Re: [ox-en] Re: Christian Siefkes * Peer Production Everywhere

Hi Stefan, all,

Stefan Merten wrote:
> 1 minutes ago Stefan Merten wrote:
>> Below is the documentation from Christian's talk. The images are on
>> the website.
> 
> Here are some comments. I leave those things out which I replied to in
> other instances already.
[...]
>> *(3) Peer production is based on commons and possession (not on
>> property).* *Commons* such as free software and open knowledge play an
>> important role as input or output (or both) of peer projects.
>>
>> Where things are not commons, they matter as *possession* (something that
>> can be *used*), not as *property* (something that can be *sold*).
> 
> The "not commons" is probably meant as "commons".

No I meant indeed that which is *not* a commons, e.g. the computers of the
participants of free software projects. They *are* private property --
theoretically, the computer owner could sell them, rent them, or rent
time-share access for using them. But they *matter* as possession, as
somethat that is *used*: the owner/possessor uses them to generate use value
(by writing free software, for example), not for making money.

>> - Without property, there is *no profit.*
> 
> Well, there is no profit in the sense of exchange value - i.e. no
> surplus exchange value. But there certainly is surplus use value. This
> is also a type of additional benefit which may be used similarly to
> classical profit. I think it is a good question on how this
> bene-profit is governed well. Or are there reasons which make a
> governance superfluous? Or is it impossible because it needs a
> comparison mechanism like we have with exchange value?

I don't understand the concept of "surplus use value". Use value is not
something that can be counted in the way exchange value (money) can be counted.


>> - *Demand-driven* instead of *profit-driven* production: production
>>   takes place to fulfill people's *needs and desires,* *not* to *turn
>>   money into more money.*
> 
> It's still not clear why production to turn some productive assets
> into more bene-profit is prevented.

Again, what do you mean by "bene-profit"?

>> - The *means of production* are *commons,* shared by all. *Nobody* is
>>   excluded from access to the means of production and thus *forced to sell
>>   their labor power.*
> 
> Oops - I think this is different from the book where projects were the
> owners of the means of production.
> 
> Still I think this model has also drawbacks. This reminds me too much
> of everybody owns everything which usually is a bad idea. Such a model
> would call for a major power who own everything - which reminds me
> very much of the so-called real socialist states where the state owned
> the means of production.

The concept of commons, though less clearly formulated, is already present
in my book. But commons means neither private property (the project owns the
means) *nor* public property (the state/public owns the means and it takes
democratic decisions so that "everybody" can influence how to use them).
Rather, with commons there is a community that governs and manages them, and
the community would probably usually be bigger than "the project" (in the
sense of: the people actively contributing to the project), but smaller than
"everybody"--probably more something along the lines of "everybody who
affects or is affected by the project".

But won't it occur in practice that projects can control the means of
production they use, effectively excluding others from decision making?
Especially as long as private property is still the legal standard and their
must be some legal owner of all resources (as is the case today)?

I think while that risk certainly exists, it should be possible to deal with
it. One interesting approach I found here:
http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?p=124. The article describes a mesh network,
the Scarborough Wireless User Group, where all the used hardware (rounters)
belongs to different users. So ownership is completely distributed--nobody
owns so much that their individual decisions would have a serious influence
on the project. So radical decentralization of control/ownership is a way to
avoid this problem.

But even if there is a central group that has official ownership of the
means of production (e.g. in case of the Wikipedia, the servers belong to
the Wikimedia foundation, i presume), that doesn't mean they can do
anything. They can only do what the community will accept, as without their
community they are nothing. And sometimes the community will accept very
little. For example, in the Spanish Wikipedia, the vague speculation of
co-founder Larry Sanger that they may at some point be forced to run
advertisements lead to a fork:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en_Espa%C3%B1ol ,
that seriously threatened the future of the Spanish Wikipedia. (For some
time there was discussion to discontinue it altogether and to link the
forked encyclopedia instead, cf.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre). So even if there is a
legal owner, (s)he or they will have to be very careful about the decisions
they make, or else they'll endanger the future of their peer project.

> In general I like these slides much more than Christian's book :-) .

:-)

Best regards
	Christian

-- 
|------- Dr. Christian Siefkes ------- [email protected] -------
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/ | Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
|    Peer Production Everywhere:       http://peerconomy.org/wiki/
|---------------------------------- OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
What chaos is left in modern society is a precious commodity. We have to
be careful to conserve it...
        -- Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, Peopleware

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