Re: Fwd: [ox-en] Talk on "Social economy or peer production? - On the relationship of

Hi Franz, Andreas, Jonas, all!

4 days ago Franz Nahrada wrote:
> I forward your letter to Andreas Exner and others heavily involved in the=20
> Solidarity Economy.

Thanks :-) .

@Andreas: I read some of your CONTRASTE articles. In fact I often like
them most of all articles :-) .

> SOCIAL ECONOMY:  This refers to everything that adresses poverty and
> raises opportunity, many times its the term for the activities of NGOs
> performing activities of the social state and act as employers and service
> providers. Thats very much within the "state quota" of indirectly financed
> activities.

  4 days ago Andreas Exner wrote:
  > Personally, I also think, that social economy has only a very limited potential
  > since most of the time, people understand former state-apparatuses in the
  > field of social welfare - no privatized (being non-profit or profit) - as "social
  > eonomy".

This matches my opinion: Social economy addresses poverty issues and
as such is trying to compensate the failures of capitalism.

If capitalism would keep its promise then social economy would be
superfluous. This is a major difference to peer production.

> SOLIDARITY ECONOMY  This is the only transformative concept, it aims=20
> to establish productive and supportive activities between actors,
> especially
> in a region, that empower and enable as many players as possible to take
> over
> functions in an economic network of relations which could be monetary or
> nonmonetary.

  2 days ago Jonas Bertucci wrote:
  > So, in my point of view, the solidarity economy has a huge potencial because
  > it points to a political project (in which I believe and try to work for),
  > that can only be developed if there are mecanisms of participation and
  > collective taking of decisions, in a large sense, not only in restricted and
  > isolate organizations or communities

You both highlight the empowering and participation.

I'd agree that on first glance this is a commonality with peer
production. However, in peer production this empowering and
participation (aka internal openness) is a precondition for the whole
process while in solidarity economy it's a political goal. To me this
is a major difference.

But I'd also agree that this empowering and participation is a goal
which is independent of capitalism or rather opposed to capitalism
because these types of openness are not part of capitalism: If you
empower people to produce the same as you then you destroy your own
business. And participation / internal openness is clearly opposed to
business secrets.

  4 days ago Andreas Exner wrote:
  > Solidarity economy on the other hand is of course the most promising
  > approach of all I know. However, I think, that it's potentials only come really
  > true, if it starts to produce commons.

If I get you right then you would say that it is only transformative
if it embraces the virtues of peer production. But then it would
actually be a certain form of peer production. Right?


What puzzles me in the term "solidarity economy" is the word
"solidarity". Solidarity to me is a concept which is deeply rooted in
capitalism or may be in any society / situation where antagonistic
forces fight for dominance. I associate this warm feeling in the belly
when you act in solidarity.

In peer production on the other hand I do not at all at all see this warm
feeling in the belly. Solidarity is just not a topic there. Well, if
it comes to software patents then there is some solidarity...

As you can see I'm really puzzled here ;-) . May be you can help me
out on this.

> You should know that the people above are involved in the creation of
> free software tools to map solidarity economy - and these are just some
> of them.

Well, I think this is an example of Free Software being interesting
for many users. Solidarity economy is just one example - though I'd
agree that it looks more "natural" to use Free Software for solidarity
economy than for a bank.

4 days ago Andreas Exner wrote:
> Actually, as far as I got to know, in France no clear and/or unambigous
> distinction between social and solidarity economy has been drawn.

That is my impression also. For my talk I need at least some working
definition, however.

Also I have a question to you. During my research I found this `social
enterprise compass`_ quoted in Wikipedia but actually taken from
somewhere else. Did you know this? Do you find it useful? I thought it
would be a good idea to locate Free Software (for the sake of this
conference but really: peer production) on this compass.

.. _social enterprise compass: http://www.equal-xop.org/www_main.php?page_id=1271


						Grüße

						Stefan

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