Hi Stefan and all,
On 12/12/2011 12:01 PM, Stefan Merten wrote:
Last Saturday I attended the workshop
COM' ON! - Die alte Eigentumswelt dreht sich
See http://commons.rosalux.de/ for the homepage.
...
Well, I'm not really into this commons debate but my impression is
this: It is composed of two discourses which IMHO have nothing to do
with each other. One of the discourses is the commons based peer
production discourse which is put forward by people like StefanMz
and
ChristianS. I.e. the topic of this list. The other discourse is a
very
classical left discourse with all the same old, same old questions
and
approaches. Here are some aspects which IMHO mark the boundary:
* Appropriation of means of production
Part of the left commons discourse seems to be the classical
discussion about power relationships. As one example the power
over
means of production is discussed in the form that the means of
production must be appropriated from the current owners. That
reflects closely the classical discussion that the working class
should be owner of the means of production.
In the peer production discourse this question - which is of
course
an important one - is answered differently: Let's build the means
of
production ourselves. This is a very different approach.
This was specifically the topic of the world-cafe table I hosted:
"Was
passiert mit den bestehenden Produktionsstrukturen im Falle einer
gesellschaftlichen Transformation?" [What becomes of the existing
structures
of production if society is transformed?] (I'll publish the full
protocol of
the discussion at keimform.de in a few days.)
The two positions you describe are caricatures of two extreme end
points of
the spectrum of opinion. "Lets just appropriate the existing means of
production (MoP) and use them as they are" is indeed the classical
leftist/socialist position, but almost nobody at the table voiced it
quite
like that (you attended parts of the discussion yourself). Most
people
tended more in the direction argued for by you and me: that it's
essentially
necessary to build new, and better MoP, that are aimed at producing
for
benefit and self-entfaltung rather than for profit. Instead of
appropriating
the source code of Windows and the content of the Encyclopedia
Britannica,
peer producers created GNU/Linux and the Wikipedia.
But obviously you cannot start from nothing. For writing free
software and
free texts, people need computers, and for creating free physical
means of
production and using them to produce useful things such as furniture
and
food, you need at the very least natural resources such as wood and
metals,
and land. So the question "How do we get the resources and other MoP
necessary to create benefit-oriented productive infrastructures?" is
still
an important one.
* Importance of environmental issues
In the left commons discourse environmental issues seem to play an
important role. This is of course part of the more recent left
standard program.
In peer production I can't see that environmental issues play any
special role.
They obviously play a role. Indeed the turn-money-into-more-money
logic of
capitalism strives for infinite growth (which in the long run is
impossible
on our limited planet), while the benefit-oriented logic of
commons-based
peer production contain no such built-in grow imperative. Hence I
think the
ecological argument is one of the most important arguments why peer
production is not only better, but indeed essential.
See my article "Das gute Leben produzieren"
<http://www.keimform.de/2011/das-gute-leben-produzieren/> (German),
or, for
English, my contribution to the upcoming volume of CSPP
<http://cspp.oekonux.org/> which should be published sometime in
January.
* Classical oppression and equality
One person spelled out the classical oppression topics like gender
or disablement. Race could be probably also added. This persons's
critique in the commons debate was that it doesn't include this
type
of inequality - or rather that it doesn't make inequality a topic.
I tried to explain that inequality *escpecially* in needs and
abilities is central to a peer production approach. What is a
project worth where all participants want the same and have the
same
abilities?
That again looks like a caricature. I have never heard any single
leftist
argue that all people should be "equal" in the ridiculous sense you
imply
(say, everybody should be male, 28 years old, 175 cm high,
brown-eyed, and
well-versed in programming, cooking, and Western philosophy). Quite
clearly,
equality means that everybody should be able to choose how to live
their
life, where to get engaged and what to do, rather then being
prevented or
hindered by prejudice, explicit discrimination, or lack of
accessibility
from doing so. In other words, equality means that everybody should
be able
to "self-entfalt" as they deem fit. As such, it is an important
precondition
of peer production, and is also recognized as such in its theoretical
underpinnings, e.g. in the hacker-ethical position that "Hackers
should be
judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race,
sex, or
position" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic].
However, that peer production gets in right in theory doesn't mean
that
there are no problems in practice. Quite on the contrary, as anybody
who
investigates why there are so (relatively) few women in free software
projects and the Wikipedia will quickly learn. I think its very good
that
there are some venues for peer production that explicitly care for
and
address such issues (e.g. FSCONS <http://fscons.org/>), while I have
always
perceived your attempts to keep them out of the Oekonux as one of the
biggest weaknesses of that project.
Best regards
Christian