[p2p-research] Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks a lot Martin for this extensive reply, I won't answer everything
right now, just want to make a start,

let's take the material basis of the digital commons,

I recognize this, many others I know do, and I personally don't know many
people who are not cognizant of this,

that in my view is therefore a red herring,

the more important point is, what can we do about it,

I can only tell you what I try to do about it in the p2p foundation,

first, talk about it and publish studies and contributions about this
material basis, I do this whenever I  come across it and maintain a
specialized tag on this

second, focus on the solution space, how do we activiely diminish the
digital footprint; again there is a special section of the p2p foundation
wiki dedicated to this, covering proposals such as by Bill St. Arnaud and
others,

I'm not claiming I'm doing enough, nor that I give it enough of a
centrality, but what I'm saying is, it's already beyond critique and
complaint; it's about actually doing something about it.

now, even if your claim were true, and free culture advocates are blissfully
unware that they are using computers, energy, and raw materials; this
general accusation is unproductive; what we need is concrete and real
information and solutions; as you say yourself, not ideological, but
technical

as you insist yourself: " I am quite sure that most people understand very
easily that
energy and hardware don't just drop from the sky, but have to be
generated and produced and that this production is environmentally and
humanly costly"

so, given this understanding is there, what is the next step??

Another entirely different question is, how much of a place should this have
strategically?

In my case, my answer is clearly, the issue of the ecological footprint is
subordinated to the overall struggle to change the system, in which the
digital commons is one of the crucial affordances to actually win that
struggle; failure to do so, i.e. creating strength to change the system,
makes any discussion of ecological footprints moot

The digital commons are not just a luxury for western knowledge workers;
they are a crucial ingredient to move productive workers towards peer
production modalities, i.e. combining digital empowerment and shared design,
with the expressions of the social/solidarity economy; a crucial ingredient
in workers struggle; and a crucial ingredient in the self-organization of
the oppressed worldwide

weapons kill, but if you have an enemy that is ready to shoot at you,
considering their usage is legitimate (as is non-violence)

what I see problematic in the  repetition about the materiality of the
digital commons is the following:

- creating a red herring of those that supposedly ignore this

- repeating the claim with the unspoken assumption that everyone should say
'mea culpa, yes  you are right and we are wrong', but at the same time, not
contributing in any concrete way to actually dealing with the  issue of the
ecological footprint

This is what I invite you to, to focus less on accusing others of 'not
getting it', but simply contribute to the discourse and concrete solution
space,

now I fully understand that people disagree on the core importance of the
digital commons as key affordance in social change, BUT, this doesn't mean
there is not commonality in other things; unless you would stress in an
absolute way, like say the Amish, that this type of technology should be
forsaken altogether,

I have a different reading of Berlin, since I have not seen any of the
reactions you have seen,

but here is the dynamic from my point of view,

some people, like myself, are trying to build a coalition across of very
wide divide of differences,

typically, in such a conference, there will be a tug of war between two
extremes,

one the one side, people who compose with the system, accept capitalism, or
even reject both but accept or support the market freedom to autonomously
produce and exchange; on the other hand, people on the opposite side of the
spectrum, who reject the system, capitalism, often do not differentiate
between the market and capitalism, and typically, though they are themselves
generally few in number in most meetings, claim to speak for the masses;
this tension is unresolvable, but for people who are trying to maintain the
common space, always problematic, as, given space to one over the other,
generally creates hostility on the other side of the spectrum, always with
the danger that one side will leave; merely insisting on the acceptability
of capitalism or the market will typically enrage the other side; while the
anti-capitalist rhetoric will also alienate the opposite side; the only
solution is to keep looking for productive commonality: are there still
things we can do together despite those differences; generally, there are,
at least that is my opinion

now you can say that your type of masses are in the overwhelming majority,
but that is subject to debate; in the west, knowledge workers are the
majority of the population; worldwide of course, this is not true, there is
a massive presence of agricultural and industrial workers ... but from my
own experience here in the South: they are just as motivated for digitally
enhanced cooperation; and creating a false dichotomy between knowledge
workers, who are digital commoners who are 'not aware' of the ecological
footprint, and others, who are assumed to reject digital commons, is just
not my experience, especially if one looks to the younger generations, the
aspiration to communicate is very strong; the urge to use the new methods to
keep in touch with their families (migrant workers in china and S-E asia),
or to organize and inform themselves in social struggles (chinese workers
using the internet to compare wages and organize strikes), just as important

in the end, I'm not sure what your complaint is, you were part of the
organising team, people had the freedom to propose and organize their own
workshops and recruit sympathizers and interested people to attend them ...
of course, some people disagree, and some people will shrug you off, as they
do me and others, this is to be expected and I can't see that as a problem



