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Re: [ox-en] Leftist and other capitalist ideologies and peer production

Hi StefanMz and all!

4 days ago Stefan Meretz wrote:

But the first point, 
StefanMn, contradicts your assumption, that leftists are against power: 
They are in favor of power, but in the right hands. But maybe you have 
another group of "modern leftists" in mind...


If I say modern leftists then I mean post-1968 leftists. In my
understanding the left underwent a major shift after 1968 from more
authority-oriented (read: party line, state oriented) to more
anarchist forms (read: individual freedom, community oriented). The
collapse of the Soviet regime certainly fueled this shift further.

Indeed even in many anarchist schools there are institutionalized
forms of powers. They usually come in the form of a council - i.e. a
collective - which is usually controlled by some direct democracy
mechanism - namely by imperative mandates. Well, even in my anarchist
past I was always sceptical about these concepts...

Anyway: These forms have nothing in common with what we see in peer
production. Power in peer production is not controlled in a democratic
process. The maintainers are (usually) not elected but come into that
role somehow - usually by self-appointment. For an anarchist this is
pure horror ;-) .

The interesting thing now is that peer production transcends the
council scheme as well as the capitalist boss scheme. Of course the
maintainer principle is highly participative and of course the
maintainer has the finaly say. And if you are interested in a better
world of course this is something very worthwhile looking at closer.
But if you keep (for instance) your anarchist vision you only can
criticize peer production to not match your vision.

If you take a step a beyond such an ignorant position you will notice
that your set of underlying values is matched at least partially. This
is where it becomes interesting - though it may mean that you need to
give up some old convictions at least partly.


						Grüße

						Stefan
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