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



Hi StefanMz and all!

2 days ago Stefan Meretz wrote:
it would have been more useful when using Christians mails about
peerconomy, because my article is only a short review about his
concept.

Will do. Nonetheless I'll use this reply to explore things further.
I'll delete parts where we agree, which are IMHO of minor importance
or you referred me to the book.

Most of your remarks do not really apply. Here are the
links to the five parts posted by Christian:

0: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04244.html
1: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04277.html
2: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04339.html
3: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04353.html
4: http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04365.html

Thanks.

May be I should do a general remark here. What - among other things -
I'm currently trying to explore is some new concepts and ideas which
came to my mind. I don't know yet whether they are useful but it feels
like so to me. In that I'd appreciate if you all help to think this
through so we all gain deeper insights.

Also I see this topic of "material" production (i.e. excluding copying
of information goods) is currently discussed in a couple of threads.
I'm reading my mail thread-wise so I may be still missing things which
have been said in other threads.

On 2008-04-07 11:24, Stefan Merten wrote:
* Coypability
  The step to material production is only a small one: We need
  machines which transform information into some material form. And
  we have these. In a way every machine manipulating matter is such a
  thing - though probably only the more advanced like robots, fabbers
  or all those other cool machines making more and more people
  unemployed have the potential we are looking for.

I see the general potential of fabber, but this is far from becoming an
real option.

Please let me note that people / companies using fabbers see this
rather differently.

And robots or other production machines are another story.

Why?

IMHO they are the same as far as universality is concerned. The simple
machines from beginning of capitalism or even before were very
specific. They were able to do exactly one thing (which is probably
idealized but you get the point). CNC machines were one milestone on
the road to universal matter manipulation machines. Industrial robots
are another one as are fabbers. I'm really interested in what's wrong
with that perspective.

BTW: Even computers could be seen as matter manipulation machines. And
indeed very specialized ones. Only the materials they process is of
rather universal use.

Anyway, they all do not bridge the principal difference between
information and physical goods. So let me add the points you forgot:

Physical goods are of rival and thus of singular nature, they will be
used up. Information goods are of anti-rival nature and using means
spreading (cf. Steven Weber).

I know I'm challenging exactly this point by my argumentation. I'd ask
everyone to think thoroughly about this.

Therefore physical goods have to be produced consistently, and they
consume consistently resources and effort for each single new piece.
This is not the case for information goods. When created, using is
spreading by copying.

Sorry, but copying *is* creating. You change the amorphous "shape" of
some matter to have a different "shape" and when you are successful
you call it a copy. Nonetheless copying is only a special sort of
creation. Why it is not?

Both types need infrastructures to get produced and distributed, and
these infrastructures are physical goods which has to be produced,
powered and maintained. However, while the internet is a common
infrastructure for production and distribution of information goods
(neglecting other forms of distribution like DVDs here), physical goods
need "two" different infrastructures. The production infrastructure
constantly consumes raw material and effort scaling degressively with
output, and the transport infrastructure needs transportation means and
effort scaling linearily (more or less) with amount. This is not the
case for information goods.

It is not? When the materialization of information goods meant books
there were absolutely no difference here. Books needed (and still
need) infrastructure for production as well as for transportation. If
your point would be generally true for information goods then the type
of materialization they use would not matter. However, as the example
shows it *does* matter.

Emphasizing that only materialized information goods are of any use is
also a challenge to common wisdom. However, when I think of it I
wonder why I didn't realize this earlier...

Singular nature of physical good also means a singular utility.

That is the point I didn't understand in Lohoff's argumentation. I
guess you replied to this in the resespective thread so I'll drop it
here.

I can not see why any of these aspects is generally limited to
digital goods. I mean there are already machines which are able to
move single atoms...

I find it really dangerous to draw on a perspective solely based on
technical means.

I find it equally dangerous to completely ignore technical
development. However, I don't think that either of us is guilty of one
or the other :-) .

Starting point is the consideration, that people have to spend
efforts during the production of their living conditions.

I think this starting point is wrong. Effort as an economical
category seems to me a mostly capitalist notion and thus not very
helpful for other economic systems like pre- or post-capitalist ones.
Effort in this abstract sense maps to abstract labor - which I think
is not a useful category for peer production projects.

Nope, effort is a general term and has nothing to do with abstract
labor. Every society needs effort to produce their living conditions.

Sure. But wouldn't you agree that the organizing of effort is one of
the main points of capitalism in its hunt for efficiency?

So my point is that though (human) effort is certainly part of every
human activity it does not need to be in the center of a societal
organization. Just as God / church / religion was in the center of
medieval European societies it doesn't need to be there.