On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 2:29 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> Michel,
>
> You are right to warn about "being stuck in critique" - or in any other
> rhetoric, whether self-styled or based on established ideology - and I
> shall be the first to lament conventional, unreflective leftist positions.
>
> As the subject line indicates, virtual commons are within free culture
> commonly, in general, considered in isolation from the materiality that
> makes them possible and which constitutes one of the fastest growing
> environmental threats. This is not an ideological point, but a technical
> point, and it continues to be a hidden aspect of free culture and
> virtual commons, and will remain hidden until the philosophy and
> language from within the movements recognise the material dependency and
> enormous energy consumption that digital commons entail. That was and is
> all I am saying: do not be in denial.
>
> Generally, on a personal note, I proceed from the principle that one
> should not bother criticising something that one does not care for:
> critique is an attempt to improve: preguntando caminamos - and the
> questioning as we walk is of course also of our own footsteps and
> direction (in fact, when building alternatives there is not much else to
> question). Else, it would risk ending up like in some western New Age
> community where everyone is smiling with joy, although they are furious
> on the inside, with themselves and with each other - for the more
> enlightened, the more happy, and so to admit to *not* be happy and *not*
> on the verge of nirvana would signal a failure. So we smile. In short:
> denial, repression and the danger of explosion.
>
> I don't understand what you mean with those who "just don't get it" -
> for my part I am quite sure that most people understand very easily that
> energy and hardware don't just drop from the sky, but have to be
> generated and produced and that this production is environmentally and
> humanly costly, *if* they are made aware of that - but you seem to
> suggest that *I* just don't get "it" - "it" being your world view. Well,
> what is it that I don't get?
>
> I have answered in more detail below - hoping that this can become
> either a constructive exchange, or that we can just leave it here - with
> a view to clearing up some of the misunderstandings that were reflected
> in your responses (to what I was trying to say).
>
> On 29/11/10 01:09, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > hi martin,
> >
> > you say "berlin" was allergic to stances directly confronting capital,
> can
> > you give some concrete examples?
>
> I said we heard it time and again during the conference and in
> meetings - even in pejorative terms with gestures and with overbearing
> shrugs. I was actually rather shocked, not so much by the arrogance and
> superiority of it, as the assumption that such denigrating statements
> were OK to make and reflected a common(s) sense. This is no place for
> specifics, as they are personal, - if you managed to _not_ notice I am
> rather surprised - but in some sense it doesn't matter, while in others
> it matters a lot:
>
> The movements of peasants, landless and indigenous - as well as urban
> radical movements - I imagine, outnumber the digital commoners; and
> without land and its resources there can be no cyberspace. After all,
> half the population is still rural and many urban dwellers rely upon
> their villages to feed them in the city, as anyone who has ever been
> doing development work on the frontiers of capitalism will know all too
> well.
>
> Since the expansion of cyberspace threatens the commoners of the land,
> there needs to be some sort of mutual recognition of the this
> inter-dependence. Every time the digital commons discourse ignores and
> denies this material foundation, the problem is consolidated. If you see
> yourself as a public intellectual, then you must realise - as Lessig,
> Benkler et al. before you - that you to quite some extent have to take
> on the responsibility as a central contributor to defining (refining?)
> the discourse of those who follow. At this stage, the digital commons
> discourse is saturated with politics that build on the misleading
> (deliberately misleading! (I will document this on demand)) discourse
> established by the Ivy League leaders who have defined the territory
> intellectually - and done so in such a manner as to not only pose
> minimal threat to capital interests, but indeed to be helpful for their
> expansion.
>
> The movements for the defense of commons first had their de facto rights
> articulated in the Charter of Forests (ca. 1215-1225), and apart from
> various great uprisings - the last, in this part of the world, during
> the Spanish Revolution in the 1930s - it has been a slow, but safe
> decay: from having collective right of access to land for food, fuel and
> building materials to abstract, individual rights that can be suspended
> in a state of emergency, which have become permanent features in the
> contemporary world.
>
>
> > one thing worries me though, you say that we should wait "that we are all
> on
> > the same page", but surely, that cannot be a reason for inaction, until
> the
> > magical moment when that would happen? this stance, waiting for "once we
> are
