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Re: [P2P-F] weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

I have not yet read Sam's reply below, democracy has ever been imperfect and the result of ongoing struggles and development, nevertheless, there have been times when the nation-state was the locus of possible compromises and power-sharing, and social movements could hope to obtain concessions I think the current crisis is that this configuration is no more, that the 'market states' are subjected to global diktats of financial markets and other global powers, and that no sufficiently strong global social movements have arisen .. in my opinion, this is why we have a crisis of democracy, we still have rights and freedoms, but most of the democratic institutions have become quite hollow in terms of their capacity to respond to social demands anything 'above' the nation-state level is out of the reach of strong social movements, I mean they can be influenced to a certain limited degree, but there is 'nobody there' to strike deals with, Michel On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 3:17 AM, Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton(a)acm.org>wrote: > I am fascinated by the current explorations concerning social media and how > community formation and spontaneity are enabled. I find a great deal to > digest, and much thoughtful analysis in the recent threads. > > Although it is not material to the clarification of weak and strong ties as > a false dichotomy, this one passage brought me up short: > > " ...what is destroying our opportunities for individuality and creativity, > subverting us from realizing our human potential is not that we are tweeting > about trivialities, but that the governance of our planet has been taken > away from us." > > The hyperbole is appealing, but I wonder if there is something more > important here. When, if ever, have "we" possessed the governance of our > planet? Indeed, what can it possibly mean to give ontological standing to > the notion of planetary governance and suggest that it has ever existed? > > I ask this because is it perhaps more the case that we have before us the > opportunity to gain something, not that we ever lost it. > > - Dennis > > > -----Original Message----- > From: p2p-foundation-bounces(a)lists.ourproject.org [mailto: > p2p-foundation-bounces(a)lists.ourproject.org] On Behalf Of Michel Bauwens > < > https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/2011-February/000401.… > > > Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 07:01 > To: p2p-foundation > Subject: [P2P-F] weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma > > > -- > 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 > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > P2P Foundation - Mailing list > http://www.p2pfoundation.net > https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation > -- 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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Fwd: [fcf_discussion] WikiLeaks Cables Shine Light on ACTA History
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jérémie ZIMMERMANN - La Quadrature du Net <jz(a)laquadrature.net> Date: Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 5:12 AM Subject: [fcf_discussion] WikiLeaks Cables Shine Light on ACTA History To: fcforum_discussion(a)list.fcforum.net http://lqdn.fr/en/wikileaks-cables-shine-light-on-acta-history *** La Quadrature du Net obtained exclusive access to the WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Although they only give a partial account of the history of this secretly-negotiated agreement, these cables shed an interesting light on the coming into being of ACTA. They show the prime role of the US in the advent of this extremist imposition of violent sanctions against citizens and their fundamental rights. The cables expose the stakes and debates surrounding the participation of developing countries, as well as the evolution of the position of European Union during the negotiations. *** Our analysis of the cables will probably be completed by others, but for now it seems that these US diplomatic cables do not bring anything entirely new to our understanding of ACTA. Rather, the details surrounding the history of this dangerous trade agreement reinforce the impression that ACTA is an outdated trade agreement primarily designed to export the war on sharing knowledge and culture to developing countries. It also makes clear that although ACTA is an international agreement that could have an impact for the decades to come on the global knowledge economy, it has absolutely no democratic legitimacy. Indeed, it was drafted by a small group of unelected officials in charge of promoting the interests of rights holders in their respective countries — not legitimate representatives. Finally, the cables show that the European Union has been a rather weak negotiating partner, since Member States have had disagreements on how to proceed during the negotiations. Although the EU Commission has been at the front-line of public criticisms, EU national governments should also be held accountable for having negotiated ACTA behind the back of their citizens, who will suffer from ACTA's worst provisions. Table of contents I. ACTA, a US project aimed at expanding extremist IPR provisions to the developing world 1. The concept of ACTA 2. Key priority: Swift adoption of an extremist but exportable agreement 3. Among developing countries, Good Cop vs. Bad Cop II. The European Union, a rather weak negotiating party 1. Internal disagreements over competencies 2. Tensions regarding the inclusion of Geographical Indications 3. ACTA's legitimacy jeopardized by lack of transparency read more: http://lqdn.fr/en/wikileaks-cables-shine-light-on-acta-history -- --- La Quadrature du Net ---- http://www.laquadrature.net --- http://twitter.com/jerezim - http://identi.ca/jerezim ----- +info http://list.fcforum.net/wws/info/fcforum_discussion ---- -- 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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weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

http://technosociology.org/?p=178 the key contrast was, and remains, between bridge and non-bridge ties; conflating them as weak and strong ties and then contrasting them as if they were direct opposites is conceptually incorrect. In reality, people’s ties range from very strong to very weak. Strong-ties become weak over time and vice-versa. Weak ties and strong ties are not ontological opposites. Zeynep: Internet as a Key Resource for Tie-Formation Which brings me to my final point; Given the decline of importance of place and family in providing people with strong ties (one’s very close ties used to be immediate family, kin, neighbors, etc), where do you think people will turn to if they are to regenerate robust communities composed of strongly-connected individuals? Their weaker ties. All those Facebook friends that Gladwell and others take turns making fun of? That is exactly where most people can potentially draw stronger ties. Tweets/discussions about lunch and naps and status updates about dates and breakups? Bedrock of sociality and of social networks of stronger and weaker ties. Do we really think that strong communities spend their time discussing the finer points of flexible