Re: [ox-en] There is no such thing like "peer money"
- From: Raoul <raoulv club-internet.fr>
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:46:58 +0100
Hi Michel,
I had written : "What do you mean by 'corporate commons'?"
You answered (11jan09):
"As free software moves from the margins to center stage, more and more
corporations adapt to the model, and pay programmers to do such parts of the
free software as needed for themselves, but they use the open licenses.
So these corporations compete, but also collaborate through the common
platform of free software.
For Linux, 75% of programmers are now paid by such corporations, which means
they have an increasing influence over the direction of development, have a
seat in the Foundations etc; (...)
The reality of the various projects is then strongly influenced by the
governance model,
which can be controlled primarily by a community-oriented foundation, or by
a corporate-oriented format."
Some remarks about the existence of "hybrid forms" and about the
dynamics of these forms.
The reality you describe is a hybrid social form of production,
borrowing aspects from both systems, capitalism and P2P, or peer
production. Using your definition of peer production (free and open
input; free volunteering production; universally available output), one
can say that there are hybrid aspects at the three moments of the
process: 1. input, raw material is partly capitalistic as the computers,
the offices, etc. are privately owned by the corporations (as IBM), but,
for software production, free/open software is also a "raw material";
2. production is not based on free volunteering, but some aspects of the
production are new, non capitalistic, as the cooperation between
programmers of antagonistic corporations; 3. the output can be oriented
by corporations more towards their own needs (commercial management
software, for example) but the output remains universally available.
The "social networking" also generates hybrid forms. If you take MySpace
or YouTube: 1. the input is partly capitalistic (the infrastructures and
the financing by advertising), but for the rest most of the input
(videos, blogs, etc.) are free and open; 2. the production process is
based partially on capitalist wage relations for the infrastructure
management, but the rest is based on free volunteering; 3. the output is
supposed to be universally available but corporations impose limits and
try to extend these limits, provoking open conflicts with
users/producers. (See for example:
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2008/12/31/why-i-am-deleting-my-myspace-account-and-you-should-too/)
Hybrid forms also developed in the past transitions between modes of
production. Between the 6th and the 10h century, many landlords,
including the Church, had simultaneously slaves and serfs (or "coloni"
which were the first form of serfs). Between the 12th century and the
19th century many hybrid forms developed especially in the cities where
capitalism developed within feudal relationships.
The evolution of these forms has been often slow, with periods of
acceleration but also periods of recession. The example of the Arsenal
of Venice, which in the early 16th century employed some 16,000 people
and could produce almost a ship per day using production-lines,
something not seen again after until the industrial revolution,
illustrates how non-linear this evolution can be.
The dynamic of that evolution depends on many factors. The evolution of
technologies is one of them, but it is far from explaining everything,
as the Venetian Arsenal example shows. Here the social consciousness,
the social and political conflicts play a crucial role. The European
wars of religion after the 16th century and the bourgeois revolutions
where indirect or direct expressions of the conflict between the old
feudal logic and the raising capitalistic one.
In the conflict you refer to about the management of Free/open software
foundations, between "community-oriented" and "corporate-oriented"
formats, we are witnessing the same kind of conflict between the old
logic and the new. Its dynamic depends and will depend not only on
material-technological realities but also on social and "political"
struggles, at micro and macro scales. And things should become harsher
when peer production will pretend to extend to the realm of material
production.
You also wrote:
"This is inevitable, as no free software project can survive in the long run
without a core of developers being paid."
Yes. As long as the material means of production (and thus the material
means of consumption) remain under the capitalist logic governance, the
peer production realities will be in a way or another limited.
(At a certain level, the problems to finance the 4th Oekonux Conference,
or your personal difficulties to keep working the P2P Foundation while
being obliged to work in order too feed your family are also
materializations of that reality).
The development of the present economic crisis should make more visible
at a social scale the need to overcome the dominant logic. The
"invisible hand" is paralyzing an increasing share of the material means
of production while workers are made redundant and unsatisfied material
needs explode. Let's hope that this evidence will help to develop the
consciousness of the urgency to extend peer production principles to the
material sphere.
Raoul Victor
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