[p2p-research] labour, capital and p2p
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Sun May 17 17:16:00 CEST 2009
<And, to my mind, spare us the silly Marxian critiques (interest is
inherently evil?--just absurd) which are unworthy of further discussion
because they will never happen and shouldn't happen. >
Hi Ryan,
just to make a precision, marxists do not critique interest, it's the local
currency movements that do, yes the p2p oriented ones. Interest has been
traditionally rejected by every spiritual tradition before the advent of
capitalism, and is successfully practiced by islamic finance (largely
untouched by the meltdown by the way), and in a modified form (very low
interest), by cooperative banking, also untouched by the meltdown.
The result of what seems to you a shocking heresy which can't happen, is
that, in the midst of the total meltdown of the German and Austrian economy
(the hyperinflation period with dramatic unemployment), the town achieved
nearly full employment. If you read Bernard Lietaer, not a silly marxist
economist but a leading central banker, you will see that nearly every high
growth civilitation was marked by such 'utopian' money (which in other
words, worked very well).
I also disagree on your characterization of Marx. Of course he was
'incredibly wrong' on a number of issues, but also right on others, and
while his ideas were abused by totalitarian states, it also inspired mass
democratic movements without whom the western workers would not have
obtained any of the social gains which we take for granted. There would have
been no welfare state, no New Deal. I wouldn't have been able to go to a
free university with free medical care, but most likely would have worked in
the mines and died at 14. Also, it is rather remarkable that the very elite
you think would be shocked by mentions of Marx, is now rediscovering him
(frontpage of Foreign Policy, jacques attali ...). I would rather say that
for the moment, it is the friedmanites which are fully discredited and have
caused untold harm. So let's dedramatise marx, and consider him
integratively as just one of the sources we may learn something from.
On the other issue, a possible response to the link between technology and
poverty. First of all, the neoliberal period was marked by the spread of
networks in the mass communication era, in other words, the networks were
reserved for the elite. The massification of the internet only started in
1995, significantly co-inciding with the birth of the new social movements
and the beginning of the end of neoliberalism.
This being said, it is to be expected that in the early faces of a
democratisation of technology (think of the gutenberg effect), the initial
effect will be more inequality (people who read gain an advantage over those
that don't, people with internet gain an advantage over those that don't),
but this is a temporary effect, if the social movements are successfull in
spreading the technology to the broader population. This is why universal
broadband is essential.
Michel
On 5/17/09, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So the argument goes that technology caused inequality?
>
> How about the rise of graduate management education? Or the rise of
> statistics tracked by compensation consulting firms?
>
> My own view is that the real reason that income inequality has increased is
> that the "understanding" of value in processes changed. We have lawyers,
> accountants and management professionals pointing out value contribution and
> negotiating who is actually contributing value in processes--and it
> generally isn't the exploited worker who is easily replaced by someone in a
> poorer country. That wasn't capitalism...it was professionalism in
> management, marketing, law and accounting.
>
> Social norms against high pay for managers fell for numerous complex
> reasons--mostly based on new management value theories. And there was an
> argument that capitalists ought NOT to be the winners--shareholders who paid
> for their shares didn't do that great compared to managers who made options
> to purchase cheap stock and took away big salaries. Take professional
> sports where in the 1950s players barely made a living. Now they are
> lavished in tens of millions of dollars...at the behest of their own
> collective bargaining actions. Owners lose money and own teams for prestige
> and fun. Where is the capitalism there?
>
> The story is complex and to frame it is rather simplistic Marxian terms
> isn't helpful in my view; it is just absurd and loses credibility amongst
> anyone who actually deals with global business and production systems.
>
> Marx was incredibly wrong. His ideas have been a source for endless
> misery. Invoking him is a source of lost credibility for the left that
> wants some vague utopian state that neither makes any sense nor is it even
> remotely feasible.
>
> The discussion here is about voluntary participation in lives of
> contribution, service, balance and tension--not some utopian rubbish that
> has been tried, failed, rejected and justifiably now ignored by the masses.
