[p2p-research] so is there a new class?

Sun Jan 6 08:57:13 CET 2008

Sam,

I must partly disagree with you. That there is differentiation, complexity,
individualization does not mean there are no objective structural conditions
in society, though of course people within a structural condition may behave
in different fashions. I think class in the US is used in a descriptive,
psycho-social fashion, but that is not how it is used within the
emancipatory tradition. This being said, the original aim of Marx was not
different than yours, i.e. analysing class, but in order to supersede and
abolish them.

I think that peer to peer, if we use an integral methodology, should be
recognized as both a (inter)subjective and (inter)objective phenomenom, so
that inquiries into its objective side, make sense and can be illuminating.
It is both the cause and the effect of new structural conditions, which
includes class configurations that are changing.

This being said, giving a class analysis of peer to peer trends is no easy
matter, since it is both the expression of new groups of people responding
to new structural conditions and possibilities, but at the same time a
general change in life practice that affects everybody.

Now, in practical terms in my own work, I do generally avoid 'class
language', as it has mostly antagonizing and dysfunctional results, but that
does not mean that thinking about it is superfluous,

But I also agree with your statement that peer to peer in fact reflects a
very basic desire to be emancipated of class, but that doesn't mean it
doesn't 'exist' still,

Michel

On Jan 5, 2008 9:50 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Class" is a framing that comes from mass culture/large
> corporate-industry-oriented views of the world.
>
> By framing all emerging new behavior as a the "rise of a new class", this
> puts the new behavior in a context that it can be potentially studied, and
> ultimately co-opted and/or controlled to benefit systems and beneficiaries
> of (what I calling) mass culture.
>
> Think about how "class" is usually employed as a descriptor: "The working
> class, the management class" etc
>
> It's my opinion that one of the key, vital components of social systems
> that afford healthy peer to peer activity is the widespread rejection of
> "class"-systems of people, among people. A shift in the focus of fundamental
> motivators, from a motivation in control of the perceivable world towards
> materialistic gain, to a way of solving problems that is motivated by a
> newfound realization of the nature and value of humans, living systems,
> resources is free and un-controlled things, who must be listened to, to be
> understood, and who are not just another "resource", but are actual people.
>
> This is what David Korten is talking about with his idea of a "Great
> Turning" from "Empire" to "Earth Community". It's what Clare W. Graves
> talked about in explaining his research of human value systems, and the
> pattern of fundamental assumptions of humans that he recognized being
> centered around individual materialistic gain, and the subsequent
> fundamental assumption that emerged that found people instead focusing on
> person-to-person sharing, and commons-based economies. Graves observed that
> the latter did not go about thinking about people in terms of "classes" so
> much, and instead radically insisted that all people are "equal". Graves
> then observed that a new type of individual emerged from *these* groups (at
> least in the western world), who rejected the totally "equal" notion, and
> did see differences in people, but the differences were in *thinking
> systems*, the way that people solved problems, and not in people themselves.
>
>
> This is a recognition that people's total "world" view is a combination of
> internal dynamic neuronal systems, *and* external life conditions.  There is
> (at least) a biological "scale", and a psycho-social "scale",and an
> environment "scale" to be observed in total system of a human and it's
> environment.
>
> I think the usual notion of "class" strips away much of the complexity of
> the human condition, and re-inforces the illusion in people's minds that
> human conditions are highly "fixed". I'm interested in "p2p" ideas, because
> I think they leverage the potentials that were already there in the total
> human system (internal bio systems, and external environment) to explode
> "classes" from within.
>
> It's interesting to me that the building blocks now exist that allow many,
> many people to defy being classified, and to avoid having to settle into a
> socio-cultural "role"/strata. Yet, I observe that many people do it anyway.
> Even people as young as 20 years old. Of course, it's due to the legacy of
> mass culture, and it's design to reinforce those roles. But, if you talk to
> many of those people, they will readily admit that they do not desire their
> pre-assigned "role", but they accept or adopt it, because it is perceived as
> being "needed" to survive in existing culture. So, not wanting to be part of
> a "class" is one potential that I see, along with the conditions that make
> it possible for a person to live in such a way as to defy easy
> classification within existing systems. People who can now produce their own
> mass media, people who can now collectively create and grow and fund the
> collection of knowledge. People who can design and release technology as
> part of a commons that they co-maintain. Those collections of people are
> usually made up of people from many different traditional economic
> "classes".
>
>
> On Jan 5, 2008 1:01 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > fascinating article ... insightful ...
> >
> > but I think that 'conservative' is not the right word .. there is no
> > relationship with the christian right or neoconservatives ..
> >
> > I think that for Gen Y, distinctions like working inside or outside the
> > system no longer make sense, they simply use what is there, pragmatically,
> > and create the new stuff that they need to realize themselves ... And
> > similarly for the conservative/progressive divide, they pick and choose
> > pragmatically
> >
> > whether there is a new class is a complex issue
> >
> > 1) I think that a section of the owner class is reconfiguring to
> > participation-enablers
> >
> > 2) I think that a section of the 'producing' class is increasingly
> > involved in peer production and peer-informed practices and are structurally
> > different from industrial workers
> >
> > 3) that young people most clearly exemplify that trend
> >
> > 4) that p2p is a new life practice for everybody, to different degrees
> > ...
> >
> > There are now 800,000 free agents in the netherlands ... a very sizeable
> > number ....
> >
> > I created an overview page here ...
> > http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Class_Theories
> >
> > Michel
> >
> >
> >
> > Michel
> >
> >
> > On Jan 5, 2008 5:35 AM, Paul B. Hartzog <paulbhartzog at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/01/04/obama%e2%80%99s-victory-in-iowa-sheds-light-on-todays-workplace/
> > >
> > >
> > > the emergence of a p2p class?
> > > or not?
> > >
> > > -p
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > > http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
> > > http://www.panarchy.com
> > > PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
> > > PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
> > >  PHartzog at umich.edu
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > > The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
> > >                 --Muriel Rukeyser
> > >
> > > See differently, then you will act differently.
> > >                 --Paul B. Hartzog
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > >
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> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> > alternatives.
> >
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> >
> >
> > Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
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> >
>
>
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
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-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
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