Re: [ox-en] Peer Economy. A Transition Concept.
- From: "Michel Bauwens" <michelsub2004 gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:16:04 +0700
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 10:21 PM, Christian Siefkes
<christian siefkes.net> wrote:
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.
okay, understood, I didn't mean logical in any pejorative way but
rather as the most reasonable thing to do
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).
utopian as in, not really existing yet, but it could exist, and this
is a best possible solution that could/should exist; but also
analytical, as opposed to more 'dreaming' kind or imaginative utopias
... you have indeed a very pragmatic approach as how things could work
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.
yes, that weighted labour idea is something that I find most
interesting. Have you any idea of a plan of implementation?
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).
that is indeed the value of your work, indicating a possible pathway
do you have a typology of 'possible solutions' other than your own?
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...
I think there is actually quite a bit of activity around open
hardware/physical production through open design communities
only 2-3 years ago, the field was in the doldrums, with negative
assessments of the previous wave of experiments (expressed by graham
seaman if I'm not mistaken); but as I discovered about 6 months ago,
and which prompted me to create the design pages, see
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design, the field is again in a
strong moment of re-emergence, with tons of practical projects
emerging in all kinds of fields:
http://p2pfoundation.net/Product_Hacking
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 --
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