March 2011 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

open enterprise and bettermeans
by Michel Bauwens 04 Sep '11

04 Sep '11

has anyone seen this, seems quite thought-true: http://bettermeans.org/front/learn-more/open-enterprise-manifesto/ comments are welcome? Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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new capitalism and commoning
by Michel Bauwens 04 May '11

04 May '11

I got this from Pat Kane, an initiative that resonates with Umair Haque's Capitalist Manifesto See: http://fearlessrevolution.com/blog/introducing-common.html "Benefiting people, communities, society, the environment and future generations is the new advantage in business. Our *new capitalist* brand is about transitioning from competitive advantage to collaborative advantage. COMMON is a brand that is community designed, community owned, and community directed. It is a single open source brand — a living network — for rapidly prototyping many progressive businesses that unleash creativity to solve social problems." Michel's comments: why is this interesting, well, in the context of the stress that our friends like Massimo and Silvia Federico place on opposing 'capitalist commons' my question is the following, generally, as I don't know much about this particular initiative: - are these people 'enemies' simply because they are 'pro-capitalist' - or are they friends because their heart is in the right place, and they want to create and share value, and have generally progressive social goals This is not just a matter of analysis, but also of language, and it poses a key question: should a new 'hegemony' (not the right word, I know, but even in a distributed world, something like that does exist) for a progressive commons approach, not necessarily include progressive social and other enterpreneurs ? My answer would tend to be yes, as many young people in the West, but even outside the West, especially here in East Asia, think that way; they want to see progress, don't believe in old-style socialism, believe in cooperation and sharing, but believe only free enterpreneurship offers progress and dynamism for their society and their own projects. Such an approach would require an analysis that distinguished exploitative commons approaches, from genuine commons; but also in a language that doesn't construct such people as enemies, and a pragmatic openness. To come back to the notion of capitalist/anticapitalist commons, through an example. Take the free software movement, a movement of a particular labour aristocracy, that has resulted in the creation of a strong commons, strong relatively autonomous communities, but also with a strong ecology of supportive corporate entities, that both profit from those commons, but also, pay wages to free software developers, practice various forms of benefit sharing, and support the communities and commons in various ways. (this of course needs to be problematized, but nevertheless, this is an important side of the equation) So here we have a commons that is both instrumental to corporate entities and 'capitalism', but also beneficial in substantial ways to a particular type of knowledge workers. In this scenario, both sides have both concurring and antagonistic interests. The model of the free software movement is not unique, as it is now largely replicated in many other open knowledge, open design and open manufacturing projects, for whom it served as a successfull template I'm not advocating either uncritical support of the model, nor a pure antagonistic approach, but rather an approach that starts with the interests of the peer producing communities and their commons, and looks at how they can optimally reproduce within current economic and power structures, and advance their goals, step by step, until they are stronger to achieve more fundamental transformations, In many cases, the creation of a successful ecology of corporate entities, and the attraction of progressive young enterpreneurs who may be willing to create non profit maximisation market-operating entitities, will be a sine qua non for the social reproduction and growth of the concrete commons and their contributors/users Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Commons Strategies Group, http://www.commonsstrategies.org/

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contribution to the p2p and marxism debate: Should we worry about capitalist commons?
by Michel Bauwens 25 Apr '11