specialization in the labor process under post-Fordism? Research shows that adding online connectivity to an otherwise face-to-face space like a neighborhood increases the general level of bonding because it increases the channels of communication (See work by Keith Hampton, Barry Wellman or Gustavo Mesch, among others). (Think of a neighborhood mailing list – it lets neighbors connect even though they may hardly have time to get together regularly given long-commutes and other responsibilities – Internet allows asynchronous, rich communication freed from requirements of coordinating time and place). Consequently, pools of weaker ties, organized around shared affinities and interests, will likely become most people’s source for closer friendships. As we introduce people in our increasingly geographically-dispersed networks to each other, we can recreate the denser, closely-knit communities of mutual-interdependence that do indeed give rise to social movement. Internet and social media will clearly be a key in this process because going back to place-based ties is not only not possible, and more importantly, inadequate, for rising up to meet the global, multi-level, complex problems we as all of humanity face today. New movements that can bring about global social change will still require people who interact with each other regularly, and trust and depend on each other in somewhat dense networks. Or only hope is if those networks span the globe in a tightly-knit, broad web of activity, interaction, personalization. Real change will come only if we can make friends we care about everywhere and we make bridge ties that cover the world in a web of common humanity that is bigger and more powerful than a handful of corporations and the corrupt, self-perpetuating class of politicians. So, maybe seeing a tweet about what an war orphan in Afghanistan had for breakfast (nothing), what a worker in a sweatshop in China had for lunch (nothing because there is no lunch break), or where a survivor of one of the increasing numbers of large-scale climate events like massive floods is sleeping tonight (on a wet piece of plastic) interspersed into our daily rhythms of communication with our local friends and communities is exactly what we need to organize us into the “hive mind” that everyone is so afraid of when in reality, what is destroying our opportunities for individuality and creativity, subverting us from realizing our human potential is not that we are tweeting about trivialities, but that the governance of our planet has been taken away from us. -- 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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networked visuality of northafrican uprisings
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

http://nicholasmirzoeff.com/RTL/?p=32 hi tom, thanks for looking at this and eventually discussing .. 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] Fw: Enigma of Capital
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

Indeed a nice review article, Michel On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Thomas Greco <thg(a)mindspring.com> wrote: > This article is well worth reading. It gets at some crucial factors in the > boom-bust cycle, citing several important sources, including Marx, Keynes, > Roubini, etc.. > > Oddly, he fails to mention the money monopoly and the creation of > debt-money at compound interest as the driving force, without which > the bubble-bust cycle and the class division based on capital ownership > could not continue. > > Tom > > ----- Forwarded Message ---- > *From:* krishnaswamy arvind <Krishnaswamya(a)bharatpetroleum.in><Krishnaswamya(a)bharatpetroleum.in> > *To:* Jairus Banaji <jairus_b(a)hotmail.com> <jairus_b(a)hotmail.com>; > "jairus_b(a)rediffmail.com" <jairus_b(a)rediffmail.com> > <jairus_b(a)rediffmail.com> <jairus_b(a)rediffmail.com>; "tanandraj(a)gmail.com"<tanandraj(a)gmail.com> > <tanandraj(a)gmail.com> <tanandraj(a)gmail.com>; rajni bakshi > <rajnibakshi(a)yahoo.com> <rajnibakshi(a)yahoo.com> > *Cc:* Preeti Bhat <preetibhat(a)hotmail.com> <preetibhat(a)hotmail.com>; > Praful Bidwai <prafulbidwai(a)gmail.com> <prafulbidwai(a)gmail.com> > *Sent:* Tue, February 1, 2011 4:37:49 PM > *Subject:* > > How Much Is Too Much? Benjamin Kunkel > > · *The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises > of Capitalism* by David Harvey > Profile, 296 pp, £14.99, April 2010, ISBN 978 1 84668 308 4 > > · *A Companion to Marx’s ‘Capital’* by > David Harvey > Verso, 368 pp, £10.99, March 2010, ISBN 978 1 84467 359 9 > > > <http://ads.lrb.co.uk/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=36__zoneid=9_…> > > The deepest economic crisis in eighty years prompted a shallow revival of > Marxism. During the panicky period between the failure of Lehman Brothers > in September 2008 and the official end of the American recession in the > summer of 2009, several mainstream journals, displaying a less than sincere > mixture of broadmindedness and chagrin, hailed Marx as a neglected seer of > capitalist crisis. The trendspotting *Foreign Policy* led the way, with a > cover story on Marx for its Next Big Thing issue, enticing readers with a > promise of star treatment: ‘Lights. Camera. Action. *Das Kapital*. Now.’ > > Though written by a socialist, Leo Panitch, the piece was typical of the > general approach to Marx and Marxism. It bowed at a distance to the prophet > of capitalism’s ever ‘more extensive and exhaustive crises’, and restated > several basic articles of his thought: capitalism is inherently unstable; > political activism is indispensable; and revolution offers the ultimate > prize. This can’t have done much more than jog memories of the *Communist > Manifesto*, the only one of Marx’s works cited by Panitch. The *Manifesto*remains an incandescent pamphlet, but the elements of a Marxian crisis > theory, one never fully articulated by Marx himself, lie elsewhere, > scattered throughout *Theories of Surplus Value*, the *Grundrisse* and > above all the posthumous second and third volumes of *Capital*. Marx’s > brilliant and somewhat contradictory comments on the subject bring to mind > Cioran’s remark: ‘Works die; fragments, not having lived, can no longer > die.’ Such shards sowed one of the most fertile fields in Marxist economics. > Over recent decades, the landmarks of Marxian economic thinking include > Ernest Mandel’s *Late Capitalism* (1972), David Harvey’s *Limits to > Capital* (1982), Giovanni Arrighi’s *Long 20th Century* (1994) and Robert > Brenner’s *Economics of Global Turbulence* (2006), all expressly concerned > with the grinding tectonics and punctual quakes of capitalist crisis. Yet > little trace of this literature, by Marx or his successors, has surfaced > even among the more open-minded practitioners of what might be called the > bourgeois theorisation of the current crisis. > > The term bourgeois will seem apt enough if we note that a recent and > distinguished addition to the long shelf of books on the crisis, Nouriel > Roubini’s *Crisis Economics*, summons as its audience not only ‘financial > professionals’, ‘corporate executives’ and ‘students in business, economics > and finance’, but also – exhausting the list – ‘ordinary investors’.