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Re: [jox] Journal report - 19 August 2011



Hello,

I decided it was time to de-lurk and comment on the "comparing peer
production to capitalism" thread(s).

A caveat is that my interest in peer production is more practical than
academic, having used of linux and other open source software in my
research since the late 90s.

What I don't understand about some parts of this thread is where peer
production is compared directly with capitalism.  To the extent that PP
is a new mode of governance, isn't more appropriate to compare it with
other existing modes of governance e.g. market and hierarchy (and
network, for that matter)?  The paper on this I keep on going back to
is:

Demil, B. and Lecoq, X. (2006). Neither market nor hierarchy nor
network: The emergence of bazaar governance.  Organization Studies,
27(10):1447­-66.

Even the production of FLOSS is in my opinion not pure peer production.
In a lot of FLOSS developer communities there exists hierarchy and
network, alongside PP.  So it is a overlay of different governance
systems but with FLOSS, PP is the dominant mode of governance while the
e.g. Microsoft way of creating software is more about hierarchy (and
market).  

In terms of production and distribution of goods, capitalism emphasises
market and hierarchy, while communism emphasises hierarchy (command and
control).  It is interesting to see how peer production is being added
to the capitalist's toolkit (alongside market and hierarchy) - this has
been pointed out by others in this thread.  I contributed to an Oxford
Internet Institute-McKinsey Technology Initiative project called
"Performance of distributed problem-solving networks".  This was
ostensibly about peer production, and those guys (McKinsey) are not
anti-capitalism.

Thank you for an interesting discussion list.

Regards,
Rob

On Mon, 2011-08-22 at 09:45 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Maurizio Teli wrote:
[snip]

********************************************

SPECIAL ISSUE ON "FLOSS"
NO RELEASE DATE YET

Still waiting to hear from Maurizio and Vincenzo on how they want to address the criticism by StefanMn that they are not properly addressing the issue. So far StefanMz has expressed support for StefanMn. This is an edited version of what I wrote on the issue on july 21: 

"I understand what you say about peer production being a new phenomenon, but I don't see how it can be separated from the 95% rest of the world economy which is capitalistic. PP is both dependent on and enmeshed within this wider order. For me the interesting thing scientifically is precisely to work out the relationship between these two orders and - possibly from a more activist perspective - to work out how to extend the commons and peer production (...) if you want to get your point across effectively IMHO it would be best to submit a paper to the journal for our upcoming issue on peer production theory - that way you can explain what new tools and concepts are needed etc. A whole issue on Oekonux can be envisaged for later, we don't have the writing and editorial resources right now. The peer production theory issue can be released next December. Is an article possible?"

Matthew Allen then agreed with this (sort of) see:
http://www.oekonux.org/journal/list/archive/msg00670.html

-- COMMENT ON THE TOPIC (quite long)

StefanMn was an interesting point, that I try to collapse in the
conviction that "Peer production is a new mode of production. *As such*
it can not be understood with the tools which were valid and fine for
the previous mode of production - namely capitalism."
I can agree with that but at the moment, stating that "peer production
IS a new mode of production" is so strong that the "old tools" should be
tested and proven uneffective for the task at hand (and, by the way, the
same concept of "mode of production" is an old tool that as proven to be
extremely effective)

Mathieu and Matthew argument (FS is part of a capitalist society, so
understanding the relationship between the two modes of production is
useful) is a convinving one and, moreover, the aim of the special issue
is explicitly to understand the novelty of PP in the instance of FS from
other points of view, not only the ones of organization of labour or
economic production. 
To make it short, our perspective is: IF Free Software is changing the
epistemology of Computer Science, THEN Free Software novelty is stronger
than thought until now. 
Otherwise, the debate on the novelty should move further in exploring
the relationship between means of production, their property, and the
institutional setting that is previewed by the configuration of such
relationship (Jakob concept of productive negation is an interesting
one).

going over on the debate, Stefan wrote:

Last week (12 days ago) Maurizio Teli wrote:
  > From the perspective of social organization, Free Software can  be
  > conceived as [...] standing outside
  > institutionalized forms of power

Well, someone who writes this has no idea of peer production not
speaking of Free Software. Of course there are institutionalized forms
of power.

Now the *really* interesting question is: As a modern leftist you
believe that institutionalized forms of power are bad in general. How
does it come then, that in Free Software we see such institutionalized
forms of power?

Here probably the short presentation of the special issue was lacking in
idexicality. Kelty's argument is that Free Software is standing outside
ACTUALLY instituzionalized forms of power, creating NEW ones. 

If we look at FS, the case of corporate FLOSS is showing clearly how the
actual institutional setting (in its wider sense, including "the
market") is envisioning a potential of domestication of FLOSS as another
tool in the reproduction of capital. Therefore, the novelty of FS should
be investigated further.

[snip]


-- 
-------------------------------------
Dr Robert Ackland
Fellow and Masters Coordinator, Australian Demographic and Social
Research Institute, The Australian National University

e-mail:   robert.ackland anu.edu.au
homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php
project:  http://voson.anu.edu.au

Information about the Master of Social Research
(Social Science of the Internet specialisation):
http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php
-------------------------------------

______________________________
http://www.oekonux.org/journal



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