25 Apr '11

not exactly an answer to jean yet, but I thought I add it in this context anyway, Should we worry about capitalist commons? There is a particular strand of thinking, which we have featured on occasion on our blog, with authors such as Massimo de Angelis of The Commoner, Syvlia Federici George Caffentzis of Midnight Notes, and Martin Pedersen, who particularly stress the need to be wary, and denounce, tendencies towards 'capitalist commons', which in there mind, have to be fought and resisted against. I want to first discuss what aspects of this point of view I agree with, then discuss the eventual reservations or disagreements. The distinction between capitalist and non-capitalist commons is of course an important one, whose validity should be acknowledged. A non-capitalist commons is a commons that can socially reproduce itself and whose activities guarantee its continued existence to the benefit of the commoners; a capitalist commons is a commons which helps the (expanded) reproduction of capital and the capitalist system. The latter is distinct I believe from commons that are used and enclosed by non-commoners to their benefit, while weakening the commons and its use for commoners. An example of a pure 'capitalist' commons would be a patent commons that is constituted by an alliance of companies, and perhaps only usable by them. Obviously, commoners should be wary of both mechanisms. Nevertheless, we live in complex societies with many hybrid modalities, where such distinctions are not clearcut. I think the believe that commons are either pure or otherwise capitalist commons is a false dichotomy, and that the reality is that we have mostly hybrid commons processes that combine both aspects. As an example I want to take the free software commons. These commons usually consist of: - a commons of code, which can be used by all developers, including the corporations that build more value on the code (mostly through the waged labour in their employ) and market services and products related to it - a community of developers, a majority of which is usually also employed by said corporations, but generally also consists of volunteers freely adding to the commons - a set of institutions that manage the infrastructure of cooperation needed by this commons, such as the FLOSS Foundations, and which may have representatives of said corporations on the board Now, the role of corporations is usually very important: 1) they use and expand on the code, usually though by keeping substantial improvements only to themselves; 2) they hire developers in order to develop their commercial activities, and their services are therefore constituted by both the value created by this paid labour, but also by the common value created by other corporations and especially the free labour that went into the commons. I don't think there is any doubt that such a commons aids the reproduction of the system of capital. The businesses created around such commons are usually also dependent on those commons, and contribute to their maintenance. But does that mean that such a system is necessarily a negative one for the commoners? This is actually far from being the case. First of all, it guarantees the continued reproduction of the commons itself; in our actual society and economy, it is very difficult to expand digital commons without such corporate support; and the commons remain available to all, as guaranteed by the free software licenses; in addition, the paying of developers creates and maintains a livelihood around the commons, with free software developers actually constituting a kind of privileged labour aristocracy. The influence of these corporations is real, and sometimes (often?) dominant, and they use all kinds of value extraction and enclosure mechanisms, but nevertheless, they also contribute to the commons. And just as importantly: they are dependent on the commons and community of commoners and constrained by the license, the codes and norms of the software community. This is why free software developers and commoners nevertheless consider such free software commons as a fundamental advance. It creates more freedom, makes the code base universally available, and often creates a vibrant economy. Many developers create their own enterprises and sometimes cooperatives as well. What is important here is that we have a system that both serves the reproduction of capital, but on a new basis of the commons; and a system which at the same time serves the reproduction of the commons and the commoners. Such type of hybrid 'capitalist-commons' are without a doubt an advance over the purely wage-labour based forms of software creation. This is certainly the way the developers themselves see it, but also the wider community of digital knowledge workers. That doesn't mean that commoners should not want more and better modalities. For example, they could create enterprises that are not profit-maximisers, but cooperatives, or they could use the peer production license, which allows free usage of the commons only to other commoners and thereby creates a counter-economy. So the existence of a