Re: [ox-en] Where / who is the enemy?
- From: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:36:15 -0800 (PST)
Not sure who is saying what exactly, but of course, formulated in this way, this is exacly 'what' the enemy is: 1) those who want to maintain a system of pseudo-abundanc in the natural world, and are destroying our biosphere; 2) those who want to extent the IPR regime and increase artificial scarcity in the immaterial world.
The first is a formidable enemy because apart from the elite and the structural realities of the system, the enemy is also us, and the myriad ways we sustain the further destruciton of the biosphere through our own choices.
I sincerely believe the second one is less formidable. The IPR strategy was the one behind the first stage of industrial information economics, and yes they were pushing to extend it, but opposition to it is increasingly tremendously, and, the underlying technological evolution is making a system of legal and technological restraints increasingly difficult to maintain ...
Michel
----- Original Message ----
From: graham <graham theseamans.net>
To: list-en oekonux.org
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:28:49 PM
Subject: Re: [ox-en] Where / who is the enemy?
Franz Nahrada wrote:
list-en oekonux.org writes:
The final issue which came up during the P2P workshop I want to
present here was: Who and where is the enemy?
If we think that peer production is subversive to capitalism then
who
is protecting capitalism? Classicaly this was a task for the state.
However, nowadays at least in the EU the states are quite in favor
of
Free Software and things like OpenAccess.
Michel thinks that hacking is not antagonistic to anything but a new
life practice and therefore there is no enemy. I tend to agree on
the
"not-antagonistic" part but to me this doesn't explain why
resistance
is low. Or do we still not yet saw the maximum resistance?
May be someone here has answers or interesting ideas?
----
very interesting question. It is astounding to me that you give that
diagnosis of the situation as it is, and that you do not mention or
try to
conceive the expansion of the Intellectual Property Regime in the
last
decades.
according to the thesis of Group Krisis the regular "productive" way
of
accumulatingcapital has lost its significance for the growth of
capital.
Its so ubiquitous that you cant generate high profit margins by
simply
material "supply". The Quartz Part of a watch is as cheap as the
mineral
sand where Silicone might come from. (dont take me as an expert on
that)
Productivity gains destroy the value - generating capabilitries of
industries.
That is where the increasing importance of intellectual property
comes in.
Its more lucrative to forbid and allow activitities and to receive an
"information rent". There is a growing market for lucrative
impediments of
human activities. Thats unique and new in history.
So here is the enemy: capital that seeks to grow and chooses methods
that
impede human self-reliance. In order to maintain its growth it is
ready to
create constraints. Its an everyday phenomenon. "Customer
satisfaction"
has turned to "customer binding", Its gardly difficult to see more
and
more aggressive structural business practises taking place, and one
of
these is to impede autonomy of work.
On the other side, the opposite trend exists too: the prosuming use
of
user activity, even user innovation and user production. I think that
Eric
von Hippel has done groundbreaking research on this.
Its a situation like at the end of feudalism, where one side of the
old
ruling class wants to go to the extreme of the old domination system
("absolutism") while on the other side the other faction wants to
grab new
opportunities.
In this context the question of the "enemy" can be posed and
answered.
Also the question of the "allies".
I agree 100% with Franz!
The only caveat I would have is the use of the word 'enemy': there is a
fashion for Carl Schmitt among part of the left, which uses the word
'enemy' in his sense, and which I would not like to be confused with...
Graham
Franz
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