Re: [ox-en] Project / Book

Hi Mathieu, Andreas, StefanMz, Manu, all!

I moved the Wiki page about the book initiative from the Oekonux-also
area to the Oekonux-only area. You now will find it at

	http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/Oekonux/Project/Book

So this is now really an initiative for an Oekonux book. I also added
important things from this thread already.

Here are some thoughts about such a book.

* Separate articles or a big narrative?

  Mathieu outlined a number of chapters containing separate articles.
  This is clearly an option. It also certainly reflects the way the
  project works and patchworked thinking like this is probably quite
  wide-spread.

  But wouldn't it also be an option to have a big narrative? A single,
  big text which starts with the beginnings and ends with an end?
  Probably such a book would be more work. It is harder to write a
  single text than to write a couple - especially if it is written by
  several authors. But wouldn't this be nice?

* Goals of a book

  Similar to the website initiative I would like to ask for the goals
  of such a book. Well, 

  last week (7 days ago) Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
  > 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.

  So the book should make this clear - this is the short answer to the
  goal question.

  However, this can be spelled out in various ways. Some suggestions:

  * Basic (Oekonux) theory about peer production

  * Outlining the potential of peer production on a theoretical basis

  * Studies of existing peer production projects

  * Relationship of peer production to classical social movements

  * Addressing open questions of the generalization of peer production

  * ...

  You could imagine a book about a single suggestion or a mixture.
  More suggestions?

* Intended audience

  Similarly I'd also would like to ask for the intended audience.
  There are already some suggestions about the audience:

    Scientific book
    ---------------

    A book, especially if it is a `conference proceedings`_ book, could
    have its main audience in academia.

    A scientific book has a quite limited audience and by some is seen as
    a waste of time.

    Also if we want to reach academia we can probably use the existing
    connections to existing academia institutions.

    Public book
    -----------

    Such a book would have its main audience in the general public such as

    * bookstores,

    * media people,

    * journalists.

    -- http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/Oekonux/Project/Book#audience-variants

  Personally I'd strongly prefer a book for the general public. If
  academics read it that's fine but in this case more average persons
  are more important to me.

  Such a decision would also have consequences for the structure of
  the book and also the language used. It should be not too
  complicated then - or rather: things need to be explained more.

Last week (7 days ago) Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
> 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 so much for this.

> Following my readings of people in and around [ox] I also suggest
> possible authors, as if someone has - for example - published a book
> on a relevant topic it sort of makes sense to have them involved. At
> the same time in all cases several authors could be involved, or the
> issues can be discussed onlist, hence the use of "Oekonux" as an
> author in all cases.

This raises the question whether we want to have only authors which
have some relationship with Oekonux - however this is defined - or
also authors who have nothing to do with Oekonux.

May be it could be said this way: Each author must at least agree that
the fundamental ideas of Oekonux are at least promising. This
automatically applies to all Oekonux participants because otherwise
they would not be here ;-) .

> PEER PRODUCTION AND CAPITALISM

Hah - suggestions for titles :-) . What about something more dramatic
like

    Peer Production: The missing link from capitalism to a new era

> by OEKONUX

I think we need to be a bit careful here. Oekonux has no "party line"
so we need to qualify "by Oekonux" a bit. Something like "written by
authors in and around the Oekonux Project" in some prominent place
would do.

> Chapter 1: Introduction
> 
> Content: Short general introduction to book and chapters. Peer
> production as already existing challenge to capital; but it is also
> coopted by capital (free content serves to justify the consumption
> of hardware for example). Need to consider free software / free
> hardware not just as challenge to copyright but as social /
> production process with broader potential.

Well, this topic alone could fill half of a book.

> Chapter 2: Peer production as a germ form
> 
> Content: Explanation of free software and peer production, concept
> of "Selbstentfaltung".

If StefanMz explains Selbstentfaltung right then this takes another
quarter of a book.

> Chapter 3: Peer production and the Marxist tradition
> 
> Content: How does peer production relate to different strands of
> marxist theory today - German tradition (?), Althusser (?),
> Callinicos (?), Harvey (?), Negri/Tronti (?), etc.

