P2P News, Issue 149 , November 20, 2006
Debate: P2P Reform or P2P Revolution?
A monitor of P2P developments; a continuous attempt to construct an emancipatory P2P theory; Preferred themes: peer production, peer governance, peer property. P2P News aims to stimulate the dialogue between the following social and cultural movements: the participatory movement, the `open' movement (open access, open sources); the Commons movement; the relational/participatory spirituality movement.
For subscriptions write to compiler and editor Michel Bauwens at michelsub2003@yahoo.com
P2P News is an emanation of the FOUNDATION FOR PEER TO PEER ALTERNATIVES
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Mindstormer: Michel Bauwens; Webmaster and server infrastructure: Brice Leblevennec; Blogmaster:James Burke; Podmaster: James Burke. P2P News Publisher: Michael Dubois. French-language pages: Remi Sussan; Thai pages: Jim Puntasen; Propaganda Chief: Jeff Petry
CONTENTS
THE FOUNDATION SITE
- For a good summary of the key ideas around P2P Theory, see the essay for CTheory, at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; in French: http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php/1._Le_peer_to_peer:_nouvelle_formation_sociale; Translations are available in Spanish, Portuguese, Thai.
- Extensive written interview by Richard Poynder at http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-blueprint-for-future.html and http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html ; Video interview at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
- A completely updated bound version of the P2P manuscript is available in PDF format, in print, for EURO 20. Send me an email with your postal address. Please support this initiative by ordering a copy.
- The main Wiki of the P2P Foundation is at http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Main_Page; our blog is at http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
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http://www.p2pfoundation.com/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&limit=150&hideminor=1&feed=rss
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During October, there has been a very lively debate, when I started commenting a critique by Dmytri Kleiner, who disagrees with the reformist approaches of Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler.
At the P2P Foundation, we strongly support what Lessig and Benkler are doing, though I personally also differ in the sense that I see peer to peer evolving to a new type of political economy, while they see it as operating within the present system.
So below, after a short recall of what the Free Software movement has found to be faulty with Creative Commons licensing approaches, we delve in the multi-threaded debate that took place at our blog.
http://www.metamute.org/en/node/5597
Benjamin Mako Hill recalls the reservations of many in the free software community towards the limitations of the Creative Commons approach.
"CC's inability to represent even a minimal attachment to any defined spirit of sharing is apparent each time someone approaches the CC board with a real problem and an interest in distributing their work under a licence that is more restrictive than the most restrictive CC licence but also less restrictive than the status quo. Had CC followed a model similar to that of free software, they would have drawn a line in the sand. `This is a Commons film. That film is not.' It would have sent a clear message that making a CC document is more difficult than convincing the CC board to add another licence to the CC website. By drawing this line, CC would be taking the risk that not as many individuals would be able or willing to use CC licences and that some injustices and imbalances might not be addressed by their project. Non-participation, even en masse, was a risk Richard Stallman was willing to take in the pursuit of more freedom for software. Ultimately, users of the GNU/Linux operating system created by the social movement he initiated have his stubbornness to thank for the consistent level of software freedom they enjoy. To be sure, many programmers and software companies are uncomfortable with the freedoms required by the FSD. Programmers are welcome to release applications under a licence that prohibits terrorists, fascists, or pacifists from using their software but their software won't be free. There are very good and thoughtfully considered reasons for each freedom in the FSD; there may also be very good and thoughtfully considered reasons for choosing not to use them. free software draws a line and leaves the final judgment calls up to the developers applying the licences and the users using the software.
Not every programmer has to write free software. Not every programmer does. But if coders want to call their project `free software' or `open source,' they must pass the bar set in the FSD and OSD. If a programmer wants their software included in Debian, listed in the free software Directory, or supported by SourceForge, free software's core freedoms must exist for their users. As a result, few coders write `almost free' software today while, proportionately, many more did two decades ago. With Creative Commons there is no bar and no essential freedom. As a social movement, CC has failed to take positions and set goals in the ways that made free software successful. By no means is CC a bad thing - this article is distributed under a CC licence. Every CC licence clearly describes a right that cannot be taken for granted in contemporary copyright. With licences that declare an author's intentions, the need for lawyers and permission-asking is significantly minimized. CC licences are easy to understand and easy to apply. But by failing to take any firm ethical position and draw any line in the sand, CC is a missed opportunity.
Because CC has the support of influential intellectuals, and commands high profile institutional support, the creators of CC have had an opportunity to define a movement for the production of content in what they think is a better, more `free', more `open', or more `common' manner. They have not done so. When asked at the World Summit on the Information Society about non-commercial use clauses, Lessig said that he thought they were overused and frequently a bad idea. For whatever reasons, three-quarters of CC-licenced works prohibit commercial use.3 Lessig provided licences and he hoped most creators' conservatism and fears would not get the better of them. Apparently, they did; artistic works under these licences are less accessible to a large number of creators. Perhaps a literary or musical work can be free and open and restrict commercial use. Perhaps it can't. Inspired by the freeand open source software movement, one of the finest collections of legal and philosophical minds critical of contemporary intellectual property policy had the opportunity, foresight, and institutional and grassroots support to weigh in on a set of important issues - on either side. They did not. To this day, no widely discussed - much less widely accepted - definition of free, open, or common content exists.
This article is not an attempt to criticise the presence of non-commercial use clauses, or any of the other clauses, in Creative Commons' licences. Instead it is a criticism of the fact that there are no defined criteria by which any clauses can be categorically blocked. It is a criticism of the fact that there is no base level of freedom that every Creative Commons licence must provide.
Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control - a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which `all rights reserved' (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy - a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation - once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally - have become endangered species.
CC's goal of escaping a world of `all rights reserved' is laudable, but they fail to describe what it will be replaced by except to say it will be better. While something slightly better is surely desirable, it might also be too little. Balance, compromise and moderation are certainly admirable and worthwhile goals; but undefined, unlimited, and unchecked, conservatism risks reducing CC's concept of balance toward little more than `slightly better than the status quo.'
While CC's licences are novel and effective tools, CC's `freedom of choice' is hardly new; it forms the foundation upon which copyright and all copyright licensing schemes work. It bears little resemblance, in scope, extent, or philosophical basis, to the Freedoms at the core of the free software movement. Lessig's cries for `free culture' are not accompanied by a description of what freedoms - of use, of distribution, or of modification - free culture will provide. CC has replaced what could have been a call for a world where essential rights are unreservable with the relatively hollow call for `some rights reserved.' If the free software example is representative of how things might have been, the total amount of freedom the consumers of creative works enjoy in the future may be the price paid for CC's popularity. It is not too late to discuss which rights should be unreservable in an era of free information. In fact, the rumblings of a movement to do just this have begun. Richard Stallman and others have withdrawn their support of Creative Commons and have expressed interest in supporting a `free culture' movement with defined goals."
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2053224
Dmytri Kleiner reviews the presentations by Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler at the Wizard of Os conference, and fundamentally faults their approaches.
"For free cultural to create a valuable common stock it must destroy the privilege of the producer to control the common stock, and for this common stock to increase the real material wealth of peer producers, the commons must include real property, not just information."
He explains this in greater detail:
"The questions must be asked: Is the "Creative Commons" really a commons? And in what way is the network really wealthy? Or more specifically, who is in a position to convert the use-value available in the "commons" into the exchange-value needed to acquire essential subsistence or accumulate wealth? Who are the real material beneficiaries of the wealth of the network?
The website of the Creative Commons makes the following statement about it's purpose:
"Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright -- all rights reserved -- and the public domain -- no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work -- a 'some rights reserved' copyright." [Creative Commons.]
The point of the above is clear, the Creative Commons, is to help "you" (the "Producer") to keep control of "your" work. The right of the "consumer" is not mentioned, neither is the division of "producer" and "consumer" disputed. The Creative "Commons" is thus really an Anti-Commons, serving to legitimise, rather than deny, Producer-control and serving to enforce, rather than do away with, the distinction between producer and consumer.
The producer is invited by the Creative "Commons" to chose the level of control they wish to apply to "their" work, including such choices as forbidding duplication, derivate works and "commercial" use of the work, specifically providing a framework then, for "producers" to deny "consumers" the right to either create use-value or material exchange-value of the "common" stock of value in the Creative "Commons" in their own cultural production.
This is more than evident by the fact that, even had the Beatles and Gloria Gaynor published their work within the framework of the creative commons, it would still be their choice and not the choice of DJ Dangermouse or Javier Patro, whether "The Grey Album" or "Jesus Christ: The Musical" should be allowed to exist.
The legal representatives of the Beatles and Gloria Gaynor could just as easily have used Creative Commons licences to enforce their control over the use of their work.
Thus, the very problem presented by Lawrence Lessig, the problem of Producer-control, is not in anyway solved by the presented solution, the Creative Commons, so long as the producer has the exclusive right to chose the level of freedom to grant the consumer, a right which Lessig has always maintained support for.
The Creative Commons mission of presenting for the producer the "freedom" to chose the level of restrictions their work is published under stands in distinct and essential contrast to the mission of advocates of commons-based production: The denial of the distinction of producers and consumers, and the denial of the right of Producer-control of the common stock."
Comments by Michel Bauwens:
This is an interesting critique, and shows some of the underlying differences between the free software license philosphy and the CC-options. However, I personally think that any move to build a commons-based free culture should be based on the voluntary decisions of the producers of content, and this is what CC-provides. Furthermore, its very uptake by millions has `in practice', given an incredible extension to free culture and the information commons, while the possibility to exclude commercial exploitation, does give the producer an added possibility to create an eventual income.
Sam Rose:
I agree with your conclusion Michel. I think that the only realistic way to expect some people to participate in building a Creative Commons is to give them the option to voluntarily contribute.
I believe that the decision should be up to the creator to control how their conent enters the "free common stock". I think that it is up to advocates of commons-based economies (like myself) to create models that make releasing to a free commons a desireable option for people. It almost appears that Kleiner is suggesting that we somehow outlaw, or change the law to prevent content producers from controlling how the conent they created is re-used. This doesn't seem necassary. And, it likely wouldn't plausibly happen in the US any way
The direction of Creative Commons licenses are a far more realistic track for creating real change. Real and useable models are emerging around the CC suite of licenses, and they are starting to become universally accepted.
For instance people can split all profits with "investors�? (even time investors) and put a timed release from CC BY-NC-SA License to BY-SA when expenses are recouped double or X years, which ever comes first. (Where X is 2 to 10 years).
And, there are models that allow for CC BY-SA (which allows for commercial re-use right away), that still allow people to create profit or wealth-creating enterprises around the content.
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2053224
In the same article that we discussed yesterday, D. Kleiner offers a critique of Benkler's theory of commons-based peer production being limited to the immaterial sphere.