> > all on the same page .. then let us move forward", is a guarantee for
> > staying in the critical stage, with no movement towards concretely
> building
> > the alternatives ...
>
> I am not sure why you choose to (mis)understand what I said in this way,
> but to clarify: You asked me for *specific* answers and I said that I do
> not have any real answers at this stage. Why not? Because I consider the
> development of answers, solutions and action plans as necessarily a
> collective effort that has to come from within the movement(s) - we find
> the answers as we walk on, asking each other, reflecting  critically,
> avoiding gooey eyed denial - like moths staring into the virtual light.
> At this stage, my contribution is merely a philosophical questioning of
> the politics of free culture.
>
> When it comes to the way in which digital commons are embedded in
> natural resource systems and what can be done about it, I said that an
> important first step is towards *acknowledging* that problem. This means
> in very simple terms that if you have not acknowledged and recognised a
> problem, it is going to be difficult to solve it. Everytime the politics
> and development of the digital commons rest on the false assumptions of
> immateriality, the materiality is obscured further.
>
> I don't have the answers - and I don't think that anyone has The Answers
> - but if any set of solutions are to be developed from within the
> digital commons movement with respect to the problematic embedding in
> and exploitation of natural resources (as carried out by mining and
> nuclear etc etc.), then that embedding must be faced up to.
>
> "On the same page", then, refers to a collective recognition of the
> problem, which should be seen as a prerequisite to collective solving of
> the problem. You project ideology and negativity into that proposition -
> I don't know why - and claim it is critique that is not constructive. I
> think denial is much less constructive than trying to come to terms with
> problems.
>
> However, without claiming this is an answer, I do regularly visit
> communities where surfing is limited to a few hours a day, unless there
> is a particularly strong wind or a lot of sunshine, because they are off
> the grid. As such, one of the questions that one could ask, as we walk
> and chew gum and whatever else you like to do, is where are our projects
> hosted? What could we do to create (non-General Electric patent-based,
> non-industrial scale) wind powered, communally owned hosting on recycled
> hardware for digital commons?
>
>
> > in any case, the pages of the p2p foundation blog are open to any news
> and
> > comments about the land issue, non-eurocentric visions of history, and
> the
> > material basis of the digital commons,
>
> Yes, that is good, and so is this list, and that is why I brought up the
> point.
>
>
> > the key for me is to go beyond the stage and stance of critique, that
> others
> > "just don't get it", towards actually injecting such perspectives in
> > concrete discourse, and associated with constructive action,
>
>
> I don't know where you get this from, but if it came from anything I
> said, let me clarify: I never said that anyone "didn't get it" - I said
> that as a culture - a cultural norm - the material embedding is not
> recognised and in a variety of ways even obscured through philosophical
> ideas and concepts of social organisation that - as the subject line
> still reads, and which is how this exchange came about - "Non digital
> commons a lot more complicated than Free Software". This is only true
> insofar as you see Free Software and other digital commons as having no
> material base. In fact, they are infinitely more complicated, since they
> are a techno-virtual layer on top of ecosystems - or, as it were,
> digital commons require a material, technostructural underpinning. In
> other words, digital commons need to address their hardware and energy
> use, as part of their organisational processes and they should have
> support in doing so. This is not about rejecting digital commons that
> are impure, but rather about a conscious move away from "impurity".
> Purity we can leave to the religions, but that does not mean we should
> deny certain problematic "impurities."
>
>
> > I find it hard to imagine that the labour movement would have gotten
> > anywhere without using print media to the full extent, which is what they
> > not only did, but was actually there central focus;  creating print
> vehicle
> > for agitprop was actually the core activity of the revolutionary
> movements
>
> There are many readings of the labour movements - some of which argue
> very well that social-democracy and later the welfare system spelled the
> beginning of the end of the working class movements, particularly with
> respect to local control over local infrastructure. Indeed, the very
> notion of a "working class" expresses a defeat of commoners of the land
> and, as noted by Colin Ward, the welfare system, after the crises of the
> 1930s and in order to rebuild after the war, in many communities in
> England shifted power from local communities to central government over
> schools, libraries and so on. If print had helped the labour movements,
> the centralised curriculum has long since subverted that advantage.
>
> I don't agree with what seems to be your take on history and I think