[1]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…>No one, in other words, who is unmotivated by gain. Maybe it’s to be > expected, then, that the Marx celebrated by Roubini and his coauthor > Stephen Mihm, in a résumé of earlier theorists of crisis, appears as a > mere herald of continual disruption rather than as an economist who located > at the heart of such crises the existence of bourgeois society as such, or > the social cleavage between profit-seekers (financial professionals etc) and > wage-earners: the fatal schism, in other words, between capital and labour. > Roubini goes no further than to quote the same ringing lines of the * > Manifesto* that appear in *Foreign Policy*. Here again is the resemblance > of capitalism to ‘the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers > of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells’. Credited with > the alarming but vague insight that ‘Capitalism *is* crisis,’ Marx then > departs the scene. > > To date, a revived Keynesianism has formed a left boundary of economic > debate in the press at large. Only specialised socialist journals have > undertaken to diagnose capitalism’s latest distemper in explicitly or > implicitly Marxian terms. As for books on the crisis, until recently the > jostling crowd of titles included no Marxist study, the exception to this > rule, John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff’s *Great Financial Crisis*, > having been bolted together out of editorials from one of those socialist > journals, the American *Monthly Review*.[2]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…>Not until now, with David Harvey’s > *Enigma of Capital*, have we had a book-length example of Marxian crisis > theory addressed to the current situation. > > Few writers could be better qualified than Harvey to test the continuing > validity of a Marxian approach to crisis, a situation he helpfully defines – > dictionaries of economics tend to lack any entry for the word – as ‘surplus > capital and surplus labour existing side by side with seemingly no way to > put them back together’. (This is at once reminiscent of Keynes’s > ‘underemployment equilibrium’ and of the news in the daily papers: in the > US, corporations are sitting on almost two trillion dollars in cash while > unemployment hovers just below 10 per cent.) Harvey, who was born in Kent, > is the author of the monumental *Limits to Capital* – a thoroughgoing > critique, synthesis and extension of the several varieties of crisis theory > underwritten by Marx’s thought – and has been teaching courses on Marx, > mainly in the US, for nearly four decades. His lectures on Volume I of * > Capital*, available online, have become part of the self-education of many > young leftists, and now supply the framework for his useful *Companion to > Marx’s ‘Capital*’. (I sat in on his lectures at the City University of New > York in the fall of 2007; a good Marxist, Harvey made no effort to find > out whether any of us – too many for the available chairs – had registered > and paid for the class.) > > Since the publication of *The Limits to Capital* in the second year of the > Reagan administration and at the dawn of what has come to be known as the > financialisation of the world economy, the dual movement of Harvey’s > career has been to return time and again to Marx as a teacher, and to extend > his own ideas into new and more empirical territory. The most substantial of > his recent books, *Paris, Capital of Modernity* (2003), described the > city’s forcible modernisation by Baron Haussmann as a solution to > structural crisis – ‘The problem in 1851 was to absorb the surpluses of > capital and labour power’ – and situated this urban transformation within > the renovation of Parisian humanity it induced. Harvey’s other > post-millennial volumes, *The New Imperialism* (also 2003), *A Brief > History of Neoliberalism* (2005) and now *The Enigma of Capital*, amount > to a trilogy of self-popularisation and historical illustration, taking > current events as a proving ground for what Harvey has called, referring to > *The Limits to Capital*, ‘a reasonably good approximation to a general > theory of capital accumulation in space and time’. > > The mention of space is considered. Harvey received his doctorate in > geography rather than economics or history – his first, non-Marxist book was > taken up with differing representations of space – and the whole thrust of > his subsequent work, alert to the unevenness of capitalist development > across neighbourhoods, regions and nation-states, has been to give a more > variegated spatial texture to the historical materialism he would prefer to > call ‘historical-geographical materialism’. In a sense, the emphasis > confirms Harvey’s classicism. Marx himself somewhat curiously concluded > the first volume of *Capital* – a book otherwise essentially concerned > with local transactions between capital and labour, illustrated mostly > from the English experience – with a chapter on the ‘primitive accumulation’ > of land and mineral wealth attendant on the European sacking of the > Americas. In the same way, Rosa Luxemburg, Marx’s first great legatee in the > theory of crisis, insisted in the *Accumulation of Capital* (1913) that > imperial expansion across space must accompany capital accumulation over > time. Without the prising open of new markets in the colonies, she argued, > metropolitan capitalism would be unable to dispose profitably of its glut of > commodities, and crises of overproduction doom the system. > > It’s not, however, until the last third of *The Limits to Capital* that > the spatial implications of Harvey’s project loom into view. The book > starts as a patient philological reconstruction, from Marx’s stray comments, > of a Marxian theory of crisis. The method is fittingly cumulative as, from > chapter to chapter, in lucid, mostly unadorned prose, Harvey adds new > features to a simple model of the ‘overaccumulation of capital’. And > overaccumulation remains in his later work – including *The Enigma of > Capital* – the fount of all crisis. The term may seem paradoxical: what > could it mean for capital to overaccumulate, when the entire spirit of the > system is, as Marx wrote, ‘accumulation for accumulation’s sake’? How could > capitalism acquire too much of what it regards as the sole good thing? > > Overaccumulated capital can be defined as capital unable to realise the > expected rate of profit. Whether in the form of money, physical plant, > commodities for sale or labour power (the latter being, in Marx’s terms, > mere ‘variable capital’), it can only be invested, utilised, sold or > hired, as the case may be, with reduced profitability or at a loss. > Overaccumulation will then be variously reflected in money hoarded or > gambled rather than invested; in underused factories or vacant storefronts; > in half-finished goods or unsold inventories; and in idle workers, even as > the need for all these things goes unmet. In such cases, the most basic of > the contradictions Marx discovered in capitalism – between use value and > exchange value – reasserts itself. For at times of crisis, it’s not that > too much wealth exists to make use of – in fact, ‘too little is produced to > decently and humanely satisfy the wants of the great mass’ – but that ‘too > many means of labour and necessities of life are produced’ to serve ‘as > means for the exploitation of labourers at a certain rate of