He writes:
"Yochai Benkler's conception of Social Production, where a network of peers apply their labour to a common stock for mutual and individual benefit, certainly resonates with age-old proposed socialist modes of production, particularly in the libertarian socialist tendencies, where a class-less community of workers ("peers") produce collaboratively within a property-less ("commons-based") society. Clearly, even Marx would agree that the ideal of Communism was commons-based peer production. The novelty of Social Production as understood by Benkler is that the property in the commons is entirely non-rivalrous property: Intellectual property and network transferable or accessible resources. Property with virtually no reproduction costs. There is no denying that Benkler's wealthy network has creating astounding amounts of wealth. The use-value of this information commons is fantastic, as evident by the use-value of Free Software, of Wikipedia, of online communications and social networking tools, etc. However, if commons-based peer-production is limited exclusively to a commons made of digital property with virtual no reproduction costs then how can the use-value produced be translated into exchange-value? Something with no reproduction costs can have no exchange-value in a context of free exchange. Further, unless it can be converted into exchange-value, how can the peer producers be able to acquire the material needs for their own subsistence? The wealthy network exists within a context of a poor planet. The root of the problem of poverty does not lay in a lack of culture or information (though both are factors), but of direct exploitation of the producing class by the property owning classes. The source of poverty is not reproduction costs, but rather extracted economic rents, forcing the producers to accept less than the full product of their labour as their wage by denying them independent access to the means of production. So long as commons-based peer-production is applied narrowly to only an information commons, while the capitalist mode of production still dominates the production of material wealth, owners of material property, namely land and capital, will continue to capture the marginal wealth created as a result of the productivity of the information commons.
Whatever exchange value is derived from the information commons will always be captured by owners of real property, which lays outside the commons.
For Social Production to have any effect on general material wealth it has to operate within the context of a total system of goods and services, where the physical means of production and the virtual means of production are both available in the commons for peer production.
By establishing the idea of commons-based peer-production in the context of an information-only commons, Benkler is giving the peer-to-peer economy, or the competitive sector, yet anther way to create wealth for appropriation by the property privilege economy, or the monopoly sectors."
Commentary (Michel Bauwens):
I essentially agree with D. Kleiner, that it is reductive to restrict peer production to the immaterial sector.
However, his argument about sustainability of peer production may rest on a confusion. Peer production is essentially non-reciprocal or `doubly free': the freedom to contribute, and the freedom to use. Thus a direct connection between an income, in exchange for an engagement, is not peer production, but belongs to the exchange economy.
Nevertheless, peer production, already sustainable on a collective level because there is always a critical mass of collaborators, despite individuals being added or leaving the project, must be sustainable in some way. And the only way to make it collectively sustainable, is to introduce a basic income, where by definition there is no connection between work and output, as it is unconditional.
In my vision, this gives a society which has a core of non-reciprocal peer production, responsible for the most valuable cultural, intellectual and spiritual `use-value' creation, BUT, this needs to be coupled to a pluralistic economy, that consists of a mixture of a reinforced gift economies for services and surviving traditional economies, and a reformed, peer-informed, non-capitalist market.
But indeed, peer production need not be confined to the immaterial sphere.
It's expansion in the physical sphere is dependent on 3 factors:
1) the possibility of an abundance or a distribution of resources (this is already the case for computing resources)
2) the possibility of separating immaterial design processes from physical production; in such cases, the first process can be peer-produced; and the second can be much more distributed through P2P exchanges
3) the interlinking of physical, logical (licences), and digital resources, so that we can create physical commons of public goods that are protected from abuse (the tragedy of the commons).
But in any case, such extension can only be partial, as we will still need an exchange-based economy for scarce goods. But, such an exchange economy need not be capitalist.
I'm also particularly puzzled by Kleiner's argument that the
portion of the commons-created use value that can be monetized, can only be
appropriated by the owners of property. I have explained elsewhere that peer
production need not pass through vectoral capitalists, who own the vectors
of information, but that this can now be done by the organizers of the
participatory platforms themselves, the netarchical capitalists.
But there is no iron law that this must be so. Peer producers can, and perhaps
should, create their own vehicles to monetize the commonly created value.
So to conclude: it makes no sense to argue for a full extension of peer production to the physical sphere, because non-reciprocal producton is predicated on abudance. For scarce rival goods, we need different and appropropriate approaches.
Sam Rose:
I think that capitalist markets can co-exist with non-capitalist markets in ways that don't have the capitalist market crowding out all other markets. I think that once people have a way to deal with trust metrics, and with intangible value metrics, and network value metrics, that financial bottom lines will take their place among many other bottom lines, instead of being the most important.
This is part of the "pull" economy models. "Pull" models can handle hybrid networks of companies and peer-producers.
I see many simultaneous arrangements emerging.
As you mention:
"expansion in the physical sphere is dependent on 3 factors:
1) the possibility of an abundance or a distribution of resources (this is already the case for computing resources)
2) the possibility of separating immaterial design processes from physical production; in such cases, the first process can be peer-produced; and the second can be much more distributed through P2P exchanges
3) the interlinking of physical, logical (licences), and digital resources, so that we can create physical commons of public goods that are protected from abuse (the tragedy of the commons)."
Private companies will very likely emerge emerge to try and capitalize off of enthusiams that emerge around Open Design and online peer production of designs intended for physical production. Already, we see this in the rapid prototyping/personal fabrication spheres with businesses like http://emachineshop.com/ and suppliers like https://www.barebonespcb.com/!BB1.asp, and http://www.makezine.com/ This is a hobbyist area now mostly, but will increasingly move into smaller and larger business realms.
