Re: [ox-en] Project / Book

Hi Mathieu, Christian, Stefans and all,

On 29may09, Mathieu wrote:
> I suppose the central question is, would it be a good idea to have two books - one a broad-based academic resource on peer-to-peer production, governance and - ahem - property (@Athina and Phoebe: I would def. try to get Yochai Benkler - Coases Penguin or whatever - foundational author...) another a shorter and more strictly marxist-political, more engaged and focused analysis of peer production? 
Well, I am not sure things are very clear, at least in my mind, about 
the book. As you say: "There has apparently been some "behind the 
scenes" action about this." Originally I thought it was going to be 
something made together with P2PF. Now it seems there are two projects. 
One of them being a specific OX book, which would tend to be "more 
engaged and focused analysis of peer production". Does that mean that 
the other one ("a broad based academic resource") would be realized by 
P2PF with Athina and Phoebe? 
> >From one perspective [a], this might seem as too much, as "crowding the market" with similar products. Fair enough.
> >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.
> >From the strict perspective of what would be best for [ox], it seems clear to me that [b] would make sense, but what do I know - I'm only new right? ;-)
>
> I wonder what the other potential authors I mentioned - Stefan Mn, Johan S, Christian S, think about this? Also Raoul V, if he is reading, would obviously have something to contribute.
Sorry for being absent so long in the list.
I think an Oekonux book is a good idea. It has been raised several times 
in the past, but never got underway. I hope this time things will go 
till the end, even if it may take time.

Stefan Merten wrote (3jun09):

> > * 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?
>   
Like Christian Siefkes, I do not think this is possible or even 
desirable. Oekonux is a forum and not a political group or party. As 
Merten himself says: "Oekonux has no "party line"" (3jun09). Differences 
between participants are often important, even on important questions, 
as for example on the future possible "social model", see the 
discussions about Christian's model, especially with S.Merten. Also 
questions as the inevitability/possibility of a "violent social 
revolution" in order to expand a PP based society are from a general 
agreement between participants.

We can have for some chapters a unique text which corresponds more or 
less to a common agreement and two or more texts in the chapters where 
differences are too important. It may be stimulative for the reader.

>> 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.

As others, Christian, Stefans, I also think that such a chapter would be 
necessary, even if we know that, as for others questions, here it is 
really "work in progress". The Dafermos' presentation at the OX 4 
conference and Stefan Merten comments on it are interesting at that level.
This is a question which comes very soon when having a discussion on how 
could a post-capitalist society be. The "political" (governance) 
question is crucial.
I  know we can not be very precise at that level. But at least we can 
draw the lessons from the present Peer Production experience. It is a 
good laboratory because people are dealing with free/gratis products, in 
conditions (relatively) much closer to abundance.

Raoul


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