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Re: [ox-en] Information goods as genuine societal goods



Hi StefanMn and all,

On 2008-04-04 19:22, Stefan Merten wrote:
1. Information goods are not exchange goods. Exchange depends on an
   "change of hands". The information good, however, does not leave
   the hands of the "seller", who is in the nice situation to sell
the same good for money multiple times. This phenomenon must not be
confused with the production of equal material goods in the
industrial mass production. Here every new entity needs to be
produced anew, while for information goods this happens only once.

I'd like to emphasize that this is not completely true - or at least
not in the way written there. We probably agree that the essence of
an information good is not material. However, living in a physical
world to matter an information good *must* be bound to some matter.

The main point here is, that information goods are not exchanged. 
The "boundness" to matter (a carrier) is addressed in point 2. The 
whole Lohoff-thesis are about the essence of information (while not 
denying the question of needing a carrier).

Since each information good must be bound to matter the reproduction
of an information good is nicely named copying. But copying *is* a
material process.

On a general level everything is a material process. However, this is 
too unspecific here, it doesn't touch the essence of the argumentation.

2. Information goods are universal goods while conventional goods
are of a singular nature. Though information goods need a carrier
the connection to the carrier is volatile and the spreading to
other carriers is very easy.

Because that is such a central statement I need to ask: Why are they
universal goods? I didn't see a reasoning for this. Why is a piece of 
software driving a machine more universal than the mechanism it
replaces?

Well, the whole article of Lohoff (and of my short review) argues about 
what a universal good is. The main point here is, that conventional 
goods are of singular nature while universal goods transcend this. 
Being singular incude rivalness and being used-up, while being 
universal means using *is* copying (thus being anti-rival [cf. Steven 
Weber] and not used-up). This is an essential difference which should 
not be hidden by too general arguments like being matter involved.

goods. Often only use creates the intended utility. Universal
machines and universal goods create an uncloseable universe of
utility. Conventional goods on the other hand embody a singular
utility. If the wanted utility changes a new good must be created.

Agreed.

However, they are not "universally universal". A computer is limited
by its capacity - be it memory or computing power. So that
universality applies only to a certain domain - though this domain is
generally growing. Nonetheless it is possible that for a new kind of
utility a new good must be created.

This is a quantitative argument, not a principal one. But true, if there 
is a new domain with unknown utility in the realm of digital 
information (no idea what this new domain might be), a new good must be 
created. However, don't mix the infrastructure with the goods being 
created by using an infrastructure as in the case of information goods.

In any case that idea of privatized xy goods is a good one. It is a
very useful perspective.

The term privatized xy good does only make sense, when xy refers to a 
non-private property. For example: privatized common good or privatized 
societal good, or as used here: privatized universal good.

6. Information goods are created by common labor ("allgemeine
Arbeit") or - if they appear in the privatized form as payed goods
- by privatized common labor. In that respect they are similar to
science. Conventional goods on the other hand need the repeated
application of direct labor ("unmittelbare Arbeit") for their
production.

As I argued above also information goods need some effort to copy -
though it is marginal today. Am I right when I conclude that if the
effort to create a product goes towards zero it changes from a
conventional good to a non-conventional good?

Yes. However, physical goods will ever need physical resources for each 
new (singular) piece to be produced, because of the nature of the 
products (being rival and used-up). Thus, physical goods will always 
need a continous flow of physical recsources, even when having a fabber 
infrastructure (for example).

The main point Lohoff addresses here is that a universal good can not be 
a commodity even when coming as a payed-good.

Ciao,
Stefan

-- 
Start here: www.meretz.de
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