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Re: [ox-en] Re: [ox-en] Re: [ox-en] Re: [ox-en] Re: Material peer production (was: Re: [ox-en]Motto for the 4th conference)





----- Original Message ----
From: Dmytri Kleiner <dk telekommunisten.net>
To: list-en oekonux.org
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:23:53 PM
Subject: [ox-en]  Re: [ox-en]  Re: [ox-en]  Re: [ox-en]  Re: Material peer production (was: Re: [ox-en]Motto for the 4th conference)


This doesn't change the fact that that where you have
specialized

 labour,
you have have exchange,
and where you have exchange, you have a certain expectation
of

 reciprocity
required, at the least for 
the material substance of the contributers.

No, there is no such direct specific expectation if you contribute to free software (unless you are a conditionally paid free software producer, but that is outside the realm of peer production), only a general expectation of benefit, which could or not be a better job at an unspecified future


If the exchange is not reciprocal at all, how do free
software

 developers
subsist? 

As far as I know, mostly from wage labour.


unless they are conditionally paid to do free software, which is wage labour, not peer production, they subsist in a variety of ways, but the income is used in a general way to subsidize their work in between or after hours; only if they are really lucky can they describe it as part of their job





Directly or indirectly, the wealth thus produced is the source of
the

 wages
that 
sustain this contribution.

indirectly that is the point, you may very well work for a free software project that sustains another project of wealth creation, while you subsist on a wage for another activity




Reciprocity need not be strict. It certainly isn't strict (in terms of
every transaction
being measured) among friends and social groups, nor was it
in

 kin-communal
societies.

in kin-communities, there were also forms of communal shareholding and generalized exchange, but this is not what is meant by the gift economy, which is a symmetrical system (although that symmetry could be defined in various 'spiral' ways), but the point is: the gift created an obligation; the free contribution towards a commons project creates no such obligation



If that is the measure, then gift communities would also not
be

 reciprocal,
as no
fixed reciprocal value for each transaction is negotiated.

an obligation was created, and a certain type of obligation insured, this is driven by what Fiske calls equality matching, which is different from communal shareholding; again, take a few minutes to read fiske, it's not long and will clear up the difference


So long as their is an expectation of mutual contribution,
the

 relationship
is, in some
fashion, reciprocal.

mutual contribution in communal shareholding  IS NOT a demand for specific reciprocity from any particular person, ONLY a general expectation that the contributor will also benefit in some way or other


The fact that Benkler has argued (in his talk at WOS4 for
instance)

 that
developers of free software
largely believe they benefit more from free software then
they

 contribute
illustrates this.


NO, and Benkler never uses the concept of gift economy in his book


I wonder if this has contributed to the existence of
collective

 enterprises
in France such
as Motion Twin and FDN?

I do not think so, do you have info about these projects, which I think are un-related


Michel





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