[p2p-research] Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Michel Bauwens wrote:

> 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.

Hi Michel, we've gone over this before, but in the interest of getting
the opinions of the others, I will once again claim that the
above is a ridiculous position.

You can not have one mode of production for rivalrous goods, and another
for nonrivalrous goods so long as nonrivalrous goods have rivalrous
goods as inputs.

In otherwords, so long as Software developers and Wikipedia editors need
a place to sleep and something to eat, food and shelter are inputs to
the production of nonrivalrous wikipedia articles and software, and thus
the reproduction costs of these inputs needs to accounted for by the
mode of production, or else what you are describing is not a mode of
production, just a special-case form of circulation within the larger
mode.

This confusion comes from your pro-capitalist (Benklerian) definition of 
peer production.

Defining peer-production as "non-reciprocal production of immaterial
wealth" is an overly conservative definition that seeks to limit the
potential of peer-production to the limits defined by Capitalism

Peer-production is better defined as "independent producers working with
a common stock of productive assets," which implies a mode of production
with far greater retained wealth and far lower economic rents, and
therefore one that would be unable to sustain the wealth accumulation of
a Capitalist class.

The term peer-production seems totally random in the Benklerian usage,
since there is no linguistic link between "peer" and "nonreciprocal
producer of immaterial goods." The source of the terms p2p and peer
production is obviously and undeniably derived from peer networks, the
nature of which is not "nonreciprocal," reciprocity is often a
condition of peerage, i.e. bittorrent, regional Internet exchanges, etc,
nor is it immaterial, since client-server systems also have immaterial
traffic, and material assets, such as circuits are among the
resources shared by the peers. Benkler's tacking-on of "commons-based" is
redundant, for with nothing held in common, there is nothing to be "peers" in.

What distinguishes peer networks from client-server systems is exactly
that they consist of independent systems operating on a common stock of
internetworking infrastructure. And what distinguishes peer-product from
Capitalist production is that the means of production is held as a
common stock to be used by independent workers in their own production.

As a form of social production, peer-production is distinct from both
collective (i.e "Soviet") and bourgeois (i.e. "The West") forms of
Capitalist production and from co-operative production, which is
"workers collectively working with jointly-owned productive assets."

capitalist production: property-less workers working for owners of capital

co-operative production: workers collectively working with jointly-owned productive assets.

peer production: workers independently working with a common stock
of productive assets.

Peer production is the "more equitable market" you are looking for.


-- 
Dmytri Kleiner, aspiring crank

http://www.telekommunisten.net