[p2p-research] Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish

[Michel Bauwens]

Ryan, I'm continuously surprised by your faith in the powers that be, you
always seem to assume that institutions are neutral, with our best interests
at heart. In truth, they are ideological and serve a particular balance of
power. This is not to say that are not good people in them, but they are
sidelined and eventually leave. The one that remain abide by the consensus,
that they can sometimes nudge. Institutions create a very narrowcast channel
of what is acceptable to them. There is always only so much you can do, in
an institution, change happens on the outside, then they adapt to these
competitive challenges. This has been my experience at least and I worked
for governments and large businesses and universities. What filters through
is that set of solutions which doesn't threaten the status quo, never the
best solution in the abstract. The best people, like Stiglitz in the WB (or
was he in the IMF?), are always ending up on the outside, not in. Again, if
I would tell you that the best experts on religion have worked for 2,000
year on establishing the truth, i.e. the Catholic Church, would you take my
word for it? If you're not a catholic, probably not, so it's normal that us
non-neoliberals don't share your faith in the neoliberal  institutions.

The catastropic policies of IMF, really destructive for Africa, a magnitude
larger than centralized aid, are well known, and now still applied in
eastern europe for example, where they advice the oppostive of what strong
western countries are doing (they are supposed to cut spending ...!!!)

Yes, the WB in particular is changing, and sections of the establishment are
realizing that climate change is bad for everybody, and more open minded
experts are making headway, and that is all good, though not sufficient,
real breakthroughs, as always, will come for the fringe, the cranks, like
you by the way [?]. It is also only happening because the power hold of the
neoliberal establishment was broken there, and a social-democratic
leadership took over.

This doesn't take away from your core argument that indeed new proposals
have to be tested in the real world, including Christian's exchange system,
which also falls into the category of equitable exchange (though perhaps not
a market??) established by Stan. So again we come to the point, let's not be
blinded by markets is capitalism and all exchanges are markets, they are
not.

So Stan has it right for me: the future of nonrival goods is increasingly
p2p production, the future of rival goods is more equitable markets.

The only caveat is: people interests go first, so if the market doesn't
perform, for food and medicine as Christian Siefkes correctly suggests, then
that means somethings should be done either outside the market, or in
markets that are regulated so they cannot kill people out of personal
for-profit driven interests.

The challenge for Christian remains, his logically and ethically elegant
system needs to be tried and tested for it not to remain an intellectual
exercise of 'what if'.

stan wrote:


When Ryan says "allocation of most goods and services," as he did
originally, we can separate them into two groups: rival goods (goods of
substance) and nonrival goods (information).  Services (labour, if you will)
are needed to create both.  I've written about it before, but in very simple
summary: *the future of nonrival goods is increasingly p2p production, the
future of rival goods is more equitable markets*.


On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Stan Rhodes <stanleyrhodes at gmail.com>wrote:

> Christian, your peerconomy is a market in everything but name.  I've said
> it, Stefan's said it.  I don't know if Kevin has read it, but I'm willing to
> wager he'd say the same, upon review.  If Ryan reads it, he'll say the
> same.  In your proposal, if "the products I want to have cost 20 weighted
> hours" (your exact words), I then pay that cost through production effort.
> That's exchange, in a market, with units of value!
>
> When Ryan says "allocation of most goods and services," as he did
> originally, we can separate them into two groups: rival goods (goods of
> substance) and nonrival goods (information).  Services (labour, if you will)
> are needed to create both.  I've written about it before, but in very simple
> summary: the future of nonrival goods is increasingly p2p production, the
> future of rival goods is more equitable markets.
>
> We see exactly that distinction if we look at current examples of peer
> production.  The difference is simple: rival goods are allocated by their
> very nature, whereas nonrival goods can be used simultaneously by many by
> their very nature.
>
> -- Stan
>
>
>
>
>
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