Re: [ox-en] Project / Book
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:54:42 +0200
Hi Mathieu and all!
Thanks for this initiative. I need to be a bit brief here because I
have to run.
Last week (7 days ago) Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
The recent posts about the "social economy" have led me to consider some issues that I have not seen discussed on [ox] or P2PF for that matter.
[...]
Thanks for these very good questions which all deserve their own
thread.
In general I have been thinking about what [ox] is for. My short answer: [ox] aims to disseminate the idea that peer production is a valid alternative to capitalism. That's why the points above need to be addressed, at some point.
Yes.
There has been some conflict on the lists about the differing approaches of [ox] and P2PF. Now, I think the theoretical tools of "political economy" or the marxist tradition are highly appropriate for discussing capitalism (I don't necessarily subscribe to this tradition's received conclusions - capitalism will collapse because of its contradictions, certain classes have a revolutionary role, etc.). In any cases references to marxism also raise issues.
Well, personally I don't subscribe to any Marxist current [1]_. What I
do subscribe to, however, is to the scientific foundation laid by Marx
when analyzing capitalism. Indeed I think the set of tools provided by
Marx is very well suited to understand capitalism and generally
economic systems based on abstract exchange. Marx and materialism also
provides very useful thoughts to understand how history proceeds.
Whether Marx is useful to understand a peer production based society I
don't know. This is the next era in human history and insofar we
probably need new tools to understand this. In fact to provide such a
set of tools I see as one of [ox]'s goals - and I think we have lots
to give already.
.. [1] If at all then to the German Krisis group but I don't think
they describe themselves as Marxists. In fact they criticize
Marxists a lot ;-) .
So I think it is crucially important for [ox] to maintain its engagement with "fellow travellers" such as Michel Bauwens / P2PF who can bring interesting perspectives to bear.
Well, personally I did a lot to heal the wounds. On [p2p-research]
Michel decided to take another two or three months before starting a
reconciliation. I have to accept this.
As far as the website goes, I think a consensus is emerging as to what it could be like.
Yes. I think the details could be done on [pox]. I already started to
investigate the technical necessities. Questions of content could be
brought back here when they arise.
So, I have also been thinking about the book project.
Thanks for your suggestions. In fact they are breaking kind of a
deadlock in my mind. I participated in the book project behind the
scenes and did not want to drop it immediately. But now it seems a
reconciliation will take too much time to wait for it. So from this
perspective it is probably better to have an [ox] book project
independent of P2P-F.
On the other hand - let's face it - though there are lots of
commonalities there are also severe differences in perspectives
between P2P-F and [ox] - although I think the differences are
overemphasized lately. From my perspective - but IMHO more generally
from a Marx based perspective - there are severe contradictions and
deficiencies in the P2P-F position. And IMHO the money related parts
of the position are quite anti-emancipatory and some are even
dangerous.
Well, Michel kicked me out of his book project because he has problems
with my perspective as some positions being dangerous. In a way this
is also a relieve for me because I'm not running into danger to be
made responsible for things I can not be responsible for.
So, yes: Let's work on an [ox] book :-) !
5 days ago Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
> From another perspective [b], it would make sense - the books seen as complementary rather than competing, and though there would inevitably be a bit of overlap, this could be minimised with some collaboration between projects.
In fact from the suggestion I knew from Michel and the suggestions you
are making I think the overlap will be small. Yes, let's see this as
complementary.
There has apparently been some "behind the scenes" action about this. Sorry if what follows is too blatant, I think the benefits of open discussion are paramount.
I suggested an open discussion from the start but this suggestion was
not followed :-( .
I have come up with a suggestion for possible chapters, i.e. this is what a book exploring the issue - a marxist-theoretical analysis of peer production as an alternative to capitalism - should have at a minimum. It is of course incomplete, to be used as a base for discussion.
Thanks for the list. I'll record it and comment it soon.
Grüße
Stefan
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de