Since this is a little big long, you may find a printer-friendly version at
http://dorax.club.fr/080616_on_fund_text.rtf
Some comments
on the draft of the "Fundamental text" written by Stefan Merten and Stefan
Meretz
First of all, I think it is a good thing to have more texts reflecting the
"Oekonux ideas", even if by the nature of the list itself it is impossible
to write something on which every participant would totally agree.
Here are some comments on several questions, some of them were already
dealt with by Michel Bauwens.
1- The possibility of applying the peer production principles to the
"material sphere".
In part 1, the text reads:
"Whether or not the principles of peer production can be transferred to the
material sphere or what that even means is an open research question."
Michel Bauwens commented:
"It is not just a research question, there are some general things that can
be said, apart from already observing existing open design communities."
(1/4/08)
I agree with Michel that this is not "just" an "open research question".
Especially for Oekonux whose main fundamental idea is summarized in the 3d
part of the text: "We claim that peer production is a germ form of a new
society based on a mode of production beyond exchange, market and money."
Such a claim would be a sheer piece of wishful thinking if "exchange,
market and money" could not be eradicated from most of the production (and
distribution) of material goods. A "new society" would not be really "new"
if pp principles remained restricted to numerical goods.
The main argument the text gives to explain the doubts about the
possibility of material peer production is based on the idea that, contrary
to numerical-information goods, material goods are "rival". Part 4 reads:
"Material goods, however, differ significantly from information goods.
Information can be easily copied while material goods have to be produced
piece by piece. The use of material goods is rival while use of information
is non-rival. Material goods are used up while information is spread when
shared."
It is true that information-numerical goods are "non-rival", "by nature",
ie. they "may be consumed by one consumer without preventing simultaneous
consumption by others." (Wikipedia). As they can be copied without (or
insignificant) cost they are potentially abundant. It is also true that
material goods do not possess that capacity. But that does not mean that
they can not be abundant, non-rival. Water is a material good, it cannot be
"copied", but it may be a non-rival good in places where it is abundant.
Rivalry is a concept that expresses (and, for ideological reasons, insists
on) the old reality that scarcity of a good tends to generate rivalry
between people wanting to have it. But, as such, it is a very relative
concept. It depends on the relation between two quantities: the quantity of
the good and the number of people desiring that good. Even sea water, if
taken in small quantity and considered in a place where it is scarce (a
bottle of sea water in the Sahara, for example) may become rival. Two apples
for 200 persons are rival, but 200 apples for two people are not. Material
goods cannot be freely reproduced, but most of them, those that are commonly
produced by humans, may be made abundant, enough to satisfy the human
needs/desires, (if the will and the power to do it exists - as it may in a
"peer society") and become non-rival goods.
Of course, some material goods cannot be made abundant: a Van Gogh painting
or an exceptional geographical site, for example. Also, products requiring
very naturally scarce material, at least for some time, (the time to invent
a way to produce them in a different manner or to find substitutes). How to
deal with goods that remain rival in a new (peer) society is indeed an "open
research question". But, it is not the same for all the goods that can be
made abundant. And these are the overwhelming majority of the goods commonly
needed by humans. (In addition, human needs/desires in a society not based
on the absurd commercial-profit logic of capitalism will be different from
present ones).
To say that "the use of material goods is rival" is not correct. Even from
a strict neoclassical approach, some material products can be non-rival,
public. But, above all, it ignores the fact that most of material products
can be made abundant, thus non-rival.
This is not a secondary question when considering the possibility to apply
peer production principles to material production. Whatever serious
definition of peer production principles you take, their application to
material production requires the abundance, the non-rivalry, the
free/open/gratis reality of most of material means of production and
consumption. If we take, for example, the Michel Bauwens' definition of
peer-production principles, (which, as he noted, correspond "using other
words" to Christian Siefkes' ones) they all relay on that requirement.
Michel Bauwens writes:
"peer production needs to include the input (open raw material), the
process (voluntary self-aggregation) and the output (universal
availability)." (5 apr 08)
Christian Siefkes:
"1. Peer production is based on contributions (not on exchange).
2. Peer production is based on free cooperation (not on coercion or
command).
3. Peer production is based on commons and possession (not on property)." (
7 apr 08)
"Open raw material", "universal availability", "no exchange", "commons and
possession, not property" require free/gratis access to material means of
production and consumption. "Voluntary free aggregation" and "free
cooperation" require (if universalized) free/gratis access to material means
of consumption.
How to reach that level of abundance? What may the transition process be ?
These may be "open research questions". But it must be said clearly that the
material abundance is a real possibility. The scarcity of material goods
which makes today the majority of the wold-population to live in misery is
not natural, but induced by the capitalist logic. The ecological problems
are not the consequence of natural limits but of capitalist management of
the planet resources. If we can escape the capitalist logic, we are still
very far from reaching "natural limits". We only use 1/10 000 of the energy
we permanently receive from the sun; experts say that there is enough spring
water for many times the present human population, if we only can use it in
rational ways, especially by a transformation of methods of agriculture.
2 - Can we imagine what could be peer material production?
