[ox-en] Kleiner-Bauwens debate about Benkler, part 3
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz hbv.org>
- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:53:24 +0200
Dmytri Kleiner’s critique of Benkler - discussion with Bauwens,
continued, part three
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=502
Dear Dmytri,
Thanks for your valuable and thoughtful contribution to this debate.
Here are some of my responses, which hopefully clarifies both the
distinctions and convergence in our respective thinking about social
change.
First of all, the ‘confusion’ bit. I’m basically using the
intersubjective typology of Alan Page Fiske, explained in his book,
Structures of Social Life.
Next to discussing Authority Ranking and Market Pricing, he carefully
distinguishes Equality Matching from Communal Shareholding. In the
first mode, there’s a tit for tat exchange, a clear expectation of
return. Giving creates a moral debt with the receiver, who imperatively
wants to restore the ‘equality’ level in the relationship. There is
clearly ‘exchange’. It was the dominant mode of the tribal times, the
so-called gift economy.
Communal Shareholding is different. In CS, the resource is regarded as
common, each freely gives according to his abilities and desire, and
there is no concern as to the use of the resource by particular people,
who are free to do so according to their need and desire.
Peer production, as evidenced in free software project and
knowledge-producing projects, is such a latter dynamic. That doesn’t
mean there is no exchange, of course there is, as humans are by no
means pure altruists, but the exchange is ‘general’, rather than tit
for tat. I’m not sure what Benkler says about this, but participants,
by adding their own marginal contribution, get the whole benefit of the
group project in exchange; on a individual basis, they get knowledge,
relations, and reputation, but a large part of the process of
passionate production is the kind of altruism whereby it is the giving
that is the receiving. For laypersons, I often use the dynamic of the
family as an example, where the raising of children, in its best and
most disinterested moments, is precisely such a dynamic. You do not
expect a direct return from your children, but rejoice from their own
growth and realization.
Please note that this is rather precisely the difference between
socialism and communism as noted by Marx. In the first, there is a
definite relation between input/engagement, and the return that accrues
to the worker; and the latter, where there is no longer such relation.
Because of the particular qualities of technology-enabled immaterial
production, peer production has become the most logical and productive
way to produce such goods.
And to return back to the original phrasing of confusing. Many analyst
are indeed confusing EM and CS, by calling the internet a gift economy.
It is a wrong characterization of what is essentially a non-reciprocal
process.
The value of Benkler and Lessig is to have described and analyzed this
dynamic. But, as Kleiner points out, they are basically liberals, who
see this dynamic as an integral part of a larger capitalist market
based economy, and it/they won’t challenge it. Kleiner is right that
immaterial peer production ‘by itself’, does not change the
distribution of wealth, and Benkler and Lessig do no seem to mind this;
I think both Kleiner and myself find this rather important.
Nevertheless, I contend that peer production is indeed immanent within
the current meta-system, but that it, at the same time, significantly
transcends it as a post-capitalist mode. It can be partly monetized and
integrated, but only partly, there is still that transcendent part,
which represents a historically significant opportunity for systemic
change. Key is to both expand peer production, and to combine it with
non-capitalist cooperative production modes. In the meantime, it (we)
co-exist with the world as it is, and the expansion of passionate peer
production is still a fundamentally positive thing, and Benkler and
Lessig are allies in the expansion of it, with a lot more power and
influence, and potential for good, that either Kleiner or myself.
Peer production is based on either the abundance of resources, what
Kleiner calls the absence of reproduction costs, or on the distribution
of such resources. This is why it has enormous potential to expand
significantly into physical production. To the degree that we
can ‘distribute’ more resources, it will expand. But that, I think we
agree, is the difficult and tricky part, which has political and
power-related dimensions.
But again, there is a fundamental difference between operating in the
CS-mode of abundance, and operating with scarcity. When there is
scarcity, there must be a concern with finitude, and there will
be ‘precise’ rather than generalized exchange. So indeed, there is a
crucial difference between non-directly-remunerated peer production of
immaterial goods, and those forms where input is related to income, and
where the products are then ‘exchanged’. Not all cooperative production
is non-reciprocal peer production. The thing is we need both. We need
to expand CS modes, and we need to expand cooperative production. So
Kleiner’s physical interpretation of commons-based peer production is
in my view probably cooperative production, where there is a crucial
difference between collectivist modes, i.e. public property which
belongs to no one in particular and is therefore also expropriatory
from an individual point of view, and common property, where it still
belongs to the individual (as in the GPL and CC licenses). I tend to
favour the latter, but essentially, we have to let people in a
pluralist economy free to choose.
In conclusion, where as I focus on non-reciprocal peer production, and
want to defend its non-reciprocal nature, by stressing the absence of
direct linkage with income; Kleiner focuses on cooperative production,
where such linking is crucial. This is complementary. Indeed, part of
the use value created by peer production, can be monetized by
derivative services (derivative, because you can’t sell the commons and
it is the derived immaterially-based capital which you are offering),
and for these derivative services, cooperative production modes are
needed, which can be cooperatives, open capital modes, venture
communism. I agree that such non-capitalist institutions are better
than for-profit modes, and have already written about the expropriation
processes (third enclosures), of the newly-fanged netarchical
capitalist enterprises (the Web 2.0 companies), who both enable and
exploit participation, and thereby indeed, capture surplus value to the
detriment of the producers themselves.
