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Re: [ox-en] On consciousness



Interesting debate.

I find value in both Raoul and Stefan's opinions.

My own gut feeling on this is the following:

 - there will be a natural evolution towards peer to
peer practices, and naturally, an evolution towards
experienced consciousness

 - but, depending on the overt opposition towards this
evolution, this may lead to the emergence of more
conscious political forms

 - however, human intentionality is a powerful factor
in speeding up such evolution, therefore, without
accepting any vanguardist notions, efforts such as
Raoul's, Oekonux, and the P2P Foundation can be useful

 - finally, the intermeshing of such groups also
strengthens the natural evolution

Michel
--- Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hi Raoul and all!

2 months (63 days) ago Raoul wrote:
Almost six months ago,

You're welcome :-) .

Thanks for your interesting reply. While I wrote my
reply I think we
have a very important debate here.

(in
http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg03292.html
)

Stefan Merten wrote:
"http://dorax.club.fr/Visibility.htm

A very nice text. Indeed I agree with very most
of it."

That's great. Let's deal with what makes you say
only: "most of it" ;-)

Yes :-) .

You quote this part of my text:

The anti-capitalist revolution can only be the
work of the immense
majority of society and it must be a conscious
work. Such a
consciousness cannot be the product of the
preaching -
however well formulated - of a minority of
"enlightened"
revolutionaries. It is historical practice, the
evolution of
material and social conditions that alone can
convince billions of
individuals, including "revolutionaries," that
their discourse has a
solid foundation.

And you say:
"I completely agree that preaching makes no
sense. However, I'd like to know 
in what sense you are referring to consciousness.
Do you mean consciousness 
in the sense that the actors need to know that
objectively they pursue goals 
leading to a new society? I'd like to call this a
political consciousness. I 
don't think such political consciousness is
really necessary. AFAICS 
bourgeois revolutions didn't need it either for
the majority of actors. 
Similarly Free Software people usually don't have
that political 
consciousness.

"However, I think consciousness is necessary in
the sense that people feel 
that there is a better life to win. I'd like to
call this felt 
consciousness. In this sense it is indeed only
practice which does 
everything necessary. We can see this in Free
Software as well as in P2P 
file sharing.

"Do you think that at some point the felt
consciousness needs to switch to 
the political consciousness? If so why and when?"

Well, these are important and numerous questions.
I hope I can sketch some 
answers without being too long.

Thanks for going into detail. I think one of the
main points is that
there are a couple of underlying assumptions in each
of us which would
not come out if we only scratch the surface. At
least I am not so sure
about these assumptions and IMHO it is really
fruitful to discuss
them.

BTW: When I use Free Software below that is what we
probably know best
here. Other Free Projects like OpenAccess, Wikipedia
and Free Culture
are similar in many regards.

"Do you mean consciousness in the sense that the
actors need to know that 
objectively they pursue goals leading to a new
society? (...) Do you think 
that at some point the felt consciousness needs
to switch to the political 
consciousness?"

My answer is YES.



To go beyond capitalism means abolishing its two
main foundations: wage 
labour and acumulation of capital as the goal of
production.  (See Rosa 
Luxembourg, in "Introduction to political
economy", for a clear argument on 
why these are the most specific characteristics of
capitalism).  And I don't 
think that humans can definitively destroy and
surpass these two pillar 
social institutions without a consciousness of
what they are doing, without 
knowing "that objectively they pursue goals
leading to a new society". 
Capitalism is not only copyright.

These are the classic socialist arguments. I agree
with them in a
socialist framework but I think the (r)evolution for
a GPL society
won't be socialist - at least not in a narrow sense.

I'll analyze both of your points carefully.

To go beyond wage labour means that any human will
be able to fulfil his 
material subsistence needs independently from the
"work" he does or even 
from the fact that he "works" or not.

I completely agree with you that wage labor needs to
be overcome.
Overcoming wage labor is probably key for overcoming
exchange based
social systems.

Free Software in general does this already. Free
Software is a group
of goods which is available independent of your
amount of wage labor.
So this is part of people's subsistence. This is the
consumption side
of wage labor.

I'd also not downplay the role of information goods.
I think modern
societies can not live without information goods any
more on the
production side and as far as the consumption side
is concerned I
guess most people living without information goods
such as newspaper
or a TV would be a pain today.

In Doubly Free Software we see overcoming of wage
labor on the side of
production also: People do things useful on the
scale of the whole
society without being paid for it. However, that is
not destruction of
wage labor - i.e. the antithesis - but overcoming
the old form in a
new synthesis.

Well, it *is* destruction of wage labor in the sense
that it makes
some parts of wage labor unnecessary - something
unions are typically
are not interested in...

Anyway I guess there is little disagreement between
us about this
point.

That needs a great collective 
consciousness.

My immediate question: Why? I'd ask you to think
about this question.

I could imagine your ansert is deeply rooted in a
society based on
scarcity. I guess the answer will go along:
Abolishment of "Who does
not work shall not eat" is hard.

I completely agree with you for a society based on
scarcity and severe
limitedness. However, that's a point which has been
made as early as
the Russian revolution were some (IMHO: rightfully)
said that

=== message truncated ===


The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p 

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at  http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html; video interview, at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm

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