Part 3 of the text reads:
"Today it is hard to see how material production can be organized according
to the logic of information goods... It is perfectly possible that in a
dominance or restructuring step the problem on how to embed material
production in the peer production mode of production is on a basis which can
not be imagined today."
Maybe that statement is a consequence of the doubts about the possibility
of making common material goods non-rival. In any case, I think it is far
from obvious. Of course we cannot imagine the concrete details or even
important aspects of such a mode of production, but we can imagine what a
general framework could be. The development of peer production in the
information-numerical sphere allows us today to be much more concrete than
could have been any anti-capitalist dreamer even 20 years ago. I even think
that is an important theoretical task today. Christian Siekfes' book, for
instance, is part of that effort.
The germ-form theory, for example, relays on the idea that peer production
principles can be applied to material production and are superior to
capitalistic ones. It is difficult to make such a statement without giving
at least elementary concrete visions, even if theoretical, of what that
could look like.
>From a human point of view, the "efficiency" of a mode of production is
measured by its capacity to allow the human material needs to be satisfied.
Capitalism has created an extraordinary network (the world market) allowing
existent needs to find, some times at the other side of the world, the means
to be satisfied. Demand and offer are confronted and interrelated through
the market mechanisms. But it is a relation distorted by commercial exchange
and the capitalistic logic based of profit.
In the capitalist market, the needs considered are not all the real human
needs. These are limited by the necessity to be solvent. If you don't have
money, your needs/desires do not exist in the market, they are not taken
into account.
The offer is also limited, restricted: if production can not be sold, sold
with profit, it is not done. Non profitable production does not exists in
the market. Without profit perspective, fields are lied fallow, factories
(even modern ones) closed, workers unemployed.
Only the logic of the capitalist market can explain that to day a child
dies from malnutrition every 5 seconds in the world.
A peer society is the only way to interrelate the real (and not the
solvent) demand with the real (and not the profitable) potential forces of
production, human and material.
We can imagine some general aspects of what could be the cycle of material
production, that is including the distribution and consumption aspects (I'll
come back later on that inclusion) according to peer production principles.
Since production is orientated exclusively towards the satisfaction of human
needs/desires (instead of profit) and the final user is the source of
innovation, lets start by "the end", when the user gets the product.
For most of commonly needed products, we could imagine sorts of
"super-markets" (we should say "super non-markets") where goods are
free/gratis. These might also be Internet sites. The nature and quantities
of the products taken (instead of bought) would be instantaneously
registered and the data sent by Internet to centers at different levels
(villages, local, regional, worldwide).
That data would be permanently processed at different levels by a set of
softwares in order to generate a list of consumption requirements, including
as much information as possible: geographical localization, quantity,
qualities, etc. The softwares would be constantly developed and improved
integrating the final-user desires, systematically collected, elaborated,
processed at all levels. That list would be made available to anyone in the
planet, giving an instantaneous and permanent list of all the common
consumption "itches" that humans "need to scratch".
On the productive side, any center of production would thus have a real and
large choice to decide what it prefers to produce, having the security that
its product will be useful and used/consumed. It could also make
propositions of new solutions to present or future needs/desires.
Every production center, in his turn, would express permanently its needs
in order to realize its projects and, as for consumption, through Internet,
these would be instantaneously collected, processed and put at public use.
These needs/desires include raw material, machines and, of course, human
work (not labor). Raw material and machines needs would be processed as the
consumption "itches" and put at disposal of the centers of production. Human
work needs would also be permanently and instantaneously put at disposal of
all human beings. Any person wishing to participate in social production has
thus the possibility to choose what she wants to do, or something close to
it, as in Free Software. (voluntary self-aggregation).
At that level, the first necessity to create a peer society is the capacity
to transform any productive task in a pleasure for the person who does it.
(Pleasure does not exclude "effort": playing soccer is exhausting, for
example). Automation is here a key element in order to eliminate or
transform what today are repulsive tasks. As producers are the "end users"
of the means and ways of production, they should be the permanent masters of
innovation at that level, orientated towards Selbsentfaltung development.
Even if many questions remain open, as the distribution on goods which can
not be made abundant or "governance" systems, for example, some fundamental
aspects of what could be the application of peer production principles to
the material sphere can be seriously imagined, and their superiority to
capitalist ones easily demonstrated.
One may object that, even if such a vision may seem coherent and materially
feasible, it does not say what would be the transition to that
full-developed peer society. That is true. But, if you want to imagine a
transition you need to know from where to where it goes. If you don't have
any idea about the end of it (or at least a very advanced point), you cannot
even think it. The old formula: "From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs/desires" may summarize what a full-developed peer
society should be based on, since it also summarizes what the peer
production principles are. Today we can and must give to that abstract goal
a more concrete image.
3 - Production and distribution
The text reads, in part 3:
"Though there are a lot of peer phenomenons, peer production is primarily
about production and not distribution."
