[p2p-research] Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish:A

[Michel Bauwens]

> I have not authored a language to call my own, I am proposing you use clear
> language, so that we can talk about the reality of peer-production and
> spread the understanding that immatrial assets can have no exchange value,
> so owners of material assets will always capture the entire
> productive surplus this quite import fact is lost in talk of "immaterial"
> production.


No it is not lost, and actually central to the 'crisis of value' thesis that
I have co-authored with Adam Arvidsson, already 3 years ago now.


>
>
> Yes, there is a difference but the difference is in circulation, not
> production. That is an important distinction.


This is something I don't understand. Is free software not produced, only
circulated ??? Is open design not produced, not circulated.

It is both, it is produced, either by conditional corporate wage labour, or
by unconditional subsidized work as basic income, or by unpaid volunteers.
It is then also circulated. In fact, circulation is nearly automatic in a
digital environment, so that is not really the issue.


>
>
>
> Then what leads you to such absurd claims as that immaterial producers
> "own their means of production" if this is obvious?


They do: their brains, the computers, and the access to the socialized
network, there are their means of production. Only in design of physical
products do you also need extra production machinery requiring larger
capital outlays. But perhaps there is another semantic question here. I
clearly mean: the means to produce free software. Because you mean: funding
and the means of social reproduction of the workers? Or do you not count the
brains, the computers, and the internetwork as means of production? Are the
means of production restricted to physical machinery, to money or debt
capital, to what exactly?



Wikipedia explains it as follows:
>
>
ok you are acknowledging that wikipedia is sustainable, despite being
uneconomical in the sense  you indicated for free software? recall you said
that free software has to be economical and sustained by corporations. The
reality is that it is indeed crucial that free software programmers and peer
producers generally, have means of livelyhood, and that currently
corporations are amongst the few human institutions that can provide that,
but humanity could invent other ways (including your own proposals)




>
>
>
>
> No. But I don't think this thread is a good conext to talk about
> copyfarleft, it is a different topic. Just understand that it is mainly a
> proposal for licensing books and movies, specifically for cultural works
> currently mostly licenced under copyleft noncommercial licences, which
> deny both propertarian and peer-production. We should start a different
> thread to discuss this in more depth.


ok


>
>
>
>       The simple rule is that producers, as a whole, must account for the
>>      production and circulation costs of all inputs, material and
>> immaterial.
>>      However, immaterial inputs have lower reproduction and circulation
>>      costs.
>
>
presently they can only do this within the market system



>
>>
>  agreed, and it is because this is already happening that the phenomena
>> exists ..., but
>> we would like to improve these reproduction mechanisms in the sense of
>> equity and
>> non-exploitation
>>
>
> Yes!
>
>
>       It's not a quibble over words, but an essential matter of how we
>>      define what, in fact, we are talking about.
>>
>>      What is peer-production? Is it worker's independently employing a
>>      common-stock of productive assets? Or is it nonreciprocal, immaterial
>>      production? What specific socio-economic development are we
>> discussing
>>      here?
>
>
peer production is based on voluntary input, participatory process and
commons oriented output; it can be complemented and funded by a new economic
system that is based on worker's employing a common stock of productive
assets


>
>>
>>
>>
> No, we are both saying it does exist, we disagree on what it's definitive
> properties are. We are both talking about the same phenomenon, i.e. the
> emergence of free software, we both see this as potentially a
> component of a new way of producing and sharing that could replace
> capitalism.


yes, but this is precisely why I'm puzzled,because under your definition, it
does not actually exist yet; since you exclude the means of immaterial
production (brains, computers, networks), what you are left with is the
means of material production, and financial capital, and indeed, free
software programmers do not have access to that!!

In that sense, peer production does not exist, so what does exist under your
definition, is what puzzles me??


>
>
>
>
> IMO, it is very important to understand framing issues, such as why
> neoclassical capitalist-appologists want to promote a subjective theory
> of value and an immaterial definition of peer-production, it is exactly
> to misdirect the discussion away from equality in distrubition of
> productive assets. If we want to change society we have to think on
> terms of equality in distribution of productive assets, and frame our
> definitions that way.
>
>
ok, I definitely understand your concern, though I disagree that talking
about immaterial production and indirect reciprocity has the implications
which you say it has

Michel
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