capitalist software commons can be both a social advance, have problematic aspects, be beneficial to different players, such as corporations, users and developers, etc.. The right attitude is to strenghten the commons part and the commons logic, to fight against abuses and enclosures, and if you have radical aims of social transformation, to continue to work according to these aims in the broader context of the totality of the shift towards p2p and commons-based modalities. But we want to make a stronger argument. Not only are these advances beneficial, but they are actually crucial. The reason is that the alternatives modes of production based on the commons, cannot be created ex nihilo, but must be created within an environment that is dominated by the alien logic of the older dominant mode of production, i.e. the circulation of capital. It is simply inconceivable that a slave-based empire could undergo a phase transition towards the feudal mode of production, without the existence of proto-feudal modalities within that system; it is equally inconceivable that the feudal mode of production could have a phase transition towards the capitalist mode of production, without proto-capitalist modalities existing within that feudal system. It is the ultimate strengthening and intermeshing of these proto-capitalist modalities, which creates the basis for a political and social revolution that ultimately guarantees the phase transition. In other words, the existence of commons-based peer production, as proto-practices for a full mode of production that has still to be created after a phase transition, is itself a vital condition for that later transition. These proto-practices have to evolve within the older system, first as emergent practices, then on a parity level, before they can become dominant themselves. So the question of 'capitalist commons', requires an approach that recognizes to what degree they benefit the commoners in the short and mid-term, to what degree they make a particular commons sustainable, but also on a systemic level, to what degree they are part of a broader change that fosters proto-commons practices that can serve as a basis for ultimate expansion on a systemic level. Just as important is not to be blinded by any perceived absolute 'enemy', but to see the interests of the commoners first and foremost. Each commoner's community is involved in its own construction, struggles and negotiations, and makes its own arrangements with the surrounding ecology of enterprises, which depends in part on local, national, and global balance of forces; and the goal must be to make its own commons autonomous and for the maximum benefit of the commoners and the surrounding society. Rather than striving for acceptance of any a priori credo of anti-capitalism, because that is in the end the goal of the authors we mentioned above, what is really needed is to be in relations and concrete solidarity with the commoners, within the larger context of global social change towards a commons-based society. Within the context of 'really existing' hybrid commons, which are part of the broader process of reproduction of capital, what matters is to strengthen those elements which strengthen the circulation and expanded reproduction of the common(s). Within the broader context of a capitalist society in which profit-maximising companies are geared towards maximal surplus value extraction, the existence of commons will always be precarious at best, and subject to enclosures and exploitation, such as the well-known capture of the value of the free labour of the commoners. Nevertheless, even within that contradictory process, there is a further strengthen of modalities of commons-based peer production, which is a harbinger of the society to come. And some forms of netarchical capital actually have a vested interest in the continued existence of the commons. These activities are contradictory but still contribute to the creation and strenghening of particular commons, which are also in the interest of the commoners, user communities and citizens generally. Within the broader context of a political economy based on the circulation of capital, there can be no fully independent social reproduction of the commons, but, many elements of such full social reproduction are being born and gradually intermeshed, and it is our task to further strengthen that process, within a context of hybrid capitalist commons. Most commoners are not necessarily motivated by a political and social vision of such a future commons-based society, but their social conditions as digital knowledge workers nevertheless lead them to construct and protect concrete commons. This process is absolutely vital for the transition, and any political and social phase transition can only occur when sufficient numbers of them revolt against the limitations imposed on this hyperproductive modality, by outmoded, repressive and life-undermining modalities of capital. This process is underway but requires a continuing strenghtening of commons-based modalities. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power
by M. Fioretti 06 Apr '11

