[p2p-research] Historical anti-materialism

Tue Jun 23 04:05:22 CEST 2009

By its very nature as an innovative social practice, p2p ideas attract those
who want to change the status quo, both by constructing the new, and
sometimes by criticising or attempting to destroy the old. These people as
far as I can see, can come from various political horizons, and some may
define themselves as neo-marxists.

But who here does? where is the utopianism here?

well, I can recognize different strands,

- a kind of technological, post-scarcity, let's call it transhuman stance,
that focuses on technological advances

- a mutualist strand with people like Kevin or Dmytri, who are also very
different in their approaches

- people like Smari, who use the anarchist moniker

- people from an oekonux background, like Christian, who are perhaps most
explicitely linked to some kind of post-marxist tradition ...

- monetary reformers, usually libertarian I would presume, who favour
equitable more distributed markets

- many people with practical ideas and projects who seek advice ...

- social-democratic, participatory oriented activists, like Matt etc...

- I wouldn't even try to try to pigeonhole people like Sepp and Vinay

Even this is of course a simplification, many people now are
post-ideological and combine various strands in varying ways ...

One thing is also certain, far from being neo-Marxists, most people here are
pro-enterpreneurial in some way or another ...

Ryan, is influenced by Austrian  economists, I guess that would some kind of
(post)-libertarian strand politically ..

I see all these people discussing together, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes
in rather stark terms ...

Obviously something is bothering Ryan, is it the theoretical discussions?

Should we separate the list in a p2p-theory list and a p2p-project list?

I'm not in favour, since I see theory inextricably linked with practice,
both as a guide to it, and as profoundly influenced by the experience of
practice ...

...  but I just would like to float the idea, if that could relieve some of
the obvious unhappiness with the direction of some debates ...

Michel

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Stan,
>
> You are quite right that I confused rivalrous and excludable goods.  It has
> been a long time since I read Rothbard and the Austrians who gave us these
> ideas (I presume).
>
> The difference of course is largely irrelevant since property laws do
> exist.
>
> I accept that data is possible to be replicated at negligible cost.  That
> doesn't make the right to copy it inherently present.  And excludability is
> everywhere we want it to be from viewsheds to air rights.
>
> In practical terms, I continue to believe the discussion of rivalrous goods
> to be largely irrelevant.  If you want to talk about property law, you are
> in national political systems.  What difference does it make if a good can
> or can't be copied without loss of material?
>
> Ryan
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 8:06 PM, Stan Rhodes <stanleyrhodes at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Ryan, I have not seen those definitions of rivalry before, nor do I know
>> of any literature that would support them.  Goods are, by nature, rival or
>> nonrival.  You should have looked this up and fact-checked it.
>>
>> See the following economic papers:
>> http://www.econ.upf.edu/~marimon/paulAER02whenIPs.pdf<http://www.econ.upf.edu/%7Emarimon/paulAER02whenIPs.pdf>
>> http://www.undp.org/globalpublicgoods/globalization/pdfs/KaulMendoza.pdf
>> http://www.maxey.info/documents/summary_economic_growth.doc
>>
>> Simply put, classifying a good as rival or nonrival depends upon whether
>> consumption or use of the good prevents simultaneous
>
>
>
>> consumption or use of the good by another.  You are confusing
>> excludability with rivalry.
>>
>> Information as a "good" is not rival, even if someone claims it private
>> (they can claim whatever they like).  Information can be used with no
>> rivalry.  Stallman was speaking of software.  Information--a subset being
>> software--is very clearly a non-rival good by definition.
>>
>> As for my own perspective: the divide between unenforceable and untenable
>> claims of rivalry, and the reality of information nonrivalry, underlies the
>> losing battle of copyrighted media "piracy." Legally establishing nonrival
>> goods as rival goods only creates more dissonance.  The term "intellectual
>> property" attempts to beg the question by classifying information as both
>> private property and rival, but information is no more rival property than
>> "creation science" is science.  "Private" information not released in some
>> way is still a nonrival good, but is being excluded.
>>
>> Your points about Stallman were scattered, and in my view, incorrect.  The
>> implicit lie about rivalry at the core of most "intellectual property"
>> claims couldn't be more relevant to P2P.
>>
>> Property laws consider the rivalrous/nonrivalrous nature of a good when
>> determining the entitlements they establish.  Any reading on the
>> jurisprudence behind property rights, whether Romer or Epstein, consider
>> both rivalry and excludability, among other important factors.
>>
>> -- Stan
>>
>> 2009/6/22 Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>>>> Rivalry is a very important of the p2p concept - rival goods cause
>>>> problems. http://smari.yaxic.org/rivalry_scarcity_graph.png
>>>>
>>>>  - Smári
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Things are not, by nature, rival or non-rival goods.  Those are defined
>>> by laws of property.  If you do not like the laws, work to change them.
>>> However, there is no indepedent concept of rival versus non-rival goods
>>> outside of a political system.
>>>
>>> Non-rival goods -- like ocean water classically -- can easily become
>>> rival goods -- 200 mile territory limits.  The same is true of electrons
>>> (electricity) air -- air rights.
>>>
>>> Property laws are set by lawyers and politicians.  P2P systems are
>>> designed by those who freely choose to share their output and to pool into
>>> commons--it could be any sort of system of scarce or non-scarce goods.
>>>
>>> To say rival goods cause problems is akin to saying cultures cause
>>> problems.  There may be some hint of truth to it, but it is largely
>>> irrelevant unless one wishes to radically alter a political system.  Nothing
>>> in P2P requires altering any political system--P2P thrives just fine
>>> regardless of when and where it is implemented.
>>>
>>> Ryan
>>>
>>
>>
>
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