> that the writing of the history of the commoners rendered working
> classes has only just begun - there is a lot to discuss and I am very
> wary of anyone claiming to see a full picture of those particular
> histories with specific reference to the transformation of the field of
> forces within which they operate.
>
> This is a very good place to start, by the way:
>
> Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged, London: Allen Lane, 1991, Chapter
> 11: "Ships and Chips: Technological Repression and the Origin of the Wage."
>
> One could also consult the more philosophical:
>
> “Social Democracy thought fit to to assign to the working class the role
> of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews of
> its greatest strength. This training made the working class forget both
> its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the
> image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren”
> (Walter Benjamin 1940/1982: 262).
>
> Or the radically political (in the words of a critical liberal):
>
> “The representative of the working classes, Sorel observed, becomes an
> excellent bourgeois very easily. The hideous examples are before our
> eyes – Millerand, Briand, Viviani, the spellbinding demagogue Jean
> Jaurès with his easily acquired popularity. Sorel had once hoped for
> much from these men, but was disillusioned. They all turned out to be
> squalid earthworms, rhetoricians, grafters and intriguers like the rest”
> (Isaiah Berlin 1955/1979: 313)
>
> In any case, there is certainly substantial disagreements about whether
> the working class has been successful, or whether it has been swallowed
> up in a tide of non-principled stances of influence-seekers and
> moderates, who smiled and said to just follow them.
>
> Also, your statement about print technology and labour movements - apart
> from relying upon a quetionable history reading - is deeply problematic
> (or somewhat empty rhetoric). Compare with this statement:
>
> "When the rains came, the small ponds of the poor people were filled."
>
> Yes, that is true, but it also rained in the park of the rich and their
> ponds were much bigger, so they were, in absolute terms, filled even more.
>
> In that sense, you are mobilising the labour movements in a highly
> questionable manner in defence and justification of your own position.
>
> Technology changed *every*thing, the entire context for all parties
> involved in any struggle, but it likely empowered the already empowered
> more than the less empowered......
>
> In a silly simplification:
>
> If the power of the working class was 1.2 power points before print, and
> if print added 2 times power, then they ended at 2.4 power points. If
> the power of the rich was 3.1 before print, and if print added 2 times
> power, then they ended at 6.2 power points.
>
> Who gained most? Who gained most from the last twenty years of ICT
> revolution? Wal-Mart, as they pioneered just-in-time and became the
> fastest growing corporation in history since Ford (probably now dwarfed
> by that commons enclosure operation called Facebook?). To realise the
> potential power and emancipation for the oppressed that ICT might
> deliver requires careful consideration, not mere promises based on a
> dubious historical reading.
>
> Finally, while I think that technological determinism can be a useful
> tool to ponder history and development, I would much rather, as a
> precautionary principle, go with the exact opposite of you....
>
> ....Here with reference to the work of James C. Scott, surprisingly an
> Ivy League professor, but he is also towards retirement age, which is
> usually when you hear them say something of radical (or even subversive)
> interest:
>
> ""
> In his most speculative and contested claim, Scott argues that even the
> lack of a written language in many Zomian societies is an adaptive
> measure and a conscious societal choice. For peasants, writing was,
> first and foremost, a tool of state control - it was the instrument the
> elite used to extract money, labor, and military service from them. As a
> result, Scott argues, when those peasants escaped into the hills they
> discarded writing in an attempt to ensure that similar coercive
> hierarchies didn’t arise in the new societies they formed.
>
> “I’ve studied peasant rebellions, and one of first things that early
> peasant rebellions always do is to attack the records office,” says
> Scott. “They associate writing with their oppression.”
>
> The 20th century, with its arsenal of distance-devouring technologies
> from the airplane to the Internet, has made it easier for states to
> smooth the friction of landscape, and recent decades have also seen a
> determined campaign among Asian states to bring their highland regions
> into the fold, often by settling them with lowland people more loyal to
> the national government. As a result, since World War II, Zomia has lost
> much of its distinctive wildness.
> "" --- from:
>
>
> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/06/the_mystery_of_zomia/
>
> See also "Zomia, A Zone of Resistance: The Last Great Enclosure Movement
> and Stateless Peoples in Southeast Asia":
> http://www.forcedmigration.org/events/2008/colsonlecture/
>
> From that perspective, your position is somewhat old school marxist,
> insofar as I know and understand any of all that: we just have to keep