Plus, there are many exchanges that take place in networks, such as barters of knowledge and time, that can be measured and optimized in a p2p way to create new barter economies that inform and add value. People can voluntarily offer this data about themselves, and systems can be set up to monitor individual impact, and network value. These networks can consist of groups of peer producers, and organizations that partner with them. They can all be organized around a core commons of peer produced designs that are then built upon and produced to meet local and cutomized demands. These "pull" model networks are based primarily around trust/trusted relationships.
Michel Bauwens:
perhaps, we have some differences of semantics. I'm not sure there is such a thing as capitalist markets, I'd rather call them anti-markets. First, 1) because all sectors have private monopolies; 2) because these could not exist without extensive corporate welfare policies; 3) because it treats nature as an externality and 4) because it is based on the historical and continuing expropriation of the real producers to the benefit of centralized propietors. So together with Fernand Braudel, Manuel de Landa, and Kevin Carson, I will tend to call them anti-markets. Point 3 is now the most serious, since our very biosphere is under threat.
So we need reforms that avoid permanent accumulation and externalisation, i.e. we need true costing. Private companies are not wrong, but the system as a whole, which optimizes one subsystem at the expense of the whole is. Now, semantics aside, concepts like natural capitalism or living companies, or `real producer-based free markets' .. are fine with me.
Of course, we have to work within the existing framework and start the change from where we are now.
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=501
Michel Bauwens of the P2P foundation has made some comments regarding my views on free production as expressed in my recent review of the presentations of Lessig and Benkler at Wizards of OS 4, you can find the here
Michel begins wondering if my argument about the "sustainability of peer production may rest on a confusion" -- I must admit a little confusion as to where I say that peer-production is unsustainable? My specific argument is that commons-based peer production can not change the distribution of wealth between labour and capital so long as the commons is made up entirely of information-product with no reproduction cost.
In fact, commons-based peer-production is what I am advocating, only that the commons must include actual property. Bauwens claims that peer-production is non-reciprocal and that "direct connection between an income, in exchange for an engagement, is not peer production, but belongs to the exchange economy." The fact that it is non-reciprocal is falsified by the work of Benkler directly, as he shows that most contributers to free software feel that they receive more than the value of their contributions from the free software community. I guess this may be a different interpretation of the word `reciprocal'.
However, his contention that peer-production does not belong to the exchange economy is, in my mind, more problematic. Especially as food, for instances, and shelter, are clearly part of the exchange economy. How then are peer-producers intended to provide for their material substance or accumulate wealth? Bauwens trots out that old neoliberal stand-by, the "Basic Income," as a solution for material subsistence, but this is yet another mirage. Increasing income, without increasing production, only serves to increase prices. The structure of distribution of wealth between labour and property remains unchanged. Basic Income is nothing more than a welfare system without the disefficiency of means-testing. So long as the producer is denied independent access to the means of production, his entire product minus his subsistence costs will be captured by Property.
The problem is deeper than what is presented by Bauwens, you can not simply define peer-production as being outside of the exchange economy, you must provide an explanation as to how the use-value created by the peer-producers can be converted into exchange-value. My contention is that owners of scarce property will capture all of this exchange value. Apologies for a vulgarity, but calling for a "a mixture of a reinforced gift economies for services and surviving traditional economies, and a reformed, peer-informed, non-capitalist market" reminds me of the phrase "Throwing Shit Against the Wall and Seeing What Sticks." Bauwens makes the claim that the content of the commons for peer production can not be scarce, yet this is not true. There exist means by which scarce property can be communally managed. Specifically, I endorse those argued for by ARJ Turgot, Henry George , Silvio Gesell and others, where scarce property in the common stock is rented by it's possessor (or "taxed") at the price of it's marginal productivity, and this rent or tax is then divided among the peer-producers equally or used to fund further development of the commons, this is part of what Silvio Gesell refers to as "freiwirtschaft" (free economy) and is also a part of my work-in-progress proposal for achieving free production: Venture Communism.
Michel is "also particularly puzzled by Kleiner's argument that the portion of the commons-created use value that can be monetized, can only be appropriated by the owners of property." but then goes on to say that "Peer producers can, and perhaps should, create their own vehicles to monetize the commonly created value." Which is exactly my point, peer-producers can and should create such vehicles, but they can only do so to the degree that they can acquire physical capital, without physical capital they can not do so, and they can not acquire physical capital by applying their labour to an information-only commons. Therefore, those that do have physical capital will always capture the entire marginal productivity of the information-commons. The work of Bauwens and the P2P foundation seems very interesting, and I look forward to discussing these issues with Michel and his colleagues further, we seem to be working towards the same goal and therefor this could be a very productive discussion. Thank you Michel, further comments are very welcome.
Michel Bauwens responds:
URL = http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=502
Thanks for your valuable and thoughtful contribution to this debate. Here are some of my responses, which hopefully clarifies both the distinctions and convergence in our respective thinking about social change.
First of all, the `confusion' bit. I'm basically using the intersubjective typology of Alan Page Fiske, explained in his book, Structures of Social Life.
Next to discussing Authority Ranking and Market Pricing, he carefully distinguishes Equality Matching from Communal Shareholding. In the first mode, there's a tit for tat exchange, a clear expectation of return. Giving creates a moral debt with the receiver, who imperatively wants to restore the `equality' level in the relationship. There is clearly `exchange'. It was the dominant mode of the tribal times, the so-called gift economy.
Communal Shareholding is different. In CS, the resource is regarded as common, each freely gives according to his abilities and desire, and there is no concern as to the use of the resource by particular people, who are free to do so according to their need and desire.
