[p2p-research] - Re: [Commoning] ?ce

[Michel Bauwens]

just one more thing,

there is no single 'logic' of cyberspace, but many different ones, depending
on the material and spiritual interests of various human forces

there are many forces that are geared now to systematically dismantle the
logic of abundant sharing that is now possible, by using various means of
artificial scarcity-fication

here is what I think peer to peer forces should do, irrespective of those
who hate the spirit and practice of abundant sharing,

- use the existing infrastructures for immaterial exchange for personal and
social autonomy

- change those infrastructures itself away from centralized and corporate
control

- use the existing infrastructrures, and the new p2p-transformed ones, to
change the very infrastructure of production of material goods, making it
more sustainable in the process

- change the property structures of the infrastructure and means of
production in the process

- transform the infrastructures so that the abundance of immaterial sharing
can co-exist with the sustainability of the planet, and the demands for
equity and social justice

this process is not linear, but nevertheless has dependencies; how far we
can go in combining the different steps, is a matter of productive debate
and experimentation



On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Martin's remark is really a heavy body blow to the countless activists who
> are using online tools to defend their communities against enclosures
>
> to equate the zapatistas use of cyberspace with that of imperial forces
> hints that some lack of differentiation is at work here ... if you  can no
> longer differentiate friend from foe ...
>
> to see infrastructures as totally dominated by the enemy instead of as
> terrains of struggle, (and as co-created, co-produced by that ongoing
> struggle) seems singularly designed to demobilize any efforts for autonomy
> of exploited groups
>
> how does one go from the valuable insight that cyberspace/interent is
> rooted in the physical world, and in the exploitative nature of present
> social systems, to an effective de-solidarising oneself with the struggle
> for civic communication and cooperations and the right to create autonomous
> infrastructures for social life, is something not altogether clear to me
>
> Michel
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Roberto Verzola <rverzola at gn.apc.org>wrote:
>
>>
>>  Does the tree not drink water, does it not grow in soil that was stolen
>>> from the native people, does your friend not labour to care for it at
>>> all?
>>>
>>>
>> Trees normally don't need human care to bear fruits. But people can do so
>> if it makes them happy.
>>
>> If you go back far enough into the past, most occupied land today is the
>> result of a land grab.
>>
>> I probably live today on land that was in the past stolen from someone
>> else, who might have also grabbed it from an even earlier native, or traced
>> far back enough, from some animal hunting ground. It should not stop me from
>> planting trees and growing a vegetable garden in order to create a little
>> abundance for my family. A farming family might be fighting an ejection case
>> by a landlord, but they can still maintain their garden and make a living
>> out of it.
>>
>> In the information economy, information abundance comes from the near-zero
>> marginal cost of reproducing information. In agriculture, biological
>> abundance comes from the instinct in every organism to reproduce itself
>> (whether or not a human takes care of it). There is another source of
>> abundance I did not mention in my Berlin paper: creative organization.
>> Separately or arranged badly, different components may not produce much or
>> none at all, but organized in a special way, they interact synergistically,
>> produce more than the sum of the individual parts, in abundance.
>>
>> Today, much of the potential abundance is either privatized/monopolized or
>> suppressed/undermined, to create artificial scarcity. But the more conscious
>> the people are of the potential, the better the chances they can act
>> together to realize that potential and focus on ways to make the abundance
>> accessible to more people and to make the abundance last longer, or even
>> make it last indefinitely.
>>
>>  I do not see much of a difference, systemically speaking, between the
>>> abundance logic of the Euro-American colonial empire, which lives in
>>> abundance paid for by others (through exporting the costs by means of
>>> exploitative trade, slavery, land grabs, resource squeezes) and the
>>> "abundance logic" of cyberspace. There might be differences in degree,
>>> but the principle appears to be very similar: see no evil, hear no evil,
>>> feel no evil, - like an ostrich with the head in the sand.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> The difference is between a source of abundance (be it information,
>> biological, creative organization, or others) that is held in monopoly for
>> profit-seeking, and one that is held in common for the general good. Between
>> these opposite poles are shades of control and ownership that have to be
>> studied and tried out.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Roberto Verzola
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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