What would be the use to explicitly compare it with Marxist
traditions? I could imagine to outline the commonalities and
differences with other, classical movements.

IMHO the result of such a chapter needs to be that though the goals
are similar the structure of the peer production movement is very
different from classical political / social movements. In fact I think
this is one of the most important messages at all because then
hopefully more people interested in emancipation will start to see the
world with new eyes.

> Chapter 4: Peer production and labour
> 
> Content: Hacking as reaction to boredom, "radical role of hackers in
> preventing labour market from being sole determinant of allocation
> of programming resource in society".

Well, that is a looong story ;-) . Though certainly interesting to
tell.

> Chapter 5: Peer production and growth
> 
> Content: Against Left and Right "green capitalism" - need to
> consider relationship of peer production to productivity and growth.
> 
> Author: Oekonux / I could contribute some ideas to this.

May be this could also be subsumed under a "peer production and
classical movements".

> Chapter 6: Challenges of contemporary hardware projects
> 
> Content: Overview of current projects that exist today that apply peer production principles.
> 
> Author: ?? / Oekonux
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter 7: A complete social model
> 
> Content: How could a peer production society work - Siefkes' weighed contributions, d-pool, stigmergic, etc. Other models?
> 
> Author: Christian Siefkes / Oekonux

Well, though I value Christian very much I think his concept is
fundamentally flawed. As far as I can see there are some more people
who think this way.

> Chapter 8: Alternative to Oekonux
> 
> Content: There has been some disagreement with friends in P2P about
> issues such as the role of money and markets in a non-alienated way.
> Rather than excommunicating those we disagree with we should have a
> dialogue with them. In fact this chapter could be in the form of a
> dialogue between the two perspectives. This would make the book more
> self-critical, more reflexive and help it to breathe a bit. 

Well, it depends. If all of the book talks of Selbstentfaltung and a
post-capitalist era and then the final chapter says "No, alienation
and capitalism are just fine" then it makes little sense to me.
Especially if the P2P Foundation is writing a whole book with exactly
this message then I don't think it needs to be repeated in an Oekonux
book.

This doesn't mean that Michel needs to be excluded. However, a
contribution from him or others from the P2P Foundation should match
the rest of the book - which at least Michel can easily provide.

> Other possible chapters could deal with:
> 
> - expertise / elitism 
> 
> - role of "others", such as women in peer production (not sure about that - maybe just needs to be acknowledged in introduction that there can be barriers to entry and that these should be fought wherever applicable)
> 
> - art

Some more:

* Governance / maintainership

* Structure of collaboration

* Relationship of technical and social means of production

* Volunteers and paid work

* The political economy of digital things (using mainly marxist
  theory)

  Author: Andreas Wittel

> Finally, I did not put in a chapter on organisation in peer
> production or "peer governance" which I would be qualified to write
> as this does not directly relate to capital - I'm not against it,
> just thought it was a bit outside.

See above. I think the question of governance is very crucial -
especially because it is structured very differently both from
capitalism and from standard anarchist ideas.

> Some of these chapters are already written in some sense (2, 4, 7
> and 8 if you count the list discussions). Others would need to find
> primary authors. What do people think? 

Well, I think there are lots and lots of ideas which make sense for a
book. In fact I think it is so much that we need to set some
priorities. And if such a book works once then it can work twice -
right?

6 days ago Stefan Meretz wrote:
> A comprehensive text about Selbstentfaltung is missing. I could 
> contribute. This text would evaluate the role of the individual in peer 
> production.

That would be really great.

> I could contribute some ideas from a more general perspective: What is a 
> society and how does it work? What is a "social model"? How can we 
> determine functions of a society?

Would be great again.

2 days ago emmanuel@ecorev org wrote:
> Quickly : marxism + "décroissance" + peer production = André Gorz.
[...]
> His last article for ecoRev' : in
> french<http://ecorev.org/spip.php?article641>or in
> spanish <http://ecorev.org/spip.php?article640>.

I can't read Roman languages but if it is a good article would there
be any chance to include such an article?


						Grüße

						Stefan
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