Re: [ox-en] Project / Book

Hi Raoul, Mathieu, George, all!

BTW: There is no more behind the scenes communication. And for the
journal we now have an own mailing list.

3 weeks (24 days) ago Raoul wrote:
> 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.

That was indeed the idea. But Michel kicked me out of this project as
he said on public mailing lists without even telling me before. I'm
sorry, but this is not only a showstopper from Michel but also from
me.

> Does that mean that 
> the other one ("a broad based academic resource") would be realized by 
> P2PF with Athina and Phoebe? 

No idea and not my business.

> 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.

Ok, ok, it was just an idea ;-) .

2 weeks (19 days) ago Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
> 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).

Michel already has a long list of authors he wants to include. My
suggestions on the other hand have been outright rejected. Well, I
knew not one of the proposed authors so I think the overlap with an
Oekonux book will be minimal in any case.

> 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.

Sometimes it's good to simplify things :-) .

> 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. 

Well, it would be also an option to have a first book which focusses
on the analysis. In any case in this sector we have far more answers
than in what I see as the drawing board of a future society. It is
also thinkable that we start with a first book and some years down the
road add a second book with the drawing board topics - when we know
more about this.

What do you think?

2 weeks (16 days) ago George N Dafermos wrote:
> The popular vs. academic style question is also important, as it is
> concerned with the goals of this effort. Independently of our
> personal preferences, I reckon the question of form depends on the
> 'organisation of contributions'. Meaning: if it's decided to invite
> contributions from people like Benkler, the outcome will obviously
> be academic. (Not that there is anything wrong with academic works
> per se or Benkler). I think this is something we should consider. On
> the other hand, I suppose we could ask contributing authors -
> regardless of whether their contributions are to be invited directly
> or solicited through an open call for chapters - to keep in mind
> that the purpose is to expose their texts to as many people outside
> of the academia as possible, and so advise them, for instance, to
> abstain from long lists of references, and so forth.

I agree that this is a crucial question. We need to be very careful
here and first of all make up our mind of what we want. Well, does
anyone want an academic book mainly addressing academia?


Well, in any case at the moment there seems not to be enough energy to
really make this happen. What would be needed would be someone who is
ready to work as a maintainer for the book project and drive this
project. Anyone ready?

On the other hand the journal project just took off and may be we can
just wait a bit for first results and then decide on how to carry on
with the book.


						Grüße

						Stefan
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