Peer production, as evidenced in free software project and knowledge-producing projects, is such a latter dynamic. That doesn't mean there is no exchange, of course there is, as humans are by no means pure altruists, but the exchange is `general', rather than tit for tat. I'm not sure what Benkler says about this, but participants, by adding their own marginal contribution, get the whole benefit of the group project in exchange; on a individual basis, they get knowledge, relations, and reputation, but a large part of the process of passionate production is the kind of altruism whereby it is the giving that is the receiving. For laypersons, I often use the dynamic of the family as an example, where the raising of children, in its best and most disinterested moments, is precisely such a dynamic. You do not expect a direct return from your children, but rejoice from their own growth and realization.
Please note that this is rather precisely the difference between socialism and communism as noted by Marx. In the first, there is a definite relation between input/engagement, and the return that accrues to the worker; and the latter, where there is no longer such relation.
Because of the particular qualities of technology-enabled immaterial production, peer production has become the most logical and productive way to produce such goods.
And to return back to the original phrasing of confusing. Many analyst are indeed confusing EM and CS, by calling the internet a gift economy. It is a wrong characterization of what is essentially a non-reciprocal process.
The value of Benkler and Lessig is to have described and analyzed this dynamic. But, as Kleiner points out, they are basically liberals, who see this dynamic as an integral part of a larger capitalist market based economy, and it/they won't challenge it. Kleiner is right that immaterial peer production `by itself', does not change the distribution of wealth, and Benkler and Lessig do no seem to mind this; I think both Kleiner and myself find this rather important.
Nevertheless, I contend that peer production is indeed immanent within the current meta-system, but that it, at the same time, significantly transcends it as a post-capitalist mode. It can be partly monetized and integrated, but only partly, there is still that transcendent part, which represents a historically significant opportunity for systemic change. Key is to both expand peer production, and to combine it with non-capitalist cooperative production modes. In the meantime, it (we) co-exist with the world as it is, and the expansion of passionate peer production is still a fundamentally positive thing, and Benkler and Lessig are allies in the expansion of it, with a lot more power and influence, and potential for good, that either Kleiner or myself.
Peer production is based on either the abundance of resources, what Kleiner calls the absence of reproduction costs, or on the distribution of such resources. This is why it has enormous potential to expand significantly into physical production. To the degree that we can `distribute' more resources, it will expand. But that, I think we agree, is the difficult and tricky part, which has political and power-related dimensions.
But again, there is a fundamental difference between operating in the CS-mode of abundance, and operating with scarcity. When there is scarcity, there must be a concern with finitude, and there will be `precise' rather than generalized exchange. So indeed, there is a crucial difference between non-directly-remunerated peer production of immaterial goods, and those forms where input is related to income, and where the products are then `exchanged'. Not all cooperative production is non-reciprocal peer production. The thing is we need both. We need to expand CS modes, and we need to expand cooperative production. So Kleiner's physical interpretation of commons-based peer production is in my view probably cooperative production, where there is a crucial difference between collectivist modes, i.e. public property which belongs to no one in particular and is therefore also expropriatory from an individual point of view, and common property, where it still belongs to the individual (as in the GPL and CC licenses). I tend to favour the latter, but essentially, we have to let people in a pluralist economy free to choose.
In conclusion, where as I focus on non-reciprocal peer production, and want to defend its non-reciprocal nature, by stressing the absence of direct linkage with income; Kleiner focuses on cooperative production, where such linking is crucial. This is complementary. Indeed, part of the use value created by peer production, can be monetized by derivative services (derivative, because you can't sell the commons and it is the derived immaterially-based capital which you are offering), and for these derivative services, cooperative production modes are needed, which can be cooperatives, open capital modes, venture communism. I agree that such non-capitalist institutions are better than for-profit modes, and have already written about the expropriation processes (third enclosures), of the newly-fanged netarchical capitalist enterprises (the Web 2.0 companies), who both enable and exploit participation, and thereby indeed, capture surplus value to the detriment of the producers themselves.
Will there be some point in the future where we can consider the physical world to be infinite, because we either have learned to moderate or transform our desires, or have found a technical solution to our energy needs? Will a change in consciousness and attitude, and a change in property modes that artificially create scarcity, allow such non-reciprocal commonism to be dominant in even physical production? I'm doubtful and hesitant about this, and think that a pluralist economy is probably better than some kind of `totalitarian' or all-encompassing unique mode. But instead of having the answer, let's just have a process, whereby humanity can sort out this question freely.
Now the charge of `hitting the wall and seeing what sticks'. There are several arguments to consider. First, is there anyone who can claim to `know the answer'. I think the complexity of the current political economy precludes that. There is no outside vanguard that knows it all. Instead, I think the correct viewpoint is: let's look at what social movements are doing worldwide, and lets see how these diverse movements can reinforce each other, so that both non-reciprocal and cooperative production can advance. I believe that a significant core of observers and social change agents, have reached the cognitive/ethical point, where they are moving from a stress on deconstructive criticism, to reconstructive integration. So the formula of the P2P foundation is to "research, document, and promote peer to peer alternatives. Essentially first seeing and observing what people are doing. Observing this, we move to the ethical and practical conclusion that peer to peer is better in many areas, and therefore we aim to promote it and develop a praxis and strategy to do this. Rather than start top-down from an utopian point of view of what is better and `should exist', we start bottom-up from the existing pluralism of alternatives, and continuously try to interconnect, create dialogue, learn from each other, and strengthen each other. This might be confusing or frustrating to those who want definite and clear answers, but I think it is the only open and partipative avenue open to us in the current conjuncture.
