.
Well, the crystallation process usually took a long time and needs the
state. Commons rules are beyond state.
That in (modern) commons we see mostly the non-legal form of rules to
me is a result of the germ form state they are in. I can imagine very
well, that if peer production took over the now non-legal forms are
transformed to legal code.
Ok, we will see. I expect a less importance of legal code if commons-
based production extends, because many aspects can be regulated below
the level of an abstract law. This is the strengh of the commons.
_Private property_ is a legal form, which defines the act of
disposal of an owner over a thing with exclusive control over the
property. The property abstracts from the constitution of the
thing as well as from the concrete possession. Private property
can be merchandise, can be sold or commercialized.
_Collective property_ is collectively owned private property or
private property for collective purposes. Among them, there are
common property and public (state) property. All designations of
private property are basically valid here. There are various forms
of collective property, for instance stock corporation, house
owner community, nationally-owned enterprise.
_Free goods_ (also: Res nullius, Terra nullius or no man’s land)
are legally or socially unregulated goods under free access. The
often cited „Tragedy of Commons“ is a tragedy of no man’s land,
which is overly used or destroyed due to missing rules of usage.
Such no man’s lands do exist yet today, e.g. in high-sea or
deep-sea.
So where would you locate peer products here? Collective property? Or
even private property?
Both, depending on the product and the producers being part of the
production process. But this doesn't matter very much, because peer
products and means of production are treated as possession.
Unless they are in the public domain they are
certainly not free goods - or?
Right. Sometimes "free good" and "open access" is mixed. The first
is an unregulated good while the latter comes with an explicit rule,
that it can be used by all people if they agree to some conditions (of
a license or whatever).
The „freedom“ of plundering and exploitation, which commonly occurs
under the regime of separated private production of goods as
commodities, does find its limitation at the freedom of others to
use the resource.
I'd like to emphasize that plundering and exploitation make sense
mainly when the results of plundering and exploitation can be used in
an alienated way. If you can't sell tropical wood on a world market
there is simply no reason for plundering tropical jungle for it. In
other words: The separate private production - as is the case in peer
production as well - is not the main reason why plundering occurs.
Peer production is not separate private production of goods as
commodities (including the necessity to sell them), but societal
production of goods. The fact that the peer projects today are more or
less separated from each other is due to their germ form status, it is
not a genuine feature like with commodity production. For commodity
production the societal mediation is done using markets (buying and
selling), for peer production the societal mediation is done via
communication. If you look at free software which has left the germ form
and reached the expansion step (following the five step model), then you
can observe what societal mediation by communication can mean. This is
currently not the case for material pp projects.
Especially by preventing random plundering of a used-up
resource, the needs of general others who currently do not use the
resource, are included. The community being connected very closely
to the resource is only appointed to produce and reproduce the
resource in a way that is generally useful.
By "appointed" and "generally useful" you are assuming that their is
an institution outside the community which controls the community.
Can you tell us more about this?
No, I don't assume an institution controlling anything. I only assume
the mode of selbstentfaltung. The "general usefullness" results from
that, because my selbstenfaltung can only be reached if others can
reach it too. However, this must be not confused with an image of
harmony per se. On the contrary, finding out what is best for me and
others needs conflicts and conflict resolution. The main point is, that
these conflict are not driven by alien goals (like making products being
goods to sell them on markets etc.), but by each ones needs.
From such conflict resolution processes may result some rules which
could be fixed (written down or whatever). Coming back to the point of
law discussed above, these rules apply only to those peer projects which
they are coming from. Then they maintain their concrete character. All
rules put into general laws on the societal level could act as alien
restriction for a concrete project, because general law could not
reflect special situations. This is the reason why I expect a huge
reduction of laws in a commons-based peer production society.
I'd also like to emphasize that it is a political decision to use
resources in this way or another. Although the environmentalist
fraction doesn't like it: You can politically decide to use up
mineral oil before switching to another form of energy. There is
nothing wrong with such decisions if they are made decently - which
nowadays is certainly not the case for mineral oil. May be this
thought gives hints for my question above?
I am not sure what do you mean by "political". If this is something
which does not comes up from the concrete practices, but from an
autonomous "political process" like any alien representation, then this
is not useful. However, there may be some global problems which have to
be decided globally. But something like a voting should only be the last
option if others do not work (see below).
In fact I'm still fascinated of the idea of Greenpeace being the
ozone hole maintainer brought forward by StefanMz many, many years
ago. How does this idea fit into the equation?
That fits perfectly in the equation. The idea behind is that a highly
skilled groups of people can produce far better solutions than any
"political decision" or "voting". A precondition is -- like for the
whole peer production society -- selbstentfaltung of the participants
and openess for participation excluding all alien goals.
If you create a global project based on selbstentfaltung for the
transition from fossil based energy production to regenerative energy
production, then such a highly skilled group will make the right
proposal -- I am sure. And I assume that such proposal will include to
use-up fossil energy to reach that absolutely necessary transition,
because I see no other way. But I may be wrong. However, under
conditions of capitalist global economy I am very pessimistic, because
all progress in reducing energy consumption is over-compensated by
expansion of capitalist production (called the Jevons Paradox, although
it is not a paradox, but result of the immanent coercive expansion
tendency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ) .
Within the commons, production and reproduction can hardly be
separated. The production serves their reproduction at the same
time.
I'm not sure what you mean by the distinction in this regard. I'd
understand reproduction as a production where the result improves or
maintains the (common) infrastructure whereas production is for
non-infrastructure like consumption.
There are two meanings of reproduction: reproduction of the productive
fundament like machines and infrastructure and reproduction of the
individuals. You are addressing the first, I meant the latter. Both are
important, and I expect concerning both that the dictinctions will
disappear.
In a commoditiy based society this distinction makes sense because
the reproduction is not per se productive while production is. In a
peer production based society I don't see this distinction making
any sense.
Agreed.
Ciao,
Stefan
--
Start here: www.meretz.de
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de