>
>
> If you hate inequality, spread education, advance normative values of
> sharing, responsibility and trust. Work for microcredit systems (which
> charge interest) and which work incredibly well. To say otherwise is sheer
> ignorance--like arguing with people who think God is touching their daily
> lives--there really isn't anything to say to that level of nihilism and
> anti-truth.
>
> If you want to understand development economics, read Bill Easterly and
> others who know that you can't do big things through big governments or big
> NGOs which will go corrupt and that development works when people are free,
> empowered, taught to build their own systems and to not rely on help from
> above. The answers come from the grass roots--not in organizing vast labor
> or governmental systems that go corrupt, but in their organizing themselves
> into small sustainable processes and systems that advance P2P
> opportunities. That's what P2P is about. It isn't anti-capitalist. It
> isn't pro-socialist. It is pro living sensibly. That doesn't have any
> systematic economic philosophy. It is inherently anti-system...anti
> hierarchy. That's why we keep coming back to anarchist mutualist
> histories--like Proudhon, like Streeter, like the LETSI people in a much
> more modern and viable sense than Proudhon ever was. With technology, those
> systems can lead to happy, reasonably fair and reasonably sustainable
> lives--and should.
>
> If you want a mantra to align your life to, then I propose that we don't
> organize hierarchies, we should rather organize modes of sharing...P2P.
>
> And, to my mind, spare us the silly Marxian critiques (interest is
> inherently evil?--just absurd) which are unworthy of further discussion
> because they will never happen and shouldn't happen.
>
> Ryan Lanham
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Wittel, Andreas <andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk
> > wrote:
>
>> Ryan,
>> the intensification of income differences is not something that happened
>> in the 19th century, but in the last four decades.
>> Are you suggesting, that knowledge and information-driven production will
>> somehow undo this development? If so, how would you explain the following
>> parallel: Exactly at that moment when information and knowledge became the
>> motor for economic development (from the 1970s onwards), the gap in income
>> differences opened up significantly.
>> Andreas
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Ryan Lanham [mailto:rlanham1963 at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Sun 17/05/2009 01:23
>> To: Wittel, Andreas
>> Cc: Michel Bauwens; p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] labour, capital and p2p
>>
>>
>> As I understand it, capitalism is the accumulation of capital to control
>> means of production. Who or what does that now? Name five "capitalists"
>> who matter. Most either parlayed intellectual property rights into
>> fortunes, or they invested in large financial engineering schemes where debt
>> was the leverage to create huge cash flows.
>>
>> Very few successful firms actually produce things with capital--that is
>> all in China and Eastern Europe and such places. Like I said, it is like
>> discussing the 19th century. Not sure what world this is that people are
>> discussing, but it isn't the one I live or work in.
>>
>>
>> Ryan Lanham
>> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
>> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Wittel, Andreas <
>> andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>> There are many terms in Greek and Latin vocabulary which are still
>> relevant today. So what is the problem with this? Yes, trems like capital
>> and labour are probably not part of most people's worlds, and actually they
>> never have been. They remained in the realm of concept/model/theory. That is
>> not great. But that is not really the point.
>> I have used these terms to describe a widening gap between the rich
>> and the poor. Most people who dont use these these terms still worry about
>> this development. The terms might be old, the problem is contemporary. Would
>> you agree that this increasing gap of inequality is a serious problem, Ryan?
>> Also, I really don't think that the left is unaware of how
>> knowledge changes the game, all the debates on immaterial labour show that
>> knowledge is today's battleground. But this does not mean that knowledge
>> operates outside of capital and labour. Let's not talk about terms, let's
>> talk about the organisation of production (and knowledge production) in
>> capitalism
>> Andreas
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org on behalf of Ryan
>> Lanham
>> Sent: Sat 16/05/2009 15:06
>> To: Michel Bauwens
>> Cc: p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>
>> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] labour, capital and p2p
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe the seemingly absurd idealism of the European left is
>> useful to the world. Whether it leads anywhere or just gives fodder to the
>> right that the left is silly remains to be seen in the voting booths. But my
>> own interpretation is that it is useful for pushing collaborative, open
>> inquiry types (I hope like myself) to further question and reflect on their
>> own equivocations.