Michel Bauwens has already made some criticisms to that statement:
"I don't see how you can equate privatized output with peer production,
that would be very contradictory, as the output necessarily requires
conditions that affect both input and process." (5 apr 08)
I agree with Michel. I just wanted to remind what Marx, in the same sense,
wrote about that question:
"The relations and modes of distribution are thus merely the reverse aspect
of the factors of production. An individual whose participation in
production takes the form of wage-labor will receive a share in the product,
the result of production, in the form of wages. The structure of
distribution is entirely determined by the structure of production.
Distribution itself is a product of production, not only with regard to the
content, for only the results of production can be distributed, but also
with regard to the form, since the particular mode of men's participation in
production determines the specific form of distribution, the form, in which
they share in distribution. "
("Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy")
4 - Is contemporary industry perfect in working with matter?
In part 4, the text reads:
"Capitalism improved working with matter and the means employed are
material means. Contemporary industry is perfect in producing material
things."
"Perfect" ? From what point of view? Probably the author's pen slipped.
The only point of view from which "contemporary industry" (ie. capitalist
industry) is "perfect" is efficiency in exploiting labor force and
cumulating capital.
According to the International Labor Organization last year there were 2
200 000 mortal work accidents in the world. The number of injured is almost
1000 times bigger. And this is not only in the poor countries. In Italy, for
example, there were 1 300 death and 900 000 injured.
Even excluding that human aspect, even putting aside the fact that
contemporary industry destroys the ecological equilibrium and the humans'
health, from a sheer quantitative or qualitative point of view
"contemporary industry" has nothing to do with perfection. Quantity is
enormously limited by the profit imperatives ; quality is corrupted by
commercial and profit constraints and by the alienated nature of work
(paradoxically these last points are very well demonstrated in part 4 of the
text).
The text also says: "And alienation was personally acceptable, because the
'dependence' was highly outweighed with good wages." Is that "perfect"?
5 - The germ-form theory (or the five-step model) and the power over the
means of production
In part 4, the text reads:
"This, however, is a quite different transition image than old style types
of conquering the power to control the (old) means of production. The new
conception of a transition bases on changing the productive basis by
establishing new social relationship, which are originally free of
valorisation and alienation. It is not about taking the old power, but
building a new one, which then cooperates-out the old one. This is the
fundamental change of the perspective of emancipation the five-step model
brought to us."
The five-step model is very interesting. But, as far as I have understood
it, it does not pretend to say how concretely the different steps are
reached. In particular it does not deal with specific social-political life
during the transitions. For example, social life is not the same for fishes
(the original example given in the text) and humans, and the model works the
evolutions of both of them. It also works for the transition from feudalism
to capitalism, where class struggle was determinant and where the
bourgeoisie, at the same time that it developed new productive relations
that "cooperated-out" the feudal ones, had to conquer the political power
from the feudal-aristocracy's hands. Establishing new social relationships,
"cooperating-out" the old system is not contradictory with conquering the
power over the means of production. They are both interrelated and, at
different moments, conditioned one by the other.
By itself, the germ-form theory does not give an answer to the question,
for the transition from capitalism to a peer society, of how to transform
the private property over means of production into social possession through
the commons. One may pretend that, contrary to what happened in all social
transitions of the past, the transition to a post-capitalist society will be
done without class confrontation and ignoring the questions of political
power and control over the means of production (I do not agree with that)
but, in any case, that cannot be justified by the germ-form theory.
6 - Classes and the transition to a peer society
The text reads, in part 4:
"However, the restriction comes from the enclosure of the valorisation
logic, in which workers and capitalists took opposite functions, but which
forms a unique shell for both. Neither of them can escape, both of them have
function according to their 'character masks'." We already had that
discussion with Stefan Merten and Stefan Meretz. I do not agree with the
vision that reduces the workers struggle to the permanent wage bargaining,
inserted within the capitalistic logic.. This is the case most of the time,
but the history of capitalism has shown that in some circumstances that
struggle may become something different, trying to crack the "unique shell",
opposing the capitalistic logic, leaving the reality behind the "character
masks" to appear clearly: the naturally conservative nature of the ruling
classes and the revolutionary nature of the exploited class. It is not true
that the exploited cannot dream of anything else than being "well
exploited". That was already true before capitalism, as showed, for example,
by the slave revolts in antiquity with Spartacus or the peasants war in the
16th century in Germany (called in German: Erhebung des gemeinen Mannes: the
uprising of common men). Historical, social and material conditions were not
mature. But to day their maturation is getting over qualitative steps. Peer
production development in the most modern part of productive forces is a
manifestation of that. "Peer relationships" development is not not opposed
to the old dream of the exploited classes: it represents its first concrete
realization.
At this level, I find contradictory the position developed by the text
considering sterile any class struggle in a peer society's perspective, and
what Stefan Merten wrote a few moths ago, (see the thread "Labor
contradictions", 21dec08):
"Coming from the anarchist side I know there were movements which had
different things in mind than 'really existing socialism'. Whether those
movements had a chance to overcome capitalism? Let me say it this way: I
think (only) today the conditions are mature because the development of
productive forces got that far. Universalized digital copy (aka Internet)
being one of the technical artifacts here." Of course, I prefer this last
vision of things.
---
Well, that was a little bit long. Nevertheless, I hope it helps.
Raoul Victor
16jun08
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