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

Mon Nov 29 02:09:31 CET 2010

hi martin,

you say "berlin" was allergic to stances directly confronting capital, can
you give some concrete examples?

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 ...

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,

I have covered the all three, including the latter on several occasions, and
the ecology of our wiki (http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Ecology) has
material on it, but we need to do more,

I'm not qualified to cover the land issue myself, but welcome any others,
such as yourself, who would report on that; nevertheless,
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Agrifood, covers the land as a commons
issue, and you must know we are very active in promoting p2p urbanistic
activities; admittedly there is a western bias, but again, we need human
agents to bridge that understanding; you need to experience the situation
yourself 'in the flesh', in order for it to become the central reality, and
then communicate this to other, for whom it is a more peripheral condition

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,

of course, while we at the p2p foundation do cover the material basis of
technology, our main task is to connect material communities to the
possibilities of local and global peer to peer organizing, so "logging off"
is never going to be quite the focus of our work; on the contrary, our focus
would be on connecting the disconnected, and create global open design and
action communities; we see this as the most potent weapon in the arsenal of
the disenfranchised ... I/we find it totally legitimate that others see
things differently, but that central focus is not going to change, as it is
the very reason for our having created the initiative in the first place

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
of the 19th and 20th century; and similarly, it's hard to imagine the
Zapatistas not being crushed by the Mexican army, where it not for the
international digitally-mediated support network they had so diligently
build; we intent to continue in the same path as previous social movements;
and not "log off" and leave this most potent weapon, i.e. peer to peer
communication and global organizing, in the exclusive hands of our enemies;
so the creation of digital vehicles for communication and self-organisation
is not just peripheral, it is and will be, the central and core issue
confronting change agents,  the integrated use of digital communications, in
an integrative framework focused on the material organisation of autonomous
communities, is going to be the difference between victory and defeat. Just
as labour activists were present in the exploitative context of the factory,
so today, a multitude of activists and change agents are present in the
concrete and real environments that people are actually using for
communication, such as Facebook, instead of isolating themselves voluntarily
with the group of already like-minded; I for one applaud and support these
activities, and deplore political isolationism born out of a misguided sense
of purity, leaving their working brothers and sisters in corporate
environments without any counterweight whatsoever.

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.

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.")

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,

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,

Michel

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 12:32 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> I didn't pretend to have answers ready and was merely addressing lines
> of thought that tend obscure matters rather than lead to solutions...
> Yet, let me try to suggest...
>
> On 28/11/10 09:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > and how do you suppose digital commoners would do that, given that
> relative
> > little of the world's resources are under commoners control?
>
> Take control: log off, leave the keyboard, occupy land - at least
> support those who do, such as the MST; i.e. outspoken support for
> landless, peasants and indigenous movements who work for common control
> over land is essential. At the moment a lot of free culture does the
> very opposite: speaks of immateriality, sucks up to IT corporations and
> appears to be allergic to stances that confront the power of capital (as
> we heard time and again in Berlin).
>
> > if we cannot even tackle the clear and present danger of climate change,
> and
> > abolishing the present system cannot be achieved by simply wishing it,
> what
> > is your concrete way forward, beyond what is happening now, i.e. creating
> > digital commons, connect them with sustainability communities, working on
> > green computing, and constructing an infrastructure for social change,
>
> Thinking honestly about the problem and refrain from misleading ideas,
> such as treating digital commons as immaterial. In other words, discuss
> philosophy and politics of organisation of digital commons as if they
> were, as they indeed are, very complex systems embedded deeply and
> problematically in natural resource systems: i.e. acknowledge the
> problem, instead of glossing it over,
>
> We are not even at a problem solving stage yet, we are still deep in
> denial - nevermind the material aspect, just look at the widespread use
> of, say, Facebook - which is a major agent of enclosure in cyberspace -
> by virtual "commoners".
>
> Once we are all on the same kind of page - this is *not* about ideology,
> but acknowledgement of the material realities of the virtual and the
> power of capital - then let us move forward to the practical questions
> you pose. Meanwhile, we need to work on awareness and realisation - and
> importantly: global solidarity, meaning that we have to move away from
> Euro-centric conceptions of history, which supports a culture that never
> has acknowledged very much where its riches came and continues to come
> from. Digital commons are parasites on natural resources and territories
> of people elsewhere in the world in much the same way as supermarkets are.
>
> When enough eyes see the materiality of the virtual, the hack might
> emerge. We are far from that.
>
> -m
>
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