[p2p-research] what to think of the market

Thu Jul 30 04:56:41 CEST 2009

> I think one set of discussions that is often played with here but never
> really fleshed out is...which nations are most P2P and why?
>

Hi Ryan,

I think we need to distinguish several factors ..

According to our definition of p2p it consists of 3 inter-related paradigms,

- the commons, both digital and physical

- participatory processes

- openness and freedom of information/cultural/scientific raw material ..

In Iceland there is apparently a strong physical commons, and probably quite
a strong digital commons, but it co-existed with a choice for neoliberal
economic practices ...

I think different ethics can co-exist and compete with each other .. for
example, you can share in your family, but be exploitative with outsiders;
you can have a commons in your locale regarding your plot of land, but be
competitive in your business environment  ... Most people are able to
dissociate logics to some extent, and it is probably necessary for survival,
since it's hard to imagine a mono-logical society

Of course what the P2P Foundation wishes for, is to extend the p2p ethos to
broader areas of human life, that's precisely the endeavour ... At this
stage it is an emerging piece ... that could potentially reach parity level,
and even, that's my bet, reach 'dominance', but it will never be the whole
of life.

Ultimately, capitalism, especially neo-liberalism,  has historically been an
anti-commons. It could not have come into existence without first enclosing
the land commons of the farmers, so as to force them to become 'free'
workers ... this process is going on in many areas of the world,
expropriation of farmers goes on a unprecedented scale ..

Nevertheless, because paradoxically it is creating a new digital commons, we
see a small new section of capital emerging which co-evolves with the
digital commons, while also seeking to capture its monetization ..

In this case we have to ethics competing and trying to find co-existence ...

>
> Given her description, it sounds like Iceland is a candidate.  And yet no
> country has had a worse outcome with messy speculative trading and losses
> than Iceland in recent times.  So, maybe P2P isn't an ethos afterall.  Maybe
> it is a vein of post-modernism--a piece but not a whole.
>
> Ryan
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> In the end, I think the failed statist-socialist experiments where just
>> another form of capital, exhibiting many of the same 'modernist' aspects of
>> western capital systems, like enclosures of the commons, expropriation of
>> worker's surplus value, growth by accumulation of capital, etc...
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 2:44 AM, Kevin Carson <
>> free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/28/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > I was merely pionting out that people have been innovating in very
>>> different
>>> > social models, way before the capitalist market became dominant, and
>>> often
>>> > outside of market relations, think of patronage, gift economies, the
>>> > invention of fire and the wheel etc..
>>>
>>> True, and even in planned economies like the USSR where it was almost
>>> impossible to value the productive resources going into an innovation
>>> and rank the alternative uses of those resource, at least some
>>> use-value was being created.  Refrigerators, microwaves, improved
>>> vehicles, televisions, etc., were introduced over the years of Soviet
>>> rule, and the general standard of living was surely better as a result
>>> of the technical progress.
>>>
>>> I've had some right-wing libertarians tell me the corporate economy
>>> couldn't be as statist as I make it out to be, and that it must be
>>> predominantly a market system even with the present degree of state
>>> involvement, because otherwise calculational chaos would have rendered
>>> it non-functional.
>>>
>>> In response I point to the innovations that took place in feudal
>>> Europe and under Soviet rule, and argue that by their standards it
>>> would require a degree of statism greater than that of the Soviet
>>> Union or feudal Europe to result in economic collapse.  Then I
>>> cheerfully concede that American state capitalism is probably no more
>>> statist than the USSR.
>>>
>>> What we have, though, in both the US corporate economy and the old
>>> USSR, is a lot of new technology and only the vaguest ideas of whether
>>> it's something people actually wanted or just what the bureaucracy
>>> wanted to design, and whether it is an efficient use of resources.
>>>
>>> --
>>>  Kevin Carson
>>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>>> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
>>> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
>>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> p2presearch mailing list
>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
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