And what I see is a vibrant and worldwide experimentation with non-capitalist or post-capitalist modes. Let's clear right away the other confusion between the market, where people exchange goods according to some fixed criteria, and capitalism, which is geared on endless accumulation, considers social and natural input as an infinite externality, and as a infinite sink for output; and is predicated on the expropriation of producers in favor of (de)centralized (but not distributed) proprietors. So we can have a `pluralist economy', with a core of non-reciprocal production of immaterial goods, with thriving gift economies, and reformed markets. I believe that the proponents of `natural capitalism' (David Korten, Paul Hawken, Hazel Henderson), of `living economies', of trust-based common property systems like Working Assets entpreneur Peter Barnes, are allies in the quest for reformed markets.This is where Kleiner and I probably agree that approaches such as Gesell are fundamental. Another part of the answer is non-scarcity based monetary reform as advocated by Bernard Lietaer et al.
Within this context, I disagree that the basic income is a neoliberal answer; there are different formats of basic income proposals, only some of which are neoliberal, and the emancipatory ones see it as sufficiently substantial; this would fundamentally change the power relationship in society, and while not destroying capitalism per se, would make peer production a lot larger and more sustainable, and it would also assist cooperative production and Kleiner's proposed Venture Communism. Of course peer production is already sustainable, but only on the collective level, what we need is to make it equally sustainable on the individual level. But pure non-reciprocal peer production is not adequate for the whole of society, though it can be significantly expanded to physical expansion. What the basic income would enable, is for individuals to periodically leave the exchange-based modes (cooperative or capitalist production for the market), for periodic participation in the non-reciprocal modes, much as people in feudal societies could enter the Church or the Sangha, whereby society supported one quarter of its population for non-material pursuits.. Peer production can be strengthened by various additions (such as a core of paid workers), but there is a definite crowding-out phenomenom between competing logics: if you systematically tie production and income, you are in either cooperative or capitalist production.
What we need is to think how to reach the tipping point whereby the subsystem can become the metasystem, at which point the market can be de-capitalized (i.e. we can get rid of the destructive accumulation part). We cannot do this by decree, but we can observe and combine and integrate the alternatives, until such time as the latter reaches the tipping point where it is potentially stronger than the former. The basic income movement, the complementary currency movements, the LETS practices, the fair trade movement, the open/free movements, the movements for participation, the commons-oriented movements, these are not just disjointed movements, but allies that should listen to each other.
My observation of history as a continuous combination of various intersubjective mode, but always with a core domination of one mode, brings me to this hypothesis of a pluralist economy with a core of peer production, whereby the other layers will be peer-informed (fair trade, multistakeholder governance, etc.. are peer-informed modes).
In the end though, there is a large and thriving commons movement, and what Kleiner and myself are attempting, is to put our research at the service of such a movement. Our respective contributions are best served I believe, by seeing them as complementary: while the P2P Foundation is focusing on non-reciprocal peer production, Kleiner is focusing on cooperative production. A full strategy for change needs both. Differences may also be a function of personality-type, preferring to see the glass half-full, my approach, or half-empty.
Sam Rose:
I would like to propose that, in fact all peer production is really a reciprocal exchange of either tangible, or intangible value of some type.
Even when someone volunteers, or when someone altruistically gives, or shares, they are reciprocated with some type of value. That value may be highly intangible. But, I believe that it is there. But, as Michel points out above, in Communal Shareholding, the reciprocation is not implied (there is no tangible "debt" owed). I think in Communal Shareholding, the reciprocation is actually built-in. Because, the community that sustains the Communally held resource would probably not allow everyone to take, and no one to give. But, CS works because people do give. I think that people give BECAUSE they WANT Communal Shareholding to work.
Actually, Clare W Graves's Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence theory has layed out some possible "values" that are reciprocated. For instance, perhaps someone gives altruistically because they feel they will be rewarded in "heaven"? Or, perhaps they share for the same reason?
So, there are emerging ways to create metrics to understand these intangible exchanges. This is something that I am working on with http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork and I invite others to participate in developing these concepts.
Also, Kleiner wrote: "...those that do have physical capital will always capture the entire marginal productivity of the information-commons. "
Yet, peer producers can also be Peer Investors, or Peer Funders. So, I am also working on creating and laying the ground work for people to be able to accomplish this.
See: http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/PeerInvest and http://barcamp.org/BarCampBank
I don't want to dismiss Michel's vision of Post-Capitalist evolution. Though, I think that we'll get to Post-Capitalist by devolving the power of the mechanisms that people used to sustain hierachical corporate/capitalist/beureaucratic societies during the industrial era. I think that what is emerging cannot be fully understood through the lenses of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, or other -isms, and their accompanying economic theories.
I think that what is emerging is something different. A system of networks, lateral connections (see: http://necsi.org/projects/yaneer/Civilization.html) and devolving power to every "node" in the network.
So, new peer production networks can employ solutions that are derived from strucutures that traditionally were recognized as capitalistic or socialistic solutions to the distribution of tangible and intangible value. The network is based upon devolving power as much as possible to all nodes in the network, increasing intput and output value to all network nodes, and creating ways of reinforcing trust and relationships, and sustaining a commons of resources among the network.
Kleiner:
Peer
producers can also be Peer Investors, or Peer Funders. So,
I am also working on creating and laying the ground work for people
to be able to accomplish this."
