[p2p-research] Information sector: a qualitative different mode of production?

Fri Dec 31 07:45:54 CET 2010

Roberto,

I of course agree with your distinctions,

but I think the argument here requires a different response,

whatever the differences, between the modalities you describe, they all
happen within the context of an existing capitalist world-economy and its
means and modalities of ownership,

the 3 forms you describe, could also exist in a different context,

the argument is therefore, is whether the newly emergent forms of peer
production, can be used to transform the present dominant forms of
capitalism and ownership

again the answer here can be seen as either/or. I believe Martin argues
essentially, peer production is an instrument of capitalism; cyber-utopians
may argue the opposite

my argument would be, it's a terrain of struggle, peer production have both
immanent (strengthen the existing system) and transcendent (significantly
transcends its logic to actually endanger it) aspects,

my more sophisticated argument is that it can be and/or, that while
apparently reinforcing some aspects of capitalism, but also transforming it
to new forms; it can simultaneously strengtthen its transcendental potential

my reading of history suggests this is exactly how the phase transitions
occured in the past, i.e. it is only the immanent aspects of the emerging
new  modalities of production, which actually guaranteed its eventual
dominance

this does not mean that it obviates social and class struggles, but it
suggests that commoners can also use the immanent aspects for their own
advantage,

what we need therefore, is to work on forms of peer production that, while
taking advantage of immanent aspects, make significant headway in terms of
its transcending aspects (changes in modalities of ownership and autonomous
social organisation) to move from emergence to parity to phase transition

it's all about building and strengthen a counter-hegemony or
counter-economy, in phase with social movements; it's about combining the
construction of the new, while we struggle against the old

pragmatically, it's all about an alliance between knowledge workers (the
social drivers behind peer production), the traditional social movements of
the agricultural and industrial modalities, and the enterpreneurial forces
that embrace the new property models that respect and favour the commons

people who are at the side of the commoners, but oppose digital empowerment
for various reasons, are a difficult problem to solve in this scenario <g>

Michel

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Roberto Verzola <rverzola at gn.apc.org>wrote:

>
>  Another very common theme in these discussions is that the
>> economics of this production is now very different from the
>> past - as though the underlying Mode of Production and ownership
>> of the Means of Production is no longer an issue.
>>
>>
> I will argue that there are important qualitative differences between
> production in the agriculture, industrial and information fields.
> Agriculture is about living goods, which by nature reproduce themselves. The
> role of the human is secondary to the intrinsic process of reproduction by
> every species of their own kind. Industrial production is about non-living
> material goods. It starts with dead matter (it must be killed if it is not
> dead yet), and transforms this raw material into finished products through
> human labor, usually aided by machines (or more commonly now, through
> machines, aided by human labor). Industrial production gets much of its raw
> material from living matter, but that does not make it identical to
> agricultural production. The production of information is also a creative
> act, like the design of material goods, but information itself is
> non-material, intangible, and in most cases can be represented by a binary
> string or its equivalent, which makes it qualitatively different from
> material goods, even if this intangible is stored in material media, or
> needs some material tools (and non-material ones too, like software), to
> process it.
>
> Anyone who does not yet see the essential difference between information as
> an intangible good, and say a car as a tangible good, or the difference
> between fixed costs and variable costs, cannot yet fully appreciate why
> today's ICTs represent a qualitatively different *mode* of production from
> the industrial mode, in the same way that the industrial mode is
> qualitatively different from the agricultural mode, even if it uses
> agricultural products as raw materials.
>
> It is true that the Internet requires a tangible infrastructure, such as a
> network of servers, routers, satellites, undersea cables, modems,
> transceivers, computers, CD readers/burners, etc. etc. These are products of
> the industrial economy. But the bits, bytes and files for rent, for sale or
> given away for free, that course through this fixed infrastructure are the
> intangible goods of the information economy. They are qualitatively
> different from industrial goods, which are in turn qualitatively different
> from living goods.
>
>  This mixes-in with the dreamy visions of self-replicating robots that
>> will save us from ourselves, even though organisms (used to be)
>>
>>
> I don't believe that self-replicating robots can save us either.
> Techno-utopianism is different from a hard-nosed recognition of the
> qualitative difference between making a thousand units of any assembly of
> metal, rubber and plastic versus making a thousand copies of any file.
>
> In short, this debate is whether we consider -- or not -- the information
> production mode as a qualitatively different mode of production, which must
> be studied on its own terms, compared to industrial production, in the same
> way that the industral mode is qualitatively different from the agricultural
> mode.
>
> These three modes also have their similarities, and all three are also
> subject to ownership and control conflicts. I have made clear in my Berlin
> paper that I consider the conflict between monopoly, common ownership, and
> competition to be a defining conflict of the 21st century.
>
> Greetings to all,
>
> Roberto Verzola
>
>
>
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