06 Apr '11

Greetings, Please have a look at the article with that title: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukus… I'm not entirely convinced about it myself. However, I think that it is very good food for thought, and above all would like to hear the opinion of those list members who have had many more occasions than me to study the most recent pros and cons of "local energy" about how Monbiot deals with it in that piece. TIA, Marco -- Online Course for Digital Citizens, because your rights depend on how software is used *around* you: http://mfioretti.com/node/129

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payswarm and wingcash
by Michel Bauwens 04 Apr '11

04 Apr '11

Dear Sepp, could you look into these two payment systems mentioned here: http://emergentbydesign.com/2011/03/22/10-projects-moving-us-towards-a-supe… many thanks!! Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Re: [P2P-F] l'economie citoyenne
by Michel Bauwens 03 Apr '11

03 Apr '11

Dear Ira, I was not familiar with that particular instance, and would be interested in english language material if you want me to spread the word more, but here already in cc two potentially interested audiences, hope all is well, I'm on the road until April 5, with nearly zero internet time, Michel On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 4:35 AM, Ira Mollay <ira(a)mollay.net> wrote: > Hi Michel, > > I'm not sure whether you have already come across "Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie", a > model for an economy that aims at maximizing social benefit instead of > profit. The movement was started here in Austria by Christian Felber and his > book , "l'economie citoyenne" will be published in France on 6 April. > > We have several teams here working on making things very concrete and, in > particular, on balance sheets that include the social and environmental > impact. 50 enterprises are pioneering it this year and will present their > balance sheets to the public in autumn. They are now looking for enterprises > in France (or the French-speaking world) to act as pioneers in their country > as well. > > There is already a French version of the website on > http://www.gemeinwohl-oekonomie.org/fr/ > > Maybe you see ways of spreading the information to relevant target groups. > > Cheers and enjoy the beach :-) > Ira > > > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Open Source Government
by Kevin Carson 02 Apr '11

02 Apr '11

http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com/ "The implosion of capital outlays associated with the desktop revolution, and the virtual disappearance of transaction costs of coordinating action associated with the network revolution, have (as Tom Coates said) eliminated the gap between what can be produced in large hierarchical organizations and what can be produced at home in a wide range of industries: software, publishing, music, education, and journalism among them. "And we can include many of the functions of government in that list. The central theme of this book is the potential for networked organization to constrain the exercise of power by large, hierarchical institutions in a way that once required the countervailing power of other large, hierarchical institutions." -- Kevin Carson Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism http://mutualist.blogspot.com The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html

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migrating from ning to open source 'federating' platform? (like BuddyPress)
by elf Pavlik 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

Hello, Recently I try to keep track on open source social networking platforms, with emphasis on those who work on implementing 'federation' protocols. BuddyPress belongs to them and I've just found this plugin which should import ning network, short post about it available here: http://teleogistic.net/2010/07/import-from-ning-now-imports-ning-content-in… Example of BuddyPress installation you can see for example at: http://hitchwiki.org/community/ I wonder if anyone from P2P foundation 'IT department' would like to experiment with it? I could also try to research more about current capacity of BP to federate with other networks (and platforms). =) elf Pavlik

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Self-organisation and the economy
by Mathieu ONeil 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