What you are suggesting is exactly the point that I am making. The arguement I am presenting is that not only can peer producers be peer investors and peer funders, but they must. For if they are not, then the entire exchange value they create will be appropriated by Property owners. And not only must they, but they must also invest and fund in an equity promoting, rather than privilge promoting way, especialy important is that not only information-capital but phyisical capital is also accumulated within the commons and available for peer-production.
The model that I am working on for peer production and investment is called Venture Communism, and Michel has added a page on the wiki for it, which has a link to the archive of drafts on the Transitioner website.
http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Venture_Commune
I think we agree on the need for Peer funding. But, I think we disagree on desired outcomes.
Although, I will state that I am happy to live in a world where Venture Communism exists, and I am happy to cooperate with venture communes, I don't see being part of a venture commune as a desireable future for myself.
For instance (quoting from the P2P Venture Commune wiki page): "A Share In The Venture Commune Can Only Be Acquired By Contributions Of Labour, and Not Property."
Increasingly, we see that "labor" is automated, by machines and computers, which are usually "property". So, Venture Communes are limited to only to those areas of human endeavor where actual human labor is required. Plus, in the venture commune, who controls how "labor" is measured? Who decides what a unit of "labor" is?
I understand that during the industrial era, that a focus on people controlling their own "labor" was very important. However, now, a focus on people controlling and sharing their own knowledge/information is arguably far more important.
The resources that people use to design and build on their shared knowledge bases are not always human labor-based. And in the future, the resources increasingly will not be human labor-based. They will be machine based. Often, the required input to acheive desired outputs is a combination of human and machine work. So, human labor can be pooled into a commons if desired by the people pooling it together. And, it can be valued and measured, but it will not be the only resource required for physical production of modern technology, nor is it the only resource required for production and distribution of almost anything anymore. What is also required are machines of many kinds. And, these machines are often made in part, or wholly by other machines. How do you measure the labor input of a machine, made by several other machines, made by several other humans with aid of machines.
What if I want to join a venture commune, but instead of contributing labor, i want to contribute a machine that does a job that used to be done by manual labor. What if I made this machine with the aid of several smaller fabrication machines, in such a fashion that my labor input was very small in comparison to the total labor output that we will see from the machine that I made throughout it's lifetime? Would my contribution of machine be seen as contributed "property", and thus disqualified as a contribution?
My idea is to allow people to invest money, property, or any other resource they see fit, and to co-create their own rules for how that wealth is distributed among them.
Sam Rose:
In the "industrial era," as now people have material needs for food and shelter, and these are not satisfied by information. The fact that the production process is increasingly capital intensive, in no way changes the fact that labour is the only real source of exchange value, as unlike land or capital, labour is the only productive input that needs to be compelled by exchange to bring its product to market.
Your future of machine-based abundance does not hold much hope for people who do not own property, who will command now greater share than they have now of capital yield.
Your entire point of view is sorely lacking any understanding on the nature of cause of poverty and inequality, neither of which are a product of scarcity or a lack of capital yield, but of unequal acess to the means of production.
As for your questions about "contibuting" a machine to a venture commune. If the commune needed or wanted the machine, they would buy it from you, but this would not grant you any membership in the commune.
In what way is your idea "to allow people to invest money, property, or any other resource they see fit" different from current Capitalist practices that have generated so much inequality, violence and poverty?
If this is your reaction to what I wrote, then it looks like I've failed to communicate effectively what I am talking about. Also, upon re-reading what we both wrote, I think I misunderstood the focus of the Venture Commune idea.
I now see that we are actually talking about two different solutions to two generally different local conditions.
The ideas that I am developing are focused on the local area that I am in, which is The United States (Michigan, actually, a part of the United States called "The Rust Belt." An area that used to provide an abundance of work in manufacturing, but now has the lowest employment in the entire US). My PeerInvest and OpenValueNetwork ideas are centered around devolving power and knowledge to people who are not in a condition of extreme proverty. The people with whom I am co-creating the frameworks that I talk about are people who are gainfully employed, but just disatisfied with the conditions of working for American (or American and/or western-type) governments and corporations. I think that we would find that venture communes would not appeal to many of these people (it may appeal to some, but they would be a small amount of the majority, I would guess).
Some of the big differences between what I am talking about with PeerInvest and OpenValueNtework , and the monopolistic corporate "capitalism" that we experience here in America right now are:
-A for-profit cooperative is the idea that I am proposing for PeerInvest (equally owned by all Cooperative members).
-"devolved
power": putting the decision making, design, and over all control in the
hands of many instead of a few who monopolize control. At least some fo the
violence that you speak of comes from people struggling over, and trying to
grab at this concentrated power. Like a game of "king of the hill".
-transparency/trust metrics/peer review: I think this is self explanatory. Do
we have this in our current capitalist system? No, we do not. And that is a
large reason why people get away with being liars, thieves, and crooks.
-Ways to measure the value of exchanges beyond money. Ways to aggregate and understand and share data about indexes beyond money.
-Access to open knowledge: creating a commons of knowledge, science, culture, design etc, opens up the building blocks that people need to craete their own means of production.
However, this is a set of ideas aimed at a different set of life conditions than what I think you are looking at with venture communes. If I think about the venture commune model in the context of people stricken with extreme poverty, it makes much more sense to me. It seems like a plausible way to solve basic problems for people who's conditions of existence taxes large amounts of labor out of them.
And, the extreme poverty problems, or life conditions that you are looking at are huge. One in six people, or roughly a little over a billion living in extreme poverty in the world right now. That is a lot. I can see, in the case of people in these conditions, how a social structure like venture communes could help them begin to build infrastructure, and give them a systematic way to collectively build access to the means of production.