>>
>> Most of the discussions seem better set in 1880 than 2009. Terms
>> like "capital" "labor" "management" seem to me to belong with terms like
>> "steam engine" "railroad" and "factory." They aren't even seriously part of
>> most people's worlds.
>>
>> The battlefield today is the mind. Can its produce be free? Can
>> there be justice in allocating knowledge and the expansion of knowledge?
>> Who wins when knowledge is expanded? Knowledge isn't a conventional
>> capital like a gear or machine tool. It is very different. The left seems
>> unaware of that. Is there a left that open to post-capital social
>> arrangements? Or maybe I'm it.
>>
>> Ryan Lanham
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 6:53 AM, Michel Bauwens <
>> michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Marco,
>>
>> you may be right that there are many people who want to
>> abolish the personhood of corporations, but I have yet to meet the first one
>> ... on the other hand, I meet scores of people who want to be enterpreneurs
>> and create a company, regardless of its bylaws ...
>>
>> I think that the answer here, if I'm correct about the lack
>> of traction, is not necessarily to fight the old, we can do that later when
>> we're stronger, but rather to build constructive and better alternatives ..
>> I think that social entrepreneurships, fair trade, for-benefit associations
>> and blended/value good-capital approaches, including chris cook's open
>> capital, aim to do precisely that, to create better formats that can outgrow
>> the limitations of the corporate patholotical form ...
>>
>> So I agree with the ultimate aims of POCLAD, but I think
>> it's more fruitful to build alternatives at this stage,
>>
>> As you know, Douglas Rushkoff's Life Inc., is doing a good
>> job of educating people in POCLAD type critiques, as did The Corporation a
>> few years earlier ...
>>
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On 5/15/09, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, May 15, 2009 16:14:02 PM +0700, Michel
>> Bauwens wrote:
>> > Hi Marco,
>> >
>> > Thanks for your contribution.
>> >
>> > I understand your comment, but my 'feeling' is
>> just the opposite.
>>
>> No problem! As I said, I'm all but an expert on
>> monetary reform issues
>> or corporate law, so I don't really have any strong
>> opinion or
>> position to defend, no problem. When these specific
>> issues are
>> concerned, I'm still a student collecting material
>> for homework.
>>
>> With respect to this:
>>
>> > 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
>>
>> There is no doubt that the "monetary alternatives"
>> movement, for lack
>> of a better term, is much more vibrant, growing and
>> known among
>> activists than things like POCLAD. I myself
>> discovered POCLAD by pure,
>> pure chance online some years ago. I also have no
>> problem, at least
>> now, to accept your evaluation that POCLAD has much,
>> much smaller
>> possibilities of success than monetary reform. What
>> I didn't expect,
>> and find really interesting, is this assertion:
>>
>> > and it requires really what the immense majority
>> of people will find
>> > an unacceptable reform.
>>
>> Regardless, again, of the probability of success and
>> of any inherent
>> flaws in the idea, I am pretty sure that, around
>> here, I would find:
>>
>> 1) much, much less difficulties to explain POCLAD
>> proposals than any
>> money reform scheme passed on this list since when
>> I subscribed
>>
>> 2) (partly due to 1) ) many more supporters of such
>> a corporate reform
>> than of any of those scheme.
>>
>> That is, my **feeling** is that if both sets of
>> proposals were given
>> equal coverage in mainstream media (we can dream,
>> can we not?), the
>> majority of non-activists, the "Joe Sixpack" class,
>> in American slang,
>> would go for POCLAD (especially in these times...)
>> rather than money
>> reform which would be, in that context, a much more
>> alien concept than
>> "corporations are bad".
>>
>> So I wonder how much of this feeling depends on
>> where one lives. What
>> do list subscribers from other parts of the world
>> think? Which of
>> those two classes of concepts is easier to sell
>> (regardless of its
>> intrinsic value) to Joe Sixpack? Just curious,
>> really, answer off list
>> if you think it's off topic.
>>
>> marco
>>
>> --
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>> software is used *around* you:
>> http://digifreedom.net/node/84
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