Organization of effort is not much of a necessity unless you want /
need to be efficient. But on a societal level - and that is what I
understood Christian is talking about - the hunt for efficiency seems
rather capitalist to me.

And again: I don't see this being a major topic in practical peer
production projects. But may be you have practical examples?

Every society distributes
its effort in some way (capitalism using indirections via markets).

Called division of labor, yes. In that respect peer production is not
special in any way.

Doing this it will only be produced what is needed---

That is not true. There are many reasons to produce.

When something is produced, then it is needed.

Sometimes the end result is even not needed but only the activity
itself. Like when trying out something in a pointless example. But
this just BTW because it is indeed kind of an exception.

Peer production bases on so called Commons being ressources without
owner controlling the usage.

That's at least not exact. Copyleft controls ways of use and most
licenses do.

But the owner does not. That's the point.

Ah the owner of the *Commons* does not control the use. I misread this
and now agree.

What counts are the contributions one makes. They
determine reputation, credit, and confidence one gets.

Yes. In that respect they are similar to capitalism.

By far not. It is similar to curent peer projects.

Well, in a company as well as on the market the contributions one
makes do count - and similarly as above. What should count otherwise?
Especially what should count otherwise which is *not* a contribution
to a project?

But that is only BTW.

Now, how can needs of the producers be coordinated with the needs
of the consumers?

What for? At least on a general basis. If one wants to create a
question here then it needs to be something like "How can it be made
sure that all needs are supplied?". Which in this generality probably
can not be answered at all and there probably never was a society who
answered that question...

The question about the needs (of producers and consumers) *is* a central
question of a free society. If not, we could stay in capitalism.

Well, my point was more this: Of course it is fine when some of the
producers produce things which others can consume. But not all of them
need to do so. It is totally sufficient if all needs are supplied.
That might sound little but to me is the difference between a
totalitarian system and a free society.

You need that totalitarian system if you live in a society which is
generally poor - or made poor by scarcity. However, a peer production
based society IMHO is not thinkable without ampleness so there is no
simply no need to spent effort in that coordination task.

The economic value maps complex actions on simple once. However,
while always complex actions are manifolds of simple
once---resulting in less volume of spending---a generalized peer
production tend to function the other way around: Simple tasks no
one likes to do will be highly weighted to guarantee its execution,
while popular and often highly qualified tasks get a lower weight.

I think this is really wrong. It reduces the manifold reasonings and
consideration in any(!, also capitalist!) real world project to a
single number. This is purely capitalist logic but IMHO only useful
for capitalism - and even there it can be questioned very well.

Nope. All criteria of capitalism are absent. Concerning effort (or time)
the "single number" is an arbitrary means only driven by the weighting
process reflecting the societal relationship of demand and supply.

In which way this is different from how people think about their
money? If it is not different: Why it is less abstracting?

This
sounds familiar with market economy, but it is a completely different
mechanism of regulation.

Still don't see it.

My only critique is, that this type of
regulation based on *coupling* of giving and taking is necessary at all.

Of course.

It is remarkable, that Siefkes concretely discusses a number of
critical questions, which are usually avoided by refering to a
future »where everything will be solved«:

Sorry, but from this review I think Christian is more trying to map
capitalist logic to peer production. I outlined above where I think
this happens.

Your outline is based on my review and misinterprets heavily Christians
concept. So when bashing you have to address me writing such a bad
review.

I'm not trying to bash anybody. I'm exploring new ideas at the same
time I'm trying to understand what Christian says. You say that it is
not possible without reading the book. Hmm...

What about infrastructures and meta-tasks? How will
decisions be made, how conflicts be solved? How will global
projects be organized?

Questions which in the realm of Free Software are resolved since
long.

This is a very optimistic position.

Well if they are not solved then we would not talk of 10 or 20 year
old projects - would we.

But I feel there is a general difference here. I'm fine when things
work. I don't need answers to the most fundamental questions first -
afterwards they might be interesting. May be over time I became a bit
too pragmatic for a German ;-) .

To my opinion the presented concept is a pragmatic transition
model, not a general model of a post-capitalist society.

For a pragmatic transition model the questions posed are wrong. For a
pragmatic transition model I don't need answers for the most
fundamental and abstract questions I can think of. I just need
solutions to just the next problem. This is a key difference.

The next problem of what on what way to what goal?

As you can see you end up nowhere when asking the most fundamental and
abstract questions ;-) .

I guess Christian is not very pleased with my reply - which is
understandable after all the effort he took in his book.

Maybe you are not happy with my reply.

No problem. I am happy.

Summing up most of your
objections base on misinterpretations, because you didn't read the
book.

That's fine with me. I understand things when I discuss them - and
sometimes they are not related to the things I'm discussing right now.
Insofar I'm learning all the time :-) .


						Grüße

						Stefan

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