Re: [ox-en] New economic model for free technology?
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:58:19 +0100
Hi Michel and list!
Last week (13 days ago) Michael Bouwens wrote:
My apologies for this very late reply, I was abroad for ten days,
attending the re-activism conference.
Well, I for one save responding to the Oekonux main lists to times
when I have enough time *and* brain to say something useful. Sometimes
this can last *very* long ;-) .
It was not really a great conference for me. I found Yochai Benkler
to be very inspiring, but Lessig, though having a strong presence,
to be somewhat arrogant, needing to 'put down' Benkler on several
occasions. Also, he does not have a concept of peer production at
all, for him P2P is filesharing, nothing more.
Well, to my knowledge I think you are the only one who use the term
P2P in this sense. Though I think this in an interesting idea it is
hard to expect others to know what you mean.
BTW this is why I find Oekonux such a good name. It simply means
nothing and people do not even start interpreting it but immediately
start asking.
You seem to accept that in
order to do self-unfolding, one must have traditional and
'alienated' employment.
Or more generally: Means to cope with capitalist reality. Yes, I
absolutely accept this. The reasons for this are (at least) twofold.
One reason which comes to mind is that this is the practice of many,
many people in Free Software. Since I see Free Software as a germ form
this can't be *all* wrong.
Another reason is also the reason why I would not give up my job for
an Oekonux-only job: I do not want to loose contact to average
people's reality (at least not more than it is already the case ;-) ).
This is rooted in my conviction that you have to change the system
from the inside (after trying it from the outside for several
years...).
But why would we have to accept that? I left
the corporate world because it had become so corrupt and
dehumanising. If I'd find another job like that, I could spent just
a few tiny hours per day on a project like this.
I guess I know what you mean but I value that very most people in the
Free Software community accept the world as it is. One of the main
strengths of the Free Software movement IMHO that it is *not* a
political movement as we all know them.
So my conundrum,
and that of many others is to find a sustainable way to be creative,
outside of the market, or through some kind of compromise. Surely
that is one of the priorities for peer production, both short term,
individual solutions, but looking for a general social solution in
the long term.
I'd agree but today I'd say we are not yet there that it is really
possible to leave capitalism. However, Free Software, Wikipedia, etc.
are already making live cheaper.
I'M USING CAPITALS, so you can recognize the replies in the jumble
of back and forth,
How about using a capable mailer ;-) .
Anyway I'm cutting away a bit of context hoping things stay
understandable.
Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
Why? People have lots of hobbies and creation of
Free Software is
surely among the cheapest.
If you are not paid in an open source project, and have to do it
'after hours', and if you want a balanced family life (unless you
want to spend an average of eight minutes per day talking to your
children, as does the average western dual income family), how much
time can you actually devote to it. Would you not want to do it
full-time, rather than selling more coca-cola?
Richard Stallman's answer to this is: No kids (and no yachts either).
I see what you mean and I agree that there is a problem here. However,
people always have to decide what they do with their time. You can't
simply have it all.
Actually I think there could be a deeper reason for this. Those people
who have the abilities(!) to do useful things in their Free time tend
to stay employed. Their abilities are not only useful in Free Projects
but also to earn money. Their abilities are scarce.
IT SEEMS HERE THAT YOU ARE REPEATING THE STANDARD LIBERAL ARGUMENT
THAT THE UNEMPLOYED ARE IN THAT SITUATION THROUGH THEIR OWN FAULT.
It sounds this way, yes. However, I do not think it is their own fault
but on the other hand I'd say there is some individual part in the
whole story.
DO THEY REALLY HAVE NO SKILLS TO OFFER TO SOCIETY AT LARGE. NOT
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO BE A PROGRAMMER.
The most important point I wanted to make was that current Free Mode
projects certainly need a more or less clearly defines set of skills.
At the very least you need to be computer literate (e.g. for
Wikipedia) and for most other projects you need more or less
specialized knowledge.
THERE'S LOTS OF THINGS YOU CAN
DO WITH BODY AND SOUL. PART OF THE PROBLEM IS NOT HAVING ENOUGH
MONEY FOR SOCIAL REPRODUCTION, BUT THE OTHER IS SURELY
PSYCHOLOGICAL, A LOSS OF SELF-CONFIDENCE, BECAUSE IN OUR PRODUCTIVE
SOCIETY, NO JOB MEANS NO IDENTITY AND LOSS OF (SELF-) RESPECT. BUT
THAT CAN BE WORKED ON THROUGH SELF-UNFOLDING.
That (above) said I nonetheless agree :-) . May be that's also a
perspective on a longer time scale.
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN SELF-UNFOLDING. EQUALITY IN COLLECTIVE
DECISION-MAKING ABOUT SOCIAL LIFE. ARE THESE NOT APPEALING TO YOU???
Well, when I think of social theory I'm considering things not on how
appealing they are to *me*. If they appeal to me they are probably a
result of my education and socialization. However, if I think of a new
society this may be inadequate.
Equality of opportunity is not only nice but a pre-condition to employ
the full potential of a society. Because of this I think equality of
opportunity is something useful in capitalism but even more so in the
GPL society.
Equality in collective decision making I'm a bit sceptical about.
*Real* equality would mean that everyone is an expert in the
respective topic. This is of course impossible and also nothing I'd
wish for. So we are left with some sort of half-way equality always.
