RE: [ox-en] Project / Book

Hi everyone

If we want to have two books - one by P2PF and one by [ox] on peer
production then they have to be as different as possible, otherwise it will
be hard to find a publisher. One of the things you are expected to do when
submitting a proposal is outline other books on the same topic and why your
proposal is interesting / different / needed. If there are two projects
which sound very similar it is likely to cause a lot of publishers some
pause (all the more so when dealing with people who would also like their
content to be freely available online).

From what I know of Athina et al.'s project it is aimed at the university
market, specifically communication and media and internet courses. So an
[ox] book should ideally chart a different course. I have been thinking that
the [ox] content as I understand it is (to be really crude and simple):

1. For a variety of historical and economic reasons (growing importance of
ICT in capitalism, growing independence of scientists/hackers from corporate
culture, spread of the Internet as a distribution medium, crisis #2,458 of
capitalism...) there is now a new form where as Raoul said "people are
dealing with free/gratis products, in conditions (relatively) much closer to
abundance". Here is how it works in terms of production of products,
governance of projects and so on. These are the benefits, these are the
problems. And not only that: there are even examples of people doing this
with hardware. These are the benefits, these are the problems.

2. A future post-capitalist society should be organised along the lines of
peer production: and here is how it could work (peer production governance
commons villages pools etc etc).

And that's it, in essence. Once again: I'm simplifying to the extreme.
What's missing, in my view, is how you get, practically, from 1 to 2. And a
concerted and serious effort to answering this question is what would
distinguish a more activist, engaged, political book from a more academic
one which seeks to map out the territory. 

What I'm trying to say also is that while I don't believe there should be
one narrative like StefanMn said I think there should be a "road map" so
that contributions are useful to the argument. 

Cheers

Mathieu

P

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Raoul
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 8:03 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: 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


_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: [email protected]

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: [email protected]