[p2p-research] labour, capital and p2p

Fri May 15 11:14:02 CEST 2009

Hi Marco,

Thanks for your contribution.

I understand your comment, but my 'feeling' is just the opposite. Hundreds
of cities and regions and tens of thousands of people are working on
monetary issues .. it's a vibrant and growing movement ..

In contrast, POCLAD is just minuscule, and it requires really what the
immense majority of people will find an unacceptable reform. It has at the
moment zero chance of being achieved. The basic income is certainly
stronger, there are lots of reports and some marginal support by
politicians, but it is also quite unrealistic in the short term. So,
monetary transformation is a current reality, the basic income could
possibly come to the agenda after a severe social crisis (really severe,
social security and the universal suffrage were only achieved after wartime
dislocations mostly), and the idea of abolition of corporate form is even
further away.

Of course, it makes a lot of sense as an idea, the analysis is sound, but
that doesn't make it a realistic possibility at this stage. Of course,
there's probably quite a bit that could be achieved in terms of corporate
and governance report, at a certain stage.

Michel

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 1:37 PM, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:

> On Thu, May 14, 2009 22:15:16 PM +0100, Wittel, Andreas wrote:
>
> > So why tinkering at the edges of a monetary system, why creating new
> > ones?... I would like to focus my inquiries on the question how the
> > p2p community can contribute to a fairer system of monetary exchange
> > for labour (= value)
>
> I confess that I too, sometimes (out of highly unscientific gut
> feeling and almost nothing else) fail to see the point in working on
> some theories. That's why I usually just sit quietly in a corner when
> these discussions happen, trying to learn something interesting. I'll
> take advantage of this comment from you, and from these doubts, which
> I also share:
>
> > I have some doubts that this goal (a fairer system of exchange) can
> > actually be tackled in the p2p world alone.
>
> to ask all members of this list something I have wanted to investigate
> better for years, since the first time I encountered it online. What
> do you think of the POCLAD proposals (www.poclad.org) as a way to
> arrive to a "fairer system of exchange", as Andreas calls it?
> Simplifying a lot, what they say, or so I understand, is that if
> everybody focused on asking on abolition of corporate personhood
> privileges, many of the problems you're trying to solve via new
> monetary systems and so on or would either disappear or become of a
> much smaller size.
>
> The advantage I see in such an approach is that is something that (as
> unreal as may seems) may very well be simpler and faster to achieve
> than basic income, p2p money and so on, and in any case could make
> transitioning to those other schemes much simpler. Above all, those
> proposals have a huge practical advantage alternative monetary systems
> etc... they're very, very easy to explain to everybody, including
> people with very poor education. They're much easier to gather popular
> support for. As Einstein put it "everything should be made as simple
> as possible, but not simpler".
>
> Does it make any sense? Please explain gently :-) , I'm just a newbie
> on these issue.
>
> Changing argument now:
>
> > all that is needed to produce and distribute digital things is the
> > value of labour (Marco I know you disagree,
>
> :-) no problem, really, I understand why you're saying it. Still, I
> have something to say about this:
>
> > Open source and p2p communities are full of enthusiasts who are
> > willing to contribute with their labour to the changes we have
> > experienced, social changes, economic changes, political changes.
> > This labour mostly is free labour.
>
> "over 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers
> who are being paid for their work... The Linux kernel, then, is
> largely the product of professionals, not volunteers".
>
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-now-slave-corporate-masters
>
> the same is true for Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice...
>
> Just a few days ago, I found this comment on slashdot:
>
> "there's also an awful lot of good free software too" - "No, there
> isn't. There is a minuscule amount of good free software. Especially
> when compared to the total amount of free software. The good/bad
> software ratio is heavily in favor of commercial software."
>
> I do not really agree with that comment, but it is a fact that a not
> negligible amount of flagship FOSS (the "good free software") is and
> above all **remains** "flagship" quality exactly because someone,
> somehow, stepped in and regularly brings in enough money to sustain
> full time, well paid work.
>
> > A fairer exchange system for labour power, I believe, cannot be
> > achieved with a new piece of software and a p2p community of several
> > hundred (or even thousand) enthusiasts that uses this new software
> > tool. For this to happen we need to develop strategies which are
> > aimed at societies at large.
>
> Replace "exchange system for labour power" with "society", and I fully
> agree. That's why I was really fascinated by the POCLAD proposals and
> really want to study them in detail some time: maybe they're wrong or
> ineffectual, but they're sure damn easy to explain or sum up on
> protest signs and T-shirts :-)
>
> Marco
> --
> Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
> software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84
>
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