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Re: [ox-en] Peer Economy. A Transition Concept.



Hi Michel, hi all,

Michel Bauwens wrote:
I want to pitch in a brief comment about Christian's work.

I think it is essentially an utopian effort, and this is why it
differs from the general approach we take at the p2pfoundation.

Christian has looked at a problem, and has sought to devise the most
logical solution, abstracting from the real life conditions of both
capitalism and the alternatives/resistance to it.

Not really for the "most logical solution" (I'm not sure how the
"logicalness" of solutions could even be measured), but for a set (or
family) of possible and reasonable solutions.

I don't think that's utopian--my work is largely analytical in nature,
like other work done in Oekonux and the P2P Foundation, but while other work
analyzes the real (what is already happening), I analyze the possible (what
can happen).

But I believe that historically speaking, 'best solutions' have rarely
emerged, they are always embedded in real-life social relations, etc..

Sure. I'm certain that any future post-capitalist, emancipatory society will
be quite different from the one I describe--it's not possible to predict the
future, and I didn't try. But I also think that such a society will almost
necessarily show patterns that will resemble those I describe in my
book--something like weighted labor as an approach to take the different
degrees of popularity (or of "Selbstentfaltung") of different tasks into
account, the various allocation models for co-producing and distributing
goods, the treating of resources as commons, the interweaving of projects
and communities of different sizes and with different aims, maybe others.

Such patterns, I suppose, will emerge whenever people try to solve the
problems I discuss (whether they know my book or not), because there simply
aren't that many possible solutions. If my book will inspire some of them,
so much the better (that was indeed one of my goals).

So, I do not see any pathway from here to there. This could only be
the case if there was one successfull implementation, which was also
replicable. So, we have to wait and see wether any real-life project
will take on that alternative, see what works or not, and how it can
scale and grow from there.

There is no pathway yet. I didn't try to give one in my book, and I don't
think that it's even possible to give one in advance--that will be a
real-life, trial-and-error process. But wouldn't it we boring if we always
knew what to do in advance? ;-)

On the other hand, I think it is more fruitful to see what is really
happening, the carefully analyse what works or not, and to see,
amongst the projects that work, which elements are positive in the
context of human emancipation. It is from the internetworking of
successfull emancipatory projects and experiences that the see level
of the alternative modes will be rising.

Christian's work can do no more than perhaps inspire one of these
real-world projects, which so far, has not happened.

Not yet, though there are some discussions in and around the Keimform blog.
But then, AFAIK, there simply aren't yet any projects attempting what I
describe--free, non-market-based production of physical goods. They will
happen, but maybe we shouldn't expect them too soon.

As I see it (following Stefan Meretz:
http://www.keimform.de/2008/02/08/peer-economy-offene-fragen/#comment-12590
), the "first wave of free production" was free software, which really
started in 1984 with the start of the GNU project.

The second wave was free (or open) content, which seriously started in 2001
with the launch of Creative Commons and the Wikipedia.

So, simple numerical extrapolation tells us that the third wave--free,
non-market-based physical production (not just design!)--will start in 2018
:-) OK, maybe it's not as simple as that ;-), but I don't think there is
reason to become impatient yet...

Best regards
	Christian

-- 
|-------- Dr. Christian Siefkes --------- christian siefkes.net ---------
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/    |    Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
| Peer Production in the Physical World:       http://www.peerconomy.org/
|------------------------------------------ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
        -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven



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