Re: [ox-en] Labor contradictions
- From: graham <graham theseamans.net>
- Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:32:33 +0000
Michael Bauwens wrote:
Hi Graham:
thanks for your very interesting insights. Concerning your contribution here, I am especially keen that you would elaborate your thoughts on the interconnection between contemporary labor struggles and how they would be different 'in the context of peer production'.
this is very much a weak part of my current understanding, and your assistance in developing insights in this are crucial,
how can peer producers connect with the older social movements, and vice versa?
Like most of what we see in peer production now, beginning with people
communicating rather than from realising a plan. From what I can see,
there is a small number of people on both sides of this divide
who would like to see more communication, versus a much larger
proportion who are scared. On the peer producer side (I'm thinking
mainly of free software) scared of being forcibly aligned with old
political divisions which no longer apply. On the older movement side,
fear of being misled by a middle class utopia. When the few people who
do want to work across the boundary try to do so, the scared people on
the other side tend to chase them away.
So I'd see a change in attitude as the first essential; being welcoming
to people who approach from the 'other side' even if their ideas aren't
quite the same (which they won't be). The second could be trying to
learn from people who have already successfully combined the two sides
in their own work (I'm thinking particularly of people like the free
software activists in the Brazilian Worker's Party, and the LUGs
involved with the factory occupations in Argentina).
More empirically, what are things like the social forums and indymedia
if not proof that there is an underlying pressure pushing both sides
together?
Graham
Michel
Graham said:
Another way of seeing this:
Stefan Mz writes very much as though the old style socialist movements
inevitably failed because the only possible outcome of those movements
was 'really existing socialism'. I guess you are likely to agree with
this, and so to think that there is no way an industrial-based
socialist
movement in China can do anything but reproduce a failed past. I am not
so pessimistic
XXX and do not see why such a movement should not be different in the context of peer production. XXX
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Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de