[p2p-research] The nature of apple trees (was: Re: [ox-en] apples and moonfruits)

[Ryan Lanham]

Stan and Kevin:

All very interesting to me.  Interesting arguments.  I would like to meld
some of this thinking into the collaborative principles piece I am working
on, but I am having a tough time boiling down your complex thoughts into
assertions/ideals.

It is as now more explanatory than actionable.

Any help or pointers on that would be appreciated--even if it is a
discouragement to the idea of organizational governance.

My own personal action research agenda is trying to futurize evolution of
the current system assuming increasing p2p framework impact.  That is, I am
not trying to explain the past or theorize an ideal, but rather trying to
see how things will evolve.

Ryan

Ryan Lanham


On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Stan Rhodes <stanleyrhodes at gmail.com>wrote:

> Exchange of rival goods works best with ownership, because fair
> exchange depends on ownership.  BUT, the more equitable (not equal,
> but equitable--fair) the ownership among people, the better.  Not all
> ownership is the same.  At the very least ownership varies by the
> thing owned, and the laws and norms that establish, maintain, and
> evolve that schema of ownership.  So, how we define ownership types in
> a model makes a huge difference.
>
> We can't equivocate non-rival (free software, free design docs) and
> rival (land, fruit, a laptop) goods when saying this, because they are
> fundamentally different.  Goods ideal for peer production--and thus
> where nearly all peer production occurs--are almost entirely
> non-rival.  E.g. FLOSS.  In the few cases where rival goods are
> involved, they're "practically non-rival" within the peer population.
> E.g. Rock Horror Picture Show, Burning Man.  I think these
> distinctions warrant rigorous discussion and classification, but I
> hope this provides enough of my perspective to get back to the "geist
> of capitalism."  So, the types of goods we're discussing in a model
> makes a huge difference.
>
> I think behavioral and experimental economics provide strong support
> for the factors of equity as make-or-break components of any real or
> proposed socioeconomic system (and the one most often ignored).  As
> near as I can tell, no one's built that case academically without
> making libertarian or socialist assumptions... although some have
> arrived at it more intuitively (e.g. Chris Cook).  That's why I'm
> working on building that case.
>
> Kevin, to clarify, you're talking about "actually-practiced
> capitalism" or theoretical capitalism (i.e. the general definition a
> place like wikipedia might give it--essentially, private ownership
> with a market economy)?  The rest of this email is still a general
> reply to the thread, btw.
>
> If we (we being everyone here, not just Kevin) are talking theoretical
> captialism, absent are the defining factors that make all the
> difference--the legal and social norms (monitoring, enforcing, etc)
> that establish equitable ownership.  Those premises are the societal
> "context," and without them the discussion is too abstract--without
> those essential premises, the conclusion will be one of two extremes:
> it will be invalid because it assumes more than its premises state; OR
> it will be valid, but so abstract that its validity isn't important.
>
> To predict and acknowledge a fair criticism:  we can't lay out ALL
> premises when analyzing something complex, we have to simplify.  I
> agree completely, but I think either
> 1) the important factors of equity are left out entirely from much of
> the discussion I see, rather than represented in a simplified form, or
> 2) they assume agent behavior that is not scientifically recognizable
> as human behavior.
>
> In other words, I think equity--parameters of fair ownership between
> humans, from individuals to the world as a whole--isn't weighed
> heavily enough or carefully enough in analysis, if it's present at
> all.  To avoid it is to talk past one another, because so many
> assumptions hide deep within it.
>
> I also think the tree metaphor(s) just confuse the issue more.  I
> appreciate everyone trying to work with a metaphor for continuity's
> sake, but in this case it strikes me as worse than using no metaphor
> at all.  (Absolutely no offense meant to those giving it a try, I just
> notice that people in general don't abandon metaphors as soon as they
> probably should.)
>
> -- Stan
>
> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Kevin Carson
> <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/22/09, Stefan Merten <smerten at oekonux.de> wrote:
> >
> >>  There are those apple trees (aka captialism or any exchange based
> >>  system) and these apple trees have lots of drawbacks. Those advocating
> >>  money trickery basically say: Well, though the apple trees are bad
> >>  there are these apple tree seeds (aka exchange). If we modify the
> >>  seeds somehow the problems with the apple trees will vanish.
> >>
> >>  Someone who does not believe in money trickery now says: Well, that
> >>  position ignores the nature of the apple trees.
> >
> >>  In short: It is the nature of the apple tree seed (aka exchange) to
> >>  end up in an apple tree (aka given the historical circumstances:
> >>  capitalism). You are either unable to hinder the nature of the apple
> >>  tree seed to become an apple tree or you destroy it altogether.
> >
> > This contention, that the "tree" of markets and exchange contains
> > capitalist DNA, and that exchange will inevitably develop into
> > capitalism, has been disputed on this list before--by myself, among
> > others--and I don't think you've proven your case.  You have yet to
> > demonstrate, IMO, that capitalism is inherent in markets rather than
> > being a perverted form of the market that arises from massive state
> > intervention on behalf of privileged classes.  And I think the term
> > "money trickery" is quite prejudicial, and hardly appropriate for
> > describing exchanges between equal producers.
> >
> > --
> > Kevin Carson
>
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