As far as I can tell, the structure of the venture commune idea is close to being what we call a "Cooperative" in the US. In the US, there are "for profit" and "non profit" Cooperatives. Venture commune seems to have elements of both, as far as I can tell.
So, I now think that I understand the focus of venture communes, I don't dismiss them as a viable and applicable way to address poverty for a very large amoutntof people in the world.
Also, I think that some of the things that I talk about with OpenValueNetworks and PeerInvest ideas can compliment the venture commune concept.
Access to Open Knowledge, Open Design, Open Futures, Open Data,and Open Business models, are all part of the "means of production." I think that as people create and develop infrastructure in a collective way, that they can share knowledge and best practices, and data about tangible and intangible values of many types of local, regional, and global conditions. I think that people can use all of this open information and knowledge to collectively inform their decision making, and to figure out how to multiply value among the networks of people who connect themselves in the ways that we are talking about.
One last thing here. I still do not understand, under the http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Venture_Commune model, who decides what labor pledges, or labor is worth, or how labor is measured, or what stops people from figuring out ways to cheat the system. Who controls the system?
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=514
As I certainly understand the differences between commons-based peer production and a Maussian gift-economy, and other issues your raise, so it seems you are talking passed me, or around me, rather than engaging with specific arguments and criticisms I am making, so I will address only the areas that I think directly relate to our discussion.
Your example of the dynamics of the family is actually one I use quite often myself as well, however with a rather more critical conclusion. I agree that what I have described as the poverty of the network or the fact that free culture is bankrupt does have a quite similar dynamic to the poverty of mothers, and the terrible economic situation of children and their primary care-givers.
Rejoicing in the growth and realization of a child is quite rewarding, not only for the parents, but most people would consider children to be part of the wealth of the entire community.
However like the wealth of the information-commons, this wealth has only use-value, not exchange value, and thus the mother or primary care-giver is unable to provide for her or the child's material subsistence as a result of this value, and certainly she can not accumulate wealth in this way.
The mother is in this way subordinated to an outside "provider," either a husband or the State, and too-often finds herself powerless, isolated and living in poverty.
In this way, the peer-producers of free culture are indeed very similar to care-giving parents. There work creates use-value, but they can not capture any exchange value from their labour.
However, those that have Property can create such exchange value from this labour, by employing either the child or the information-product in production, and compensating such productive inputs with no more than their direct subsistence/reproduction costs.
Neither the mother, nor the free culture producer, has anyway to directly acquire Property from their contribution to the common wealth.
Your belief that "peer production is indeed immanent within the current meta-system, but that it, at the same time, significantly transcends it as a post-capitalist mode" is quaint, but ignores the Real Politik of power.
So long as peer-producers works on a common stock with no reproduction costs, all the surplus wealth created will be appropriated by Property, and applied towards using the economic and physical violence of the state to obliterate or co-opt any prospect of a change in the mode of production.
Whatever portion of his product the worker allows property to appropriate, will return in the form of his own forced subjugation.
I absolutely agree with your statement "in the meantime, it (we) co-exist with the world as it is, and the expansion of passionate peer production is still a fundamentally positive thing." As a parent, free software user and developer and producer of free culture, I strongly endorse the creation of communal use-value.
However, this does not blind me to the way that community-created value is captured by Property, so I absolutely disagree that therefore "Benkler and Lessig are allies in the expansion of it, with a lot more power and influence, and potential for good, that either Kleiner or myself."
Benkler and Lessig are the vanguard of Capital, whatever part of the free culture movement Property will not simply obliterate, law professors and other members of the liberal capitalist intellectual elite will simply co-opt and defuse of any genuinely revolutionary content.
The fact that they have "a lot more power and influence" is exactly because there is no "potential for good" in their work, at least not any idea of "good" than can be seen as a threat to the dominant mode of production and resulting wealth accumulation model.
You also continue to insist that peer-production is based on abundance and can not be applied to a commons of scarce resources, when I have already explained that there are models for common ownership of scarce resources, listing Georgist/Gesselian Rent-Sharing models as my preferred methods, and you seem to be favourable to this -- so I am unclear on why you continue to argue as if the non-rivalrous basis of the commons is an agreed upon fact, when in fact it is the basis of my disagreement with both you and Benkler.
I also strongly disagree in your idea that regarding property-enforcement "we have to let people in a pluralist economy free to choose."
Please consider if you would you say that in slave society! Should we leave slave owners free to "choose" the degree of freedom to give their slaves?
The fact is, which you (and also Sam Rose in his comment to your first Blog post) seem to want to ignore is that it is Property that violates freedom, not its absence.
By nature, I am already free to use what ever information-products I have perceived or have access to, no force or violation of freedom is needed to achieve this. It is those that want to stop me from using "their" information-products that require invasive force to do so, specifically the force of State violence enforcing their State-granted "Copyright."
You can not have the "freedom to chose" the freedom of others, unless you have already violated it.
As to your question whether there is "anyone who can claim to `know the answer'" -- this is nothing other than a banality, you are simply trying to avoid making a prescriptive statement, which was exactly the basis of my "seeing what sticks" criticism, that your positive suggestions amount to no more than a random string of buzzwords unconnected to the actual topic being discussed, and are not only not prescriptive, but actually neither predictive nor actionable either.
I can not say whether or not anyone can claim to "know the answer," but in the context of a discussion, at least an answer can b