Self-organisation and the economy - Friday April 1st 2011 Time: 5-8 pm Location: Lock Keepers Cottage, QMUL, Mile End, London E14NS - no.33 on the map. How do self-organising practices clash with, are reabsorbed into, or exit the mainstream economy? Participants are invited to address issues of self-organisation in the economy from cooperatives to social enterprises, between state funding, self funding, alternative economies and charity dependence, and related questions of authorship, redistribution of resources, production of value and co-production. Siôn Whellens (Calverts Coop, London) Siôn Whellens was a contributing editor at Anarchy Magazine, and active with London Workers Group, Workers Playtime and the anti-party and autonomist communist left in London in the late 1970s and 1980's. He co-published a bi-weekly newsletter, the Picket Bulletin, during the long Wapping printers' lockout of 1986, dedicated to creating an effective communication tool for grassroots activists. Since 1983 he has worked with Calverts, a collective-type worker co-operative of graphic designers and printers, and in the wider worker co-operative milieu. He is an elected member of the Worker Co-operative Council and a director of Co-operatives UK . Siôn is interested in exploring the conflicts and potentials of workers’ self-expression, self-organisation and self-management under capitalism, and understanding how the development of our day-to-day activity can contribute to the emergence of a new social economy. For resources, see: Siôn's blog: Bethnal Bling; The special issue of Affinities on The New Coopoerativism; A group of worker co-operators recently wrote and published a ‘code of governance’ which is really a guide to what the seven co-operative principles should look like in practice. PDF download; Bob Cannell's blog. He is a thinker-practitioner of worker co-operation and its enemies; Radical Routes is an explicitly anti capitalist federation of autonomous UK worker, housing and social co-ops. Their site has interesting content and resources; For a more political take, see the opening paragraphs of Barrot & Martin’s ‘Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement’ ------------------------------------- Marcel Mars (Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht) Marcel Mars will discuss the use of free software, proprietary collaborative software/social networks and file sharing practices in the context of self-organization. Software is a socio-technical system in which machines, people, and processes are inextricably interconnected and interdependent. [1] The use of collaborative software in every organization will affect its organizational structure, capacity of negotiations, rules of access to (org) resources, decision making process and overall group dynamics. That said, an organization (still) controls the strength of the effect with its knowledge of how to use and adapt (develop) collaborative software to its own needs. The collaborative development of software, as in the case of free software movement, brought to the world enormous autonomous infrastructure beloved by many activists and self-organization freaks. Still, the network effect [2] created by most of the groups, activists or not, pays off to the web2.0 startups, social network giants and other proprietary solutions. "Utility Computing is the packaging of computing resources, such as computation, storage and services, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility (such as electricity, water, natural gas, or telephone network)."[3] When computing in general and computer-supported collaboration becomes public utility its development becomes more and more invisible to the public. Utility computing is still in its first phase. It is mainly led by big corporations like: Amazon, Microsoft, HP, Google, Oracle, IBM etc. Their infrastructures are built upon Free software (Linux, Xen, KVM, Apache, Hadoop). But, they keep their advances in technology as trade secrets. [1] Ensmenger, Nathan L. The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise. The MIT Press, 2010. [2] “Network effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect. [3] “Utility computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing. For resources, see Marcel's blog: Kiberkomunist ----------------------------------------- Matt Zimmerman (Debian/Ubuntu, London) --------------------------------------- Toni Prug (QMUL, London, Hack the State, gComm(o)ns) Toni Prug will discuss the impossibility of democratic self organization in the economy. ‎"If the economy disrupts our lives, then we must disrupt the economy" (UK Uncut, 2011) For self organization to be democratic, there must be no capital, state power holders, or holders of physical forces of coercion (parts of society without state/capitalist controls over them) who are in the position to impose their will to dictate the model of cooperation by utilizing people’s need to acquire the means of subsistence by selling their labour for a wage, or to obey in fear for life. The egalitarian impulse that exists in self organization is rarely developed due to participants’ different class positions (skills, time, space, money, social networks) and the lack of value chains external to capitalist models of valorization whose inbuilt anti-egalitarianism cannot valorize egalitarian self organization. The richest parts of the world have increased their productivity several times since WWII. Instead of proliferation of time for self organization based on abundance of the time gained by increased productivity, egalitarian elements (access to shelter, health, education, care) are disappearing and the amount of labour time sold for a wage, or volunteered in a hope of one, is increasing. If we consider self organization as a form of emancipation, and if we aim for it to be democratic, in the times of rapidly reduced material equality amongst the people of some of the wealthiest states in the world, the possibility of democratic self organization has to be considered not as a sporadic question, but as a central, systemic one. For resources, see: Werner Bonefeld: ‘What is the alternative?’ (Shift, 2011, No. 11) http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=400 Alexei Penzin, ‘The Soviets of the Multitude: On Collectivity and Collective Work: An Interview with Paolo Virno’ (Mediations, Volume 25, No. 1, Fall 2010) http://www.mediationsjournal.org/articles/the-soviets-of-the-multitude "Marx's Method" by David Harvey: A Colloquium Talk Video (Geography at Berkeley, October 21, 2010) http://geography.berkeley.edu/about/story.php?id=47 ---------------------------------------------- Next encounter in the series: Friday May 6th Self-organization and community External dynamics, political discourse and outreach. The role of the organizer when working with constituencies. Issues of politicization, outreach, involvement, negotiation. Doina Petrescu (Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée, Paris) http://www.urbantactics.org/ Jane Wills (QMUL, London) http://www.citizensuk.org/campaigns/living-wage-campaign/ For more information or to take part in the project, please write to selforganising(a)gmail.com or visit www.self-org.blogspot.com

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OER done right
by Michel Bauwens 31 Mar '11

31 Mar '11

hi franco, could you look into this, perhaps to update our OER entry in the wiki, or for a blog article? Michel see http://reganmian.net/blog/2011/03/25/open-course-done-right-saylor-foundati… -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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