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Re: [ox-en] scientific lockdown by publishers: the case of hacking capitalism



Why would you expect these owners to not employ artificially scarcity
when their goal of profit (keeping price above cost) increases with
scarcity?

A for-profit corporation has an obligation to it's shareholders to
keep price above cost.  In many cases it would be against the law for
them to do otherwise because of previous agreements.

The Workers cannot afford to own the physical means of production (the
book printing and binding facility) themselves, but the collective
Consumers could do so.

The great thing about Consumer Ownership is the strange thing it does
to profit.  Keeping price above cost is meaningless when the consumers
own the physical sources (material inputs) in the exact amount needed
for the amount of product they use.

Think of the most simple case of single-user/single-owner: If you own
a press yourself, and are the only one that will want the book, you
have to pay all the costs, just like the current owners (Routledge)
including worker wages, but you couldn't pay profit (price above cost)
unless you were to pay it to yourself.

If you couldn't afford to own the press alone, and shared ownership
with - say 100 other consumers who had invested (for the purpose of
receiving at-cost books), then you would still have internal fighting
about how to operate and care for the press, but at least each
consumer would have a say (a vote) weighted by their % of ownership.
So each consumer should own just as much % of physical sources that
they expect (predict) they will need to fullfill their demand for
product/output/objectives.

Access is perfected and price is minimized when Consumers own the
physical means of production.


On Feb 11, 2008 5:57 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 gmail.com> wrote:
I wrote this in my blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/why-danah-boyd-is-depressed-and-angry-and-so-am-i-about-scientific-lockdown-by-publishers/2008/02/11

"Danah Boyd is depressed and angry, because she has written a
marvellous essay on Facebook privacy, but it is locked down between a
paywall, by her own publisher Sage.

She writes:

"I'm deeply depressed because I know that most of you will never read
it. It is not because you aren't interested (although many of you
might not be), but because Sage is one of those archaic academic
publishers who had decided to lock down its authors and their content
behind heavy iron walls. Even if you read an early draft of my article
in essay form, you'll probably never get to read the cleaned up
version. Nor will you get to see the cool articles on alternate
reality gaming, crowd-sourcing, convergent mobile media, and video
game modding that are also in this issue. That's super depressing. I
agreed to publish my piece at Sage for complicated reasons, but…

I vow that this is the last article that I will publish to which the
public cannot get access. I am boycotting locked-down journals and I'd
like to ask other academics to do the same."

I'm also angry, but at Routledge, and for a very similar reason. Not
for myself, but for my friend Johan Soderbergh. Johan was so kind to
have me sent a review copy of his truly marvelous book about the free
software movement, called Hacking Capitalism. I have read the intro
and first chapter, and so far, I'm enthralled by this deeply
insightful book, that is also well written.

But here is the problem. That book costs well over $100 …!!.

Who else will be able to read it, how many libraries will invest in
such a book, let alone individuals?? To increase the infamy, Johan
could not even get his own edited manuscript back, talk about abuse of
power.

This is a truly shameful attitude by a scientific publisher, who is
locking excellent scholarship away, betraying the very ideal of
scientific publishing.

I'm thinking of writing a more formal open letter about this, and
polled the p2p research mailing list about it, I'm waiting for
reactions. You might hear more about it.

Why did Johan accept this? Though he is an activist, he must also
build a career, and Routledge is a reputable scientific publisher. So
the opportunity was there, and a young and budding author is very weak
compared to a corporate juggernaut. But what a price to pay, to see
your own work made inaccessible to the very people you would want to
reach.


--
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
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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
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

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_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de



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