[ox-en] Cooperatives furthering GPL society? (was: Generosity begets wealth)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 15:48:17 +0100
Hi Franz and all!
2 months (63 days) ago Franz Nahrada wrote:
Stefan Merten schrieb am Dienstag, 25. Oktober 2005 um 20:35 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]:
Well if they sponsor some special people then this bread is not a Free
Product. This to me seems more like a Genossenschaft [sorry, missing
the English term at the moment] to me which acts in solidarity
internally but has walls to the outside like every market participant.
Well, this model is also very close to the anarchist's paradise BTW.
"Genossenschaft " means cooperative.
Right.
The interesting thing is when "cooperatives become virtual", when they see
that they are *unlimited* by the very nature of their endavour.
They are not. You say it yourself two lines later:
They are not just built for common success on the market, but for
protection and the life maintainance of their members.
Exactly: They are for "the protection and the life maintainance of
*their members*". Effectively they are private enterprises - and this
is regardless of their internal goals and methods. Mondragon (sp?) in
Basque for instance is such a cooperative (with very special
preconditions BTW) but the barriers to the outside world exist (and
recently the outside world kills more and more of the internal goals).
On the contrary Free Projects in the spirit of Free Software are
effectively societal projects. The barrier between inside and outside
is no good for the project so it simply doesn't exist.
So if they can work more efficiently by working together - why should they
not?
Exactly the same question applies to multi-national corporations. In
fact as far as the relationship to society as a whole is concerned the
question is actually the same.
I think we have a big difference here. It seems to me that you are
mostly looking at the (social) goals of a project. I look more at the
structure of a project and its relationship to the society as a whole
instead.
To me Free Projects are societal projects per se - and for the first
time in history they are societal projects with a high general
relevance which are not state-driven. In the contrary they emerge from
the society itself. It actually is like Marcuse once said: "The new
society needs to be a deeply felt need in the individuals." This is
*so* true and actually I'm happy to witness a germ form where you can
more or less grab this deeply felt need with your hands :-) . There is
some hope for this planet ;-) .
Global Villages as concept are more or less local cooperatives or
communities that enter the Free Modes because it helps them function
better on a local level.
But as long as they have this inside / outside barrier IMO they belong
to the old society.
It is definitely worth thinking about how to shift the "market based"
cooperative model to a "life maintainance based" cooperative model and
propagate the simple fact that especially globalized markets are simply
no means of life maintainance any more, while "biomorph" cycles of mutual
supply are self-enforcing.
I completely agree with your analysis of the current situation but
what you are trying with Global Villages has been tried a thousand
times. It never worked - and I have witnessed a few attempts.
Today - after the Oekonux experience - I think the deeper reason for
this chain of failures is that they were not able to abolish this
inside / outside barrier.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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