[p2p-research] Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:44:21 +0700, Michel Bauwens
<michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Dmytri Kleiner

>> It is my position that non-reciprocity is a red herring.

> It has always existed and will always exist, see the many different
> anthropological accounts such as the structure of social life and its
> detailed description of communal shareholding over the ages

I can can only conclude that you have not read these accounts Michel, for
in reading them, it is impossible
to miss the fact that these relationships are, in fact, reciprocal. See for
instance, Marcel Mause's "The Gift."

Even the etymology of the word "Gift" reveals how deep the concept of
reciprocation is in humans. 
It's a Germanic word that shares it's root with the word for Poison.
Receiving a gift is like being poisoned, 
you must get it out of your system by reciprocating or suffer.
 

> take the following example: family sharing. A family sharing environment
> exists within a market economy, is used by the market to support itself,
> but
> does that make the family environment a market? No, unless  you start
> selling to your wife and kids.

You are conflating reciprocity with the Market. Value in non-market
reciprocity, as I've mentioned before, 
is placed on relationships, not individual item and transaction prices.
When a member of a family does not
meet the expectations of the other family members in their contributions,
disputes arise.

Further you miss the point that we are not talking about circulation, but
production, and no matter how altruistic
and selfless the producers are, if they are not able to attain the
reproduction costs of their inputs, 
they are not able to continue producing. A mode of production must explain
how all inputs are reproduced, your 
Benklerian model of peer-production, "non-reciprocal, immaterial
production," can not. This is on purpose, because 
it's proponents are supporters of Capitalism. The idea that Free Softare is
an example of the so-called mode of 
production is simply, demonstrably, and undeniably false. This sort of
equivoctions, conflating stocks and flows, speaking
of circulation of stocks instead of is a common pattern among capitalist
apologists. If the the current distribution of the 
means of production and circulation is taken as a given, you want to focus
on the subjective price of stocks. If distribution
of productive assets is challenged, the focus falls on the objective cost
of sustaining flows. 
The Benklerian definition of perr-production is just more neoclassical
garbage, like the marginal utility theory of value.


> Similary, really existing non-reciprocal communal shareholding by free
> software developers exists within the market economy and is used by the
> market, but that does not make non-reciprocal production a market
> function.

You continue to misunderstand the nature of free software production and
persist in your belief in the 
fairytale of random volunteer developers making free software for no reason
at all. No such "Free Software" exists 
outside the long tail of abandon-ware and vapour-ware listed on the
backpages of freshmeat searches.

Free software is a common productive stock, we use it and improve it
because we need it. Most significantly from 
an economic view, is that we need it as an input to production, even though
it has nearly no circulation cost, the production that 
depends on it must provide for production costs, not it's circulation
costs. However because it has nearly no circulation cost, the production
costs can be spread out over a great many users, each motivated to
contribute their small part to better derive value from the whole common
stock.

What is interesting about the production of free software is that free
software is a common stock of productive assets employed in production
independently by many producers, not that it is non-reciprocal (It's not)
nor immaterial. What is interesting is that it is commons-based, that is
it's definitive characteristic.


> Peer production is now emerging as a very strong mode to produce
> immaterial
> assets, can it, and how, become the core mode of producing value in
> society?
> It could do this by subsuming the equitable market mode, but how?

A commons-based market, one where productive assets where held in common by
peer-producing networks of independant producers
is exactly the equitable market you are looking for. I wont champion a
particlar model in this thread, but there are many, from Mutualism,
Syndicalism and Georgism, to their mash-ups such as Gesselian
Freiwirtshaft, Geolibertarianism, and my own Venture Communism.


> What would be useful for me is that you explain more clearly the
> distinction
> between cooperative production and what you call peer production?

In peer production the stock of productive assets is common, not owned by
one co-operative, but by many independent individuals and groups.

As I've already said, a co-operative is "collective workers working on a
jointly owned stock of productive assets,"  while peer-producers work
independently on a common-stock of productive assets.

Users of and contributers to the Linux kernel, for example, are not a
co-operative, but rather a distributed network of individuals and groups
for whom the Linux Kernel is a common productive assets, some of them make
routers, some of the make distros, some of them do client-funded
customizations, etc. The vast majority of benefit directly from the Linux
Kernel, and thus contribute to it so that it better suites their needs. The
value the derive from the Linux Kernel is far greater than that of their
own contributions to it.


> Under
> your
> definition, which seems different from mine, does it already exist?
> will
> it
> exist, and how will it come into being, and what will it do to the peer
> production that already exists under my definition (i.e. voluntary
> contribution, participatory process, universal availability).

Free software, primitive commons society, the family and every single
example you use is much better explained if you understand that the
definitive feature in peer-production is the commons, not some imaginary
"non-reciprocity."

It is your Benklerian definition of peer production that does not, and can
not, exist, which is why you are forced into incoherent dualisms and
equivocation when attempting to address the issue of the material inputs to
the production of immaterial wealth.


> I already know you would restrict universal availability, how else would
> it change?

Please stop repeating this false statement.


>> Rivalrous and non-rivalrous production doesn't need to be integrated,
> they
>> are, must be, and always will be integrated, it's your analysis that is
>> disintregated by not considering the whole mode of production. Don't be
>> fooled by law
>> professors bearing gifts (Benkler, Lessig, etc), they exist to confuse
>> the issue.
> 
> 
> It is now integrated in the market economy, but can it be integrated with
> something else, under a different political economy?
> 
> My position is quite different from theirs. They see its subsumption to
> the market as a given and seemingly permanent, I see it as something that
must
> be overcome (and will be overcome).

By excepting their framing of peer-production, you also fall victim to the
limits inherent in a definition which tries to evade the objective costs of
sustaining production by mesmerizing you with novelties in circulation.


>> If you are referring to to copyfarleft it is
>> important to note that this proposal does not apply to immaterial
>> productive assets, but rather to stocks of immaterial goods, the essay
>> goes to great lengths to make the distinction.

> could you quote that part? I don't recall the distinction precisely

Can I quite "that part?" That is what the entire essay is about! Here are
the first two sentences:

"In the area of software development copyleft has proved to be a
tremendously effective means of creating an information commons which
broadly benefits all those whose production depends on it. However, many
artists, musicians, writers, film-makers and other information producers
remain skeptical that a copyleft based system where anyone is free to
reproduce their work, can earn them a living."


Cheers.





-- 
Dmytri Kleiner, aspiring crank.

http://www.telekommunisten.net