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

[Michel Bauwens]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Dmytri Kleiner <dk at telekommunisten.net>wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
>
>
>>
>> This is true for both Free Software and Wool Socks.
>>
>>
>> not exactly, only the first applies to wool socks
>>
>
> 100% false. Why on earth could recipients of a basic income not knit
> socks? And also, my children have had socks knit by unpaid volunteers,
> don't yours?
>
> Please think this through more thoroughly.



you are right, but this does not create a commons, at least not in ordinary
circumstances, though it could be re-engineered that way I suppose ...

my own take on this is open design and distributed manufacturing, hopefully,
but not necessarily or automatically, within the context of more equitable
markets or property/organizing forms

>
>
>
>
>>
>
> Yes, of however still muddied by the neoclassical fog preventing you
> from distinguishing stocks from flows.


not sure that means in this particular context ... why is this distinction
important here, can you explain?


> No, the central innovation of Capitalism is they lack the means of
> acquiring food
> and shelter, the knitting needless are optional. It is and was quite
> common,
> for instance, for industrial producers to provide their own tools,
> shoes, uniforms, etc.



yes, that was true in the early forms of capitalism ...



>
>
>
>  the problem for free software developers is that they no longer need
>> capital for the
>> means of production, but only need money for their social reproduction ...
>>
>
> This makes no sense whatever.



it does, and it is exacly how many of them have explained their realities to
me ...



>
>
>
>
> Therefore simply using that title means you must reject that peer
> production = immaterial production.



my argument is different above, not that they are identical, but that today,
peer production is only possible within immaterial production  of open
knowledge, software and design ... ; given abundance of material input, it
would also work for material production, but since I expect relative
scarcity for an indefinite time, my preferred option is open development
married with equitable markets (or any other fair mechanism for the
allocation of resources)




>
>
>
>
> A non profit corporation is a corporation!


well in europe they are not, they are associations, they have no obligation
to provide profit to their shareholders ... but they are in  most cases,
hierarchically ordered and organized .. unlike the new type of for-benefit
associations that are managing the infrastructure of cooperation of peer
producing communities, they still operate from a absolute scarcity paradigm
...
'


>
>
>
>  you seemed to imply that free software only exists because of that, and
>> I think this simplifies things too much
>>
>
> Free software production, like all other forms of production, must
> account for the costs of all it's inputs. I did not say there was only
> one way of doing so, some "corporate" way. Far from it.



good, then we agree, as most of the inputs today are corporate, but this is
not necessarily so


>
>
>
>
>>
>
> In other words workers currently employing a common-stock of mainly
> immaterial productive assets can //expand their stock// to include
> material assets! In other words //expanding// peer production into the
> material world. Peer production //is// the new economics system you are
> referring to. I don't know how much clearer I can be on this.



let's take a concrete example, say the arduino community centered around the
arduino company but allied with many other small businesses ... (and which
recently created the open source hardware bank), what's your take on how
they should proceed?; so far, most, if not all peer producing projects
choose to align themselves with a rather classic business ecology, with some
exceptions such as free software coops ...

we need to offer these communities concrete ways forward that they see as
beneficial and low threshold ...

I think that coming up with such solutions is the most important thing to
bring our debate forward ...
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