[ox-en] Re: Material peer production (was: Re: [ox-en] Motto for the 4th conference)
- From: Dmytri Kleiner <dk telekommunisten.net>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:14:58 +0100
On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:37:13 -0800 (PST), Michael Bauwens
<michelsub2003 yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
HOWEVER, this can, at present, not work with rival material goods, unless
you find a solution for cost-recovery and future investment.
[...]
Dmytri,how do you see venture communism stack up against this (for this)?
Hi, I see venture communism in two initial phases, in the first phase
proto-venture-communist enterprises must break the Iron law and then join
together to found a venture commune.
In a mature venture commune, cost-recovery is simply achieved by using
rent-sharing to efficiently
allocate property to its most productive use, thereby ensuring mutual
accumulation. Rent sharing works by renting the property for it's full
market value to member enterprises and then distributing the proceeds of
this rent equally among all commune members.
Investment, when required by exogenous exchange, is funded by selling
bonds at auction. Endogenous liquidity is achieved through the use of
mutual credit.
However in the initial phase there is no property to rent-share and the
demand for the bonds is likely to be insufficient, thus the only way the
enterprise can succeed is to break the iron law and somehow capitalize and
earn more than subsistence costs, making mutual accumulation possible.
IMO, there are two requirements for breaking the iron law:
a) The enterprise must have highly skilled creative labour, so that the
labour itself can capture scarcity rents, i.e. artists, software
developers.
b) Production must be based on what I call "commodity capital," that is
Capital that is a common input to most, if not all, industries, and
therefore is often subsidized by public and private foundations and
available on the market for below it's actual cost. Examples of this are
telecommunications and transportation infrastructure, both of which have
been heavily subsidized.
Also, a third requirement for me, although not implied by the simple
economic logic, is that the initial products are of general use to market
segments I believe are most directly agents for social change, i.e. other
peer producers, activists, diasporic/translocal communities and the
informal economy broadly.
Also, I would like to note that while the initial enterprises depend on
complex labour and should focus on products of strategic benefit, a mature
venture commune can incorporate all types of labour and provide all types
of goods and services once the implementation of rent-sharing, bond-auction
and mutual-credit is achieved.
Cheers.
--
Dmytri Kleiner
editing text files since 1981
http://www.telekommunisten.net
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