profit’. A > portion of the overaccumulated capital will then be devalued, until what > survives can seek a satisfactory profitability again. Thus asset prices > plunge, firms go bankrupt, physical inventories languish and wages are > reduced, though this devaluation is no more equally divided among the > respective social groups (rentiers, industrialists, merchants, labourers) > than prosperity was during the good times. > > On Harvey’s account, standard in this respect, the risk of > overaccumulation is intrinsic to the capitalist pursuit of ‘surplus > value’. The temptation is to say that surplus value is merely Marx’s name > for profit, but this would be to assume success where there is only > speculation: surplus value (in commodities) can be realised as a profit > (in money) only in the event of a sale, and this is the rub. A capitalist, > in order to produce, must purchase both means of production (Marx’s > ‘constant capital’) and wage-labour (or ‘variable capital’). After this > outlay – C+V in Marx’s formulation – the capitalist naturally hopes to > possess a commodity capable of being sold for more than was spent on its > production. The difference between cost of production and price at sale > permits the realisation of surplus value. The production of any commodity, > as well as the ‘expanded reproduction’ of the system itself, can thus be > described by the further formula C+V+S: to a quantity of constant capital, > or means of production, has been added a quantity of variable capital, or > labour power, with a bonus of surplus value contained in the finished > commodity. > > The trouble is already there to see. Imagine an economy consisting of a > single firm which has bought means of production and labour power for a > total of $100, in order to produce a mass of commodities it intends to sell > for $110, i.e. at a profit of 10 per cent. The problem is that the firm’s > suppliers of constant and variable capital are also its only potential > customers. Even if the would-be buyers pool their funds, they have only > their $100 to spend, and no more. Production of the total supply of > commodities exceeds the monetarily effective demand in the system. As > Harvey explains in *The Limits to Capital*, effective demand ‘is at any > one point equal to C+V, whereas the value of the total output is C+V+S.Under conditions of equilibrium, this still leaves us with the problem of > where the demand for S, the surplus value produced but not yet realisedthrough exchange, comes from.’ An extra $10 in value must be found > somewhere, to be exchanged with the firm if it is to realise its desired > profit. > > In this stylised scheme, with the entire capitalist economy figured as a > single firm, the supplementary value can be produced only by the same firm > and only in the future. The full cash value of today’s product can therefore > be realised only with the assistance of money advanced against commodity > values yet to be produced. ‘The surplus value created at one point requires > the creation of surplus value at another point,’ as Marx put it in the * > Grundrisse*. How are these points, separated in space and time, to be > linked? In a word, through the credit system, which involves ‘the creation > of what Marx calls “fictitious capital” – money that is thrown into > circulation as capital without any material basis in commodities or > productive activity’. Money values backed by tomorrow’s as yet unproducedgoods and services, to be exchanged against those already produced today: > this is credit or bank money, an anticipation of future value without which > the creation of present value stalls. Realisation (or the transformation > of surplus value into its money equivalent, as profit) thus depends on the > ‘fictitious’. > > Harvey is not adding to Marx here: his achievement is to piece a heap of > fragments into a coherent mosaic. And for his reconstructed Marx, the end of > capitalism – or at least its latest stage, of globally integrated finance – > lies in its beginning. What is sometimes called the system’s GOD imperative, > for Grow Or Die, entails from the outset the development of finance as the > earnest of future production. Finance and production, production and > finance, can then chase each other’s tail until together they have covered > the entire world (or exhausted the tolerance of the working class). Marx > proposed that ‘the tendency to create the world market is directly given in > the concept of capital itself,’ and Harvey glosses the idea: ‘Thenecessary geographical expansion of capitalism is … to be interpreted as > capital in search for surplus value. The penetration of capitalist relations > into all sectors of the economy, the mobilisation of various “latent” > sources of labour power (women and children, for example), have a similar > basis.’ Hence both the involution and the imperialism of capital, > commodifying the most intimate of formerly uncommodified practices > (education, food preparation, courtship) as well as sweeping formerly > non-capitalist regions (China and Eastern Europe) into the global market. > > Marxist economic writing at its best praises the system it comes to bury in > more dazzling terms than more apologetic accounts ever achieve, and Harvey’s > sardonic paean to ‘the immense potential power that resides within the > credit system’ finds him at his most eloquent. For if it at first appeared > from a logical point of view that capitalism must immediately founder in a > crisis of overproduction and underconsumption it now appears that this > problem enjoys a solution. Consider, Harvey suggests, ‘the relation > between production and consumption’: > > A proper allocation of credit can ensure a quantitative balance between > them. The gap between purchases and sales … can be bridged, and production > can be harmonised with consumption to ensure balanced accumulation. Any > increase in the flow of credit to housing construction, for example, is of > little avail today without a parallel increase in the flow of mortgage > finance to facilitate housing purchases. Credit can be used to accelerate > production and consumption simultaneously. > > In the aftermath of the greatest housing bust in history, from Phoenix to > Dublin to Dubai, that should sound an ominous note. Harvey goes on: ‘All > links in the realisation process bar one can be brought under the control > of the credit system. The single exception is of the greatest importance.’ > Credit can co-ordinate the flow of economic value, but can’t create it ex > nihilo: ‘There is no substitute for the actual transformation of nature > through the concrete production of use values.’ > > In the case of real estate, it might happen – as it has – that more > building and selling of houses has been financed than can actually be paid > for with income deriving, in the last instance, from production. So the > credit system that had seemed to insure against one kind of > overaccumulation (of commodity capital) by advancing money against future > production, now seems to have fostered another kind of overaccumulation(of fictitious capital) by promising more production than has occurred. More > housing has been created than builders can sell at a profit; more mortgage > debt has been issued than can be repaid, through wage income, to ensure the > lenders’ profit; homeowners who took out loans against the rising value of > their property find that prices are instead plummeting; and with the > collapse of the housing sector more money capital now lies in the hands of > its owners than they can see a way to invest profitably. > > ‘The onset of a crisis is usually triggered by a spectacular failure which > shakes confidence in fictitious forms of capital,’ Harvey writes, and > everyone knows what happens next. The flow of credit, at one moment lavished > to all comers on the flimsiest pretext of repayment, at the next more or > less dries up. In the resulting conditions of uncertainty, those without > ready cash, forced to cough it up anyway, can be pushed into fire-sales of > their assets, while those who do have cash prefer to save rather than spend > it, so that the economy as a whole sinks toward stagnation. So far, so > familiar. But what explains the special liability of capitalism to crises > of disappointed speculation? And why should real estate so often be their > privileged object? > > ‘Such speculative fevers are not necessarily to be interpreted as direct > manifestations of disequilibrium in production,’ Harvey says: ‘They can > and do occur on their own account.’ Yet ‘overaccumulation creates > conditions ripe for such speculative fevers so that a concatenation of the > latter almost invariably signals the existence of the former.’ If capital > has been overaccumulated, this means by definition that it can’t easily > find a profitable outlet in increased production. The resulting temptation, > Harvey suggests, with his emphasis on finance, will be for capital to > sidestep production altogether and attempt to increase itself through the > multiplication of paper (or digital) assets alone. The question that goes > all but unasked in the more respectable literature on the crisis, is why > the opportunities for profitable investment looked so scarce in the first > place. > > If capitalist crises are crises of profitability, Marxian theory ascribes > diminished opportunities for profit to one of three underlying conditions. > First, a profit squeeze may be induced by the excessive wage bill of the > working class, so that capitalists lack enough income to invest in new > production on a scale compatible with growth. This line of thought takes > inspiration from Marx’s remark that wages are never higher than on the eve > of a crash, and enjoyed a heyday of plausibility in the early 1970s, a > bygone era of labour militancy, near full employment and high inflation, > allegedly spurred by the so-called wage-price spiral. Robert Brenner > disputes, however, that a profit squeeze imposed by labour truly afflicted > the early 1970s, and doubts whether, given the superior mobility of capital > over labour, such a profit squeeze could ever take hold over the long run; > capital would simply relocate to more docile markets. At any rate, what > Brenner calls the Full Employment Profit Squeeze thesis hardly appears to > caption the current picture of high unemployment and stagnant real wages > across the developed world. > > A second condition is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as a > result of the ‘rising organic composition of capital’, or in other words the > penchant, given increased technological and organisational efficiency, for > using relatively less labour than capital in production. Since > profitability reflects the ‘rate of exploitation’ – or the ratio of the > surplus value produced by the worker to the wages he receives – using less > labour relative to capital diminishes profitability, unless capital goods > become cheaper or exploitation is ramped up. This problem too can be solved, > at least in principle: the capital/ labour ratio can simply be rejigged by > deploying more labour relative to capital. Indeed, something like this has > occurred on the grandest scale in recent decades, through the rough doubling > of the amount of labour available to capital with the proletarianisationof huge populations in Eastern > Europe and Asia. The effect, on one estimate, has been to reduce the > global capital/labour ratio by 55-60 per cent. > > Finally, and most plausibly today, theories of ‘underconsumption’ argue > that capitalism lends itself to crisis because, by resisting wage growth, it > deprives itself of the market, expanded by wage growth, it would need in > order profitably to employ its swelling quantities of capital. Marx, in > Volume II of *Capital*, is to the point: ‘Contradiction in the capitalist > mode of production: the labourers as buyers of commodities are important > for the market. But as sellers of their own commodity – labour power – > capitalist society tends to keep them down to the minimum price.’ Of course > ‘a sufficient prodigality of the capitalist class’, as Marx called it, could > in principle maintain effective demand at a level consistent with the steady > expansion of the system, by substituting luxury consumption for the > satisfaction of the population at large.[3]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…>But this solution was never likely, for as Keynes observed, ‘when our income > increases our consumption increases also, but not by so much. The key to our > practical problem is to be found in this psychological law.’ The worldwide > defeat of labour since the 1980s, leading the wage share of GDP to fall > throughout the capitalist core, along with the persistent inability of the > higher reaches of the capitalist class, in spite of their best efforts, to > attain a level of expenditure proportionate to their wealth, makes an > underconsumptionist analysis of the current crisis an appealing one, and > suggests a possible convergence of Keynesian and Marxian views. > > Marxists tend to battle each other, often in the heroic footnotes native to > the tradition, over the merits or defects of these differing explanations of > crisis. Harvey’s own approach is catholic, all-encompassing. For him, the > various strands of crisis theory represent, but don’t exhaust, possible > departures from a path of balanced growth in finance and production. What > unites the strands is the fundamental antagonism between capital and > labour, with their opposing pursuits of profits and wages. If there exists > a theoretical possibility of attaining an ideal proportion, from the > standpoint of balanced growth, between the amount of total social income to > be reinvested in production and the amount to be spent on consumption, and > if at the same time the credit system could serve to maintain this ratio of > profits to wages in perpetuity, the antagonistic nature of class society > nevertheless prevents such a balance from being struck except occasionally > and by accident, to be immediately upset by any advantage gained by labouror more likely by capital. > > So, as *The Limits to Capital* implies without quite stating, the special > allure and danger of an elaborate credit system lie in its relationship to > class society. If more capital has been accumulated than can be realisedas a profit through exchange, owing perhaps to ‘the poverty and restricted > consumption of the masses’ that Marx at one point declared ‘the ultimate > reason for all real crises’, this condition can be temporarily concealed, > and its consequences postponed, by the confection of fictitious values in > excess of any real