> on pushing through capitalism and we will get to the promised land in
> the end. It doesn't resonate with me. I would much rather ask critically
> while we walk and use lessons from history written not by winners.
>
>
> > I see more and more clearly that certain individuals and social  forces,
> > instead of focusing their critical gaze on the system of infinite growth
> > that is destroying the biosphere, are focusing their critical gaze on
> those
> > who are actually closer to them; and seeking division instead of
> > commonality; complaining about the imperfections and relative blindness
> of
> > the free culture movement; rather than to see alignment between social
> > forces that would have the greatest potential uniting.
>
>
> Is this based on something I said? You have managed to turn the
> whole thing around?!?! The current growth paradigm thrives on "renewable
> technology" (wind turbines, hybrid cars), and digital commons  - these
> are central to the growth vision. The expansion of digital commons is
> destroying the biosphere. The critical gaze that focuses on the
> materiality of cyberspace and thus the ecological problems of the
> digital commons is precisely addressing the problem of infinite growth
> in a non-simplistic manner - trying to negotiate an ambiguous problem:
> how can we have digital networks without destroying the environment?
>
>
> > To compare say the digital commons of appropedia, and its efforts to
> create
> > sustainable and appropriate technology for local communities worldwide,
> with
> > the multinational owners of a supermarket chain, is in my eyes, a
> perverse
> > equation, and shows that a certain sense of priorities has been lost,
> ("Digital
> > commons are parasites on natural resources and territories
> > of people elsewhere in the world in much the same way as supermarkets
> are.")
>
> It is not very helpful to shift from the general to the particular in
> the middle of a conceptual discussion. I spoke of digital commons in
> general - and pointed to a factual general problem - and you respond
> with a specific example..... perhaps an exemption to prove the rule?
>
> For what it is worth: It is not perverse, but a simple fact: the energy
> use of a supermarket - from electricity use in the store to the fossil
> fuel fertilisers used in the production of the commodities for sale - is
> very comparable to the energy and resource use that digital commons
> entail, if you see it from the perspective of the oppressed, landless or
> through the eyes of the children disassembling hardware when it is
> recycled. The supermarket helps some of the poor, some of the time - for
> instance a single mother or the career, short-of-time feminist on her
> way to a meeting about resisting the cuts - indeed, supermarkets can
> help many people, including those who work for it, who would otherwise
> be unemployed, but it comes with a tremendous cost for others, which is
> "hidden".
>
> The shareholders of Carrefour and Wal-Mart cheer on supermarkets, just
> as the shareholders of IBM and Google cheer on Open Source, Open Access
> and other areas of economic growth.
>
>
> > the truth is, every living being and system is (inter)dependent on others
> > and in that sense, a parasite ... what matters is to create sustainable
> > flows between the various living systems, and to generate collective
> > intelligence between autonomous individuals and communities, in order to
> > achieve that, for which digital commons are not parasites, but essential
> > enablers,
>
> But they are also exploitors - through mining, heavy metal pollution,
> sweatshop labour and so on - and this is not an ideological point, but
> a simple fact.
>
> However, all that said, I agree, let us break some eggs to make the
> omelette. I never wanted to argue that the internet should be torn down
> - what would I be doing here? - but it should be used consciously and in
> recognition and full admittance of its costs. There is no such thing as
> marginal reproduction cost, except in Wonderland, perhaps, where
> perpetual motion machines are possible and where gravity can be defied
> by will alone.
>
> The immateriality argument about the relation between cost and
> reproduction of digital goods, is really comparable to, say, the
> relation between light in your house, on the one hand, and electricity
> and the continued upkeep of the electrical infrastructure (nuclear power
> plants, cables, wires, pylons, switches and so on) on the other: It
> doesn't *seem to* cost anything when I flick the switch and the light
> comes on in "my" house, so why isn't it just free? Would anyone take me
> serious if I said that?
>
>
> > as hard as it may be to do and understand, we need to chew gum and walk
> at
> > the same time, using digital commons to organize, while working at the
> same
> > time to lighten the physical footprint of digital commons, and using
> global
> > open design communities to build open and 'light' infrastructures to
> achieve
> > sustainability,
>
> Yes, and I never said anything different - but how do you propose to
> "lighten the footprint", as collective action, when the collective is in
> denial about that footprint and when its leaders and consequently the
> followers perpetuate the denial?
>
> With the best of wishes,
> martin
>



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