I'd rather question whether collective decision making is necessary -
or at least how often this is the case. I could imagine that people
who are keen to maintain the ozone hole could be trusted to do a good
job. Do we need to control them by collective
stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hdecision making then? I'm not sure. However, key
would be that the ozone hole maintainers have no alienated incentive.
EVEN IF WE ADMIT THE
possibility of non-reciprocal relations at some point, a transitory
period with market exchange and recirprocity schemes seem necessary,
wherever there is scarcity. What do you see as alternatives to
money.
I simply see no alternative. Basically I think that in cases where the
money organized societies leave the scene a good Oekonux approach
would be to directly further societal forms not based on exchange.
As recognized by Marx, we cannot get through the a
full communist society, full indifferientated sharing,
without passing through a socialist economy, based on
equality sharing, you get what you contribute.
Well AFAIK it was not Marx who (rightly) mostly kept silent about a
communist society but Lenin. These two, however, have completely
different points of departure and completely different agendas. Thus
I'm not agreeing here. In fact I think we are already beyond this
point.
COULD YOU SPECIFY YOUR LAST SENTENCE?
I think we already have the productive capacities nobody needs to
hunger (which is probably a proven fact) and also to have a decent
life style. So no more "Who does not work may not eat!" is necessary
any more.
If we unleash the power of automation of a GPL society we could even
quickly remove painful work so the level of (structural) force
necessary to make people do something useful will become smaller.
Thus a market exchange sphere, and a reciprocity based
sphere (based on time dollars) would provide the
necessary support for pure peer production. It's not
an either/or thing, but a way to get there.
I see you bought these ideologies of alternative money. Money is
always frozen labor time and so it simply makes no sense to say "time
dollar". Every dollar in every currency already is a time dollar.
IN MARKET EXCHANGE, MONEY REFLECTS DIFFERENT amounts of scarcity,
monopoly and power relations, it is a vehicle of inequality and
exclusion. In reciprocity-schemes, everyone's time is considered to
be of equal value.
I think that money reflects other societal aspects is not by chance
but has reasons. I think these reasons are based in the very
construction of exchange based societies and as such they can not be
discussed away. Considering everyone's time equal neglects these
reasons and so always can only be no more than an appendix to the
money form which integrates these aspects.
There is room for both.
May be.
Money is the protocol of
social exchange, if you change its rule of circulation, that has a
large effect on the type of society that is promoted.
Indeed. Including it may not function any more.
To me reciprocity-based relations are mainly a mean
to distribute
pain. If it would not mean pain to do / produce
something but pleasure
I hardly would make it subject to reciprocity.
Yes, but in some cases, reciprocity is better, more
fair, more just, than market exchange.
Ahm - now I'm completely puzzled. Market exchange is complete and
perfect reciprocity (mediated by money). If reciprocity can be fair at
all than market exchange is already.
MARKET EXCHANGE IS NOT RECIPROCITY at all, just exchange, there is
no long term relationship established, it is just a point in time.
Ah, I think I see the fine difference you make here. Nonetheless I
think a lot of market exchange has to do with long term relationships.
For instance the very existence of brands is a strong hint for it
because a brand only makes sense if it is recognzed in the future.
I guess when you say service then you are talking of personal services
like cutting hair or teaching a language. The type of things usually
traded in LETS. But this is only a small part of the labor in
services. Industry knows *a lot* of services which are not personal in
any way.
AGREED, BUT PERSONAL SERVICES ARE A very large part of people's
well-being, especially in the poorer countries. It makes a huge
difference to enable reciprocity and exchange outside the sphere of
the capitalist market.
Ok, ...
More and more I think this is why for personal services LETS may work
but if you try to scale it up you either fail or end up with the
standard money system.
I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT. THIS IS WHY LETS and open money schemes are
called complementary.
...and then we actually don't have a quarrel any more :-) .
However, I'd rather ask whether there are ways to organize these
things without another exchange system. I mean *if* we are taking of
personal services anyway which often contain a good amount of direct
honoring - that warm feeling in the belly - then why using an exchange
system at all?
BUT THIS IS NOT TO SAY that even the standard
money system cannot be reformed, see Bernard Lietaer.
I'm not saying that it can not be reformed. The question is whether it
makes sense and what are the reasons that money actually is what it
is. I think these reasons exists and if a reform doesn't address these
reasons it is doomed to failure.
Also I think these reasons have very little to do with persons or
groups of persons - as many in the anti-globalization seem to think -
but they are a result of a mature money system. That's why I think it
is hard to do anything about it *inside* an exchange based system
*without* bombing societies back to stone age.
<.I don't think that this can be accomplished by putting energy into
alternative money systems. It's simply a waste of time. The basic
income idea is IMHO more fruitful here but I think this is not
realistic when capitalism is stumbling and falling anyway.
IT IS VERY DANGEROUS IN MY OPINION, TO BASE ANY theory or practice
on the 'imminent fall of capitalism', it may or may not happen, but
in any case, the alternative will be the result of collective human
intentionality, this is why the building of a new social life TODAY
is so important.
Well, I think inner-capitalist developments need to be taken account
and if there are signs of decline - which many leftists love to ignore
far more than many capitalists - these need to be considered.
Otherwise I'm only calling for useful ways to act. May be there are,
may be development needs to go for a while without much intervention.
We are here to check this out.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
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