Will there be some point in the future where we can consider the
physical world to be infinite, because we either have learned to
moderate or transform our desires, or have found a technical solution
to our energy needs? Will a change in consciousness and attitude, and a
change in property modes that artificially create scarcity, allow such
non-reciprocal commonism to be dominant in even physical production?
I’m doubtful and hesitant about this, and think that a pluralist
economy is probably better than some kind of ‘totalitarian’ or
all-encompassing unique mode. But instead of having the answer, let’s
just have a process, whereby humanity can sort out this question
freely.
Now the charge of ‘hitting the wall and seeing what sticks’. There are
several arguments to consider. First, is there anyone who can claim
to ‘know the answer’. I think the complexity of the current political
economy precludes that. There is no outside vanguard that knows it all.
Instead, I think the correct viewpoint is: let’s look at what social
movements are doing worldwide, and lets see how these diverse movements
can reinforce each other, so that both non-reciprocal and cooperative
production can advance. I believe that a significant core of observers
and social change agents, have reached the cognitive/ethical point,
where they are moving from a stress on deconstructive criticism, to
reconstructive integration. So the formula of the P2P foundation is
to “research, document, and promote” peer to peer alternatives.
Essentially first seeing and observing what people are doing. Observing
this, we move to the ethical and practical conclusion that peer to peer
is better in many areas, and therefore we aim to promote it and develop
a praxis and strategy to do this. Rather than start top-down from an
utopian point of view of what is better and ‘should exist’, we start
bottom-up from the existing pluralism of alternatives, and continuously
try to interconnect, create dialogue, learn from each other, and
strengthen each other. This might be confusing or frustrating to those
who want definite and clear answers, but I think it is the only open
and partipative avenue open to us in the current conjuncture.
And what I see is a vibrant and worldwide experimentation with
non-capitalist or post-capitalist modes. Let’s clear right away the
other confusion between the market, where people exchange goods
according to some fixed criteria, and capitalism, which is geared on
endless accumulation, considers social and natural input as an infinite
externality, and as a infinite sink for output; and is predicated on
the expropriation of producers in favor of (de)centralized (but not
distributed) proprietors. So we can have a ‘pluralist economy’, with a
core of non-reciprocal production of immaterial goods, with thriving
gift economies, and reformed markets. I believe that the proponents
of ‘natural capitalism’ (David Korten, Paul Hawken, Hazel Henderson),
of ‘living economies’, of trust-based common property systems like
Working Assets entpreneur Peter Barnes, are allies in the quest for
reformed markets.This is where Kleiner and I probably agree that
approaches such as Gesell are fundamental. Another part of the answer
is non-scarcity based monetary reform as advocated by Bernard Lietaer
et al.
Within this context, I disagree that the basic income is a neoliberal
answer; there are different formats of basic income proposals, only
some of which are neoliberal, and the emancipatory ones see it as
sufficiently substantial; this would fundamentally change the power
relationship in society, and while not destroying capitalism per se,
would make peer production a lot larger and more sustainable, and it
would also assist cooperative production and Kleiner’s proposed Venture
Communism. Of course peer production is already sustainable, but only
on the collective level, what we need is to make it equally sustainable
on the individual level. But pure non-reciprocal peer production is not
adequate for the whole of society, though it can be significantly
expanded to physical expansion. What the basic income would enable, is
for individuals to periodically leave the exchange-based modes
(cooperative or capitalist production for the market), for periodic
participation in the non-reciprocal modes, much as people in feudal
societies could enter the Church or the Sangha, whereby society
supported one quarter of its population for non-material pursuits..
Peer production can be strengthened by various additions (such as a
core of paid workers), but there is a definite crowding-out phenomenom
between competing logics: if you systematically tie production and
income, you are in either cooperative or capitalist production.
What we need is to think how to reach the tipping point whereby the
subsystem can become the metasystem, at which point the market can be
de-capitalized (i.e. we can get rid of the destructive accumulation
part). We cannot do this by decree, but we can observe and combine and
integrate the alternatives, until such time as the latter reaches the
tipping point where it is potentially stronger than the former. The
basic income movement, the complementary currency movements, the LETS
practices, the fair trade movement, the open/free movements, the
movements for participation, the commons-oriented movements, these are
not just disjointed movements, but allies that should listen to each
other.
My observation of history as a continuous combination of various
intersubjective mode, but always with a core domination of one mode,
brings me to this hypothesis of a pluralist economy with a core of peer
production, whereby the other layers will be peer-informed (fair trade,
multistakeholder governance, etc.. are peer-informed modes).
In the end though, there is a large and thriving commons movement, and
what Kleiner and myself are attempting, is to put our research at the
service of such a movement. Our respective contributions are best
served I believe, by seeing them as complementary: while the P2P
Foundation is focusing on non-reciprocal peer production, Kleiner is
focusing on cooperative production. A full strategy for change needs
both. Differences may also be a function of personality-type,
preferring to see the glass half-full, my approach, or half-empty.
--
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