values on the verge of production. In this way, growth > and profitability in the financial system can substitute for the impaired > growth and profitability of the class-ridden system of actual production. By > adding over-financialisation, as it were, to his model of overaccumulation, > Harvey means to show how an initial contradiction between production and > realisation later ‘becomes, via the agency of the credit system, an > outright antagonism’ between the financial system of fictitious values and > its monetary base, founded on commodity values. This antagonism then ‘forms > the rock on which accumulation ultimately founders’. In social terms, this > will take the form of a contest between creditors and debtors over who is to > suffer more devaluation. > > The real originality of *The Limits to Capital*, however, is to add a new > geographical dimension to crisis formation. Harvey goes about this via a > theory of rent. One effect of the approach is to suggest why property > speculation – with its value ultimately tied up in potential rental income – > should be such a familiar capitalist perversion (in the psychoanalytic sense > of overinvestment in one kind of object). Another is to convert an apparent > embarrassment for Marxian theory into a show of strength. The would-be > embarrassment lies in the evident difficulty of reconciling a labourtheory of value with the price of unimproved land, given that land is > obviously not a product of human labour. Harvey’s bold and ingenious > solution is to propose that, under capitalism, ground rent – or the > proportion of property value attributable to mere location, rather than to > anything built or cultivated on the land – becomes a ‘pure financial asset’. > Ground rent, in other words, is a form of fictitious capital, or value > created in anticipation of future commodity production: ‘Like all such forms > of fictitious capital, what is traded is a claim on future revenues, which > means a claim on future profits from the use of the land or, more directly, > a claim on future labour.’ > > From the need to realise ground rent stems capitalism’s whole geography of > anxious anticipation. Capital overaccumulated in one place can flow to > another which appears to boast better ultimate prospects of profit. Rising > land values will shunt capital to new locations, at the same time that the > resulting increase in rental costs compels a matching expansion of > production, with its accompanying physical and social infrastructure. The > relationship between credit and commodities is in this way translated into > spatial terms as an uneasy rapport between one kind of capital, highly > mobile or liquid, and another kind – ‘fixed capital embedded in the land’ – > defined by its inertness. Here, in the latent conflict between migratory > finance capital and helplessly stationary complexes of fixed capital, > including not only factories and office buildings but roads, houses, schools > and so on, Harvey has found a contradiction of capitalism overlooked by > Marx and his heirs. > > The contradiction may look at first like a brilliant solution to the > problem of overaccumulation. Overaccumulated capital, whether originating > as income from production or as the bank overdrafts that unleash fictitious > values, can postpone any immediate crisis of profitability by being drawn > off into long-term infrastructural projects, in an operation Harvey calls a > ‘spatio-temporal fix’. Examples on a grand scale would be the British boom > in railway construction of the 1820s, the Second Empire modernisation of > Paris, the suburbanisation of the US after World War Two, and the recent > international pullulation of commercial and residential towers. In each > case, a vast quantity of capital, faced with the question of profitability, > could as it were postpone the answer to a remote date, since investments in > infrastructure promise such delayed returns. Meanwhile, transformed spatial > arrangements swap old trades for new ones – Harvey notes that Haussmann’s > Paris witnessed the extinction of the water-carrier and the advent of the > electrician – or rejuvenate existing industries, like the postwar car > manufacturers in the US. > > Inevitably, the risk is that a given territory, as a complex of fixed > capital, comes to prosper thanks to a stream of finance that one day flows > elsewhere. A devaluation of the abandoned land along with its ‘ > overaccumulated’ workers, industries and infrastructure will ensue. This > harsh sequel to the spatial fix Harvey calls a ‘switching crisis’, and in > something like the climax of *The Limits to Capital*, he writes: > > The more the forces of geographical inertia prevail, the deeper will the > aggregate crises of capitalism become and the more savage will switching > crises have to be to restore the disturbed equilibrium. Local alliances will > have to be dramatically reorganised (the rise of Fascism being the most > horrible example), technological mixes suddenly altered (incurring massive > devaluation of old plant), physical and social infrastructures totally > reconstituted (often through a crisis in state expenditures) and the space > economy of capitalist production, distribution and consumption totally > transformed. The cost of devaluation to both individual capitalists and > labourers becomes substantial. Capitalism reaps the savage harvest of its > own internal contradictions. > > In *The Enigma of Capital* Harvey observes these contradictions sharpening > over time, as finance capital becomes ever more mobile while beds of > infrastructure grow increasingly Procrustean: ‘The disjunction of the quest > for hypermobility and an increasingly sclerotic built environment (think > of the huge amount of fixed capital embedded in Tokyo or New York City) > becomes ever more dramatic.’ > > So what then are the ‘limits to capital’? Harvey’s answer, disappointing > as it is honest, is that a system bent on overaccumulation will not > collapse of its own top-heaviness. Should the world market fail to generate > the ever increasing surpluses that form its only rationale, it can always > enlarge its borders and appropriate new wealth through what Marx called > primitive accumulation and what Harvey proposes to call ‘accumulation by > dispossession’, given that the process hardly ceased when the English > peasantry was cleared off the land or the Inca Empire looted for its silver. > The incorporation into the capitalist domain of non-capitalist territories > and populations, the privatisation of public or commonly owned assets, > including land, and so on, down to the commodification of indigenous > art-forms and the patenting of seeds, offer instances of the accumulation by > dispossession that has accompanied capitalism since its inception. This > field for gain would be exhausted only with universal commodification, > when ‘every person in every nook and cranny of the world is caught within > the orbit of capital.’ Even then, the continuous ‘restructuring of the > space economy of capitalism on a global scale still holds out the prospect > for a restoration of equilibrium through a reorganisation of the regional > parts’. Spatial fixes and switching crises might succeed one another > endlessly, in great floods and droughts of capital. Devaluation, being > ‘always on a particular route or at a particular place’, might serially > scourge the earth even as capital in general, loyal to no country, remained > free to pursue its own advantage. > > The real test of Harvey’s 1982 theory of crisis is how well it serves in > the face of the thing itself. *The Enigma of Capital* can be read as an > effort to meet the challenge. Naturally, its success or failure depends on > whether it can offer a more comprehensive and persuasive account than rival > theories. On the score of comprehensiveness there can be little doubt that > Harvey’s work and that of other Marxists goes beyond the alternatives. > ‘The idea that the crisis had systemic origins is scarcely mooted in the > mainstream media,’ Harvey writes, and that might be extended to include > even the trenchant work of the neo-Keynesians. The crisis, after all, is > that of a capitalist system, and no account of it, however searching, can be > truly systematic if it neglects to consider property relations: that is, the > preponderant ownership of capital by one class, and of little or nothing but > its labour power by another. > > Paul Krugman, discussing Roubini’s book in the *New York Review of Books*, > agreed with him that what Ben Bernanke called the ‘global savings glut’ > lay at the heart of the crisis, behind the proximate follies of > deregulation, mortgage-securitisation, excessive leverage and so on. > Originating in the current account surpluses of net-exporting countries such > as Germany, Japan and China, this great tide of money flooded markets in the > US and Western Europe, and floated property and asset values unsustainably. > Why was so much capital so badly misallocated? In the *LRB* of 22 April > 2010, Joseph Stiglitz observed that the savings glut ‘could equally well > be described as an “investment dearth”’, reflecting a scarcity of attractive > investment opportunities. Stiglitz suggests that global warming mitigation > or poverty reduction offers new ‘opportunities for investments with high > social returns’. > > The neo-Keynesians’ ‘savings glut’ can readily be seen as a case of what a > more radical tradition calls overaccumulated capital. But it is the > broader and more systematic Marxist perspective that ultimately and properly > contains Keynesianism within it, and a crude Marxist catechism may be in > order. Where does an excess of savings come from? From unpaid labour – for > example, that of Chinese or German workers. And why would such funds > inflate asset bubbles rather than create useful investment? Because > capital pursues not ‘high social returns’, but high private returns. And > why should these have proved difficult to achieve, except by financial > shell-games? Keynesians complain of an insufficiency of aggregate demand, > restraining investment. The Marxist will simply add that this bespeaks > inadequate wages, in the index of a class struggle going the way of owners > rather than workers. > > In *The Enigma of Capital*, Harvey coincides with other Marxists in > locating the origins of the present crisis in the troubles of the 1970s, > when the so-called Golden Age of capitalism following the Second World War – > blessed with high rates of profitability, productivity, wage growth and > expansion of output – gave way to what Brenner named ‘the long downturn’ > after 1973. Brenner argued in *The Economics of Global Turbulence* that > this long downturn, with deeper recessions and weaker expansions across > every business cycle, reflects chronic overcapacity – another variety of > overaccumulation – in international manufacturing, a condition brought > about by the maturation of Japanese and German industry by the end of the > 1960s, and later compounded by the industrialisation of East Asia. As > competition to supply export markets increased faster than those markets > expanded, the price of international tradeables naturally fell, reducing > both the profits of manufacturers and the wages paid to workers. Such > impaired profitability moreover discouraged further investment in > production, so that finance capital turned increasingly to speculation in > asset values. Yet this view, however formidably presented, doesn’t appear to > have won general assent. Harvey, content to follow Brenner elsewhere, > inclines towards a more conventional profit-squeeze explanation of the > crisis of the early 1970s. > > About the sequel to that crisis there is less dispute. Whether or not high > wages had undermined profitability, a subsequent effort to curb wages, > carried out at gunpoint in the Southern Cone in the mid-1970s, and achieved > by ballot under Thatcher and Reagan before spreading to other wealthy > countries, eventually resulted in a systemic shortage of demand. In this > way, capital’s victory over labour set the stage for a later reversal. In > *The Enigma of Capital*, Harvey charts the dialectical switch in the blunt > style he now favours: > > Labour availability is no problem now for capital, and it has not been for > the last 25 years. But disempowered labour means low wages, and > impoverished workers do not constitute a vibrant market. Persistent wage > repression therefore poses the problem of lack of demand for the expanding > output of capitalist corporations. One barrier to capital accumulation – the > labour question – is overcome at the expense of creating another – lack of > a market. So how could this second barrier be circumvented? > > The lack of demand was of course appeased by recourse to fictitious > capital: ‘The gap between what labour was earning and what it could spend > was covered by the rise of the credit card industry and increasing > indebtedness.’ It was not only consumers who indentured themselves. As > Bellamy Foster and Magdoff point out in *The Great Financial Crisis*, > total US debt, owed by government, corporations and individuals, equalledapproximately 125% of American GDP during the 1970s. By the mid-1980s the > proportion had increased to two to one, and by 2005 stood at almost three > and a half to one. Much of the cheap credit, originating in East Asia and > flowing through the Federal Reserve, came to promote a property bubble of > historic dimensions. ‘The demand problem,’ Harvey writes, ‘was temporarily > bridged with respect to housing by debt-financing the developers as well as > the buyers. The financial institutions collectively controlled both thesupply of, and demand for, housing!’ > > It can’t be said that Harvey comes late to recognising the housing > bubble’s absurdity. In *The New Imperialism*, from 2003, he recapitulated > his theory of the spatial fix, and warned that while some spatial fixes > ultimately relieve crises through the elaboration of new physical and social > infrastructure, others merely postpone them. After listing several of the > more spectacular property-market collapses of the long downturn (worldwide > in 1973-75; Japanese in 1990; Thai and Indonesian in 1997), Harvey added > that > > the most important prop to the US and British economies after the onset of > general recession in all other sectors from mid-2001 onwards was the > continued speculative vigour in the property and housing markets and > construction. In a curious backwash effect, we find that some 20 per cent of > GDP growth in the United States in 2002 was attributable to consumers > refinancing their mortgage debt on the inflated values of their housing and > using the extra money they gained for immediate consumption (in effect, > mopping up overaccumulating capital in the primary circuit). British > consumers borrowed $19 billion in the third quarter of 2002 alone against > the value of their mortgages to finance consumption. What happens if and > when this property bubble bursts is a matter for serious concern. > > Not only Americans and Britons but the Irish, Spanish and Emiratis live > today among the ruins of a broken spatial fix. > > What, if any, switching crisis does this presage? To keep things simple, > imagine the world economy of recent years as consisting of two capitalist > countries – represented by the US and China – in both of which the working > class, employed or unemployed, received too little of the total product for > capital not to overaccumulate and risk massive devaluation. Chinese > workers, deprived by wage repression and social insecurity (such as lack of > health insurance) of the opportunity to consume much of their own output, > saw the wealth accumulated through their labour go, in the form of their > own savings and the income of their bosses, towards the construction of new > productive capacity in their own country and a property boom in the other > country. Both the new factories at home, turning out exports for the US, > and the deliriously appreciating houses abroad rested on the premise of > continuously rising American incomes. But among Americans, wage growth had > ceased and household incomes could no longer be supplemented by the mass > entry of women into the workforce, something already accomplished. The > issuance and securitisation of debt alone could substitute for present > income. But in the end so much fictitious capital could not be redeemed. > Whatever the destination of future Chinese savings gluts, they can no longer > sponsor American consumption in the same way. > > In his final book, *Adam Smith in Beijing* (2007), the late Giovanni > Arrighi expanded on Harvey’s concepts of the spatial fix and the switching > crisis to survey half a millennium of capitalist development and to peer > into a new, probably Chinese century. In Arrighi’s scheme of capitalist > history, there had been four ‘systemic cycles of accumulation’, each lasting > roughly a century and each organised on a larger scale than the one > before, with a new polity at the centre: a Genoese-Iberian cycle; a Dutch > cycle; a British cycle; and an American one. A systemic cycle’s first phase, > of material expansion, came to an end when the central power had accumulated > more capital than established trade and production could absorb. This was > followed by a second, financial phase of expansion in which capital > overaccumulated at the centre of the system promoted a new nucleus of > growth. Ultimately the rising centre came to finance the expenditures, often > on war, that the old and now declining centre could no longer cover out of > its mere income. > > It fits Arrighi’s scheme that the US, having (along with the Chinese > diaspora) once led international capital onto the Asian mainland, had now > become dependent on Chinese credit. For him, this announced the greatest > switching crisis of all time, as China prepared to assume the hegemonic > role being reluctantly relinquished by the US, and to inaugurate a new > cycle of accumulation. Such a succession might ideally yield a new > commonwealth of civilisations, in which capitalism as we know it gave way > to what Arrighi somewhat hazily envisaged as a non-capitalist market > economy recuperating old Chinese traditions of self-centred development. > One condition of this happy scenario was that the US abandon its armed > imperialism and China remain committed to its ‘peaceful rise’; another, > that the Chinese pioneer a green mode of growth distinct from ‘the Western, > capital intensive, energy consuming path’. Otherwise inter-imperial war, the > ultimate means of competitive devaluation in *The Limits to Capital*, > loomed once more. > > In the recently published *Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth*, > John Bellamy Foster and his Marxist co-authors refer to the identification > by a group of scientists, including the leading American climatologist James > Hansen, of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ that civilisation transgresses at > its peril.[4]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…>Already three – concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, loss of nitrogen > from the soil and the extinction of other species – have been exceeded. > These are impediments to endless capital accumulation that future crisis > theories will have to reckon with. Harvey’s intuition of the ultimate > demise of capitalism has also taken on an ecological colouring. ‘Compound > growth for ever’ – historically, for capitalism at about 3 per cent a year – > ‘is not possible,’ he declares in *The Enigma of Capital*, without much > elaboration. The classical economists long ago foresaw that an economy > defined by constant expansion would one day give way to what John Stuart > Mill called the ‘stationary state’. The idea has gained a new currency in > Marxist writing of recent years, and in its contemporary version tends to > locate the limits to growth in the depletion of natural resources or in the > exhaustion of productivity gains as the share of manufacturing in the world > economy shrinks and that of services expands. Of course, peak oil or soil > exhaustion might easily coincide with faltering productivity. Harveydoesn’t spell out why growth must have a stop, and the outlines of an > ecologically stable and politically democratic future socialism remain as > blurry in his later work as they do almost everywhere else. At the moment > Marxism seems better prepared to interpret the world than to change it. But > the first achievement is at least due wider recognition, which with the next > crisis, or subsequent spasm of the present one, it may begin to receive. > > > <http://ads.lrb.co.uk/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=37__zoneid=11…> > > We hope you enjoyed reading this free essay from the *London Review of > Books*. *Subscribe now* to access every article from every fortnightly > issue of the *London Review of Books*, including the entire archive of > 12,574 essays.<http://ads.lrb.co.uk/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=37__zoneid=11…> > > > > [1]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…> > *Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance*, by Nouriel > Roubini and Stephen Mihm (Allen Lane, 368 pp., £25, May 2010, 978 1 8461 > 4287 1). > > [2]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…> > *The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences*, by John Bellamy > Foster and Fred Magdoff (Monthly Review, 144 pp., £10.95, January 2009, > 978 1 583 67184 9). > > [3]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…>In his 1865 lecture on ‘Value, Price and Profit’, Marx illustrated luxury > consumption as money ‘wasted on flunkeys, horses, cats and so forth’. It is > some measure of progress that the general population can now afford to feed > their cats. > > [4]<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much/print#fn-…> > *Monthly Review*, 544 pp., £14.95, January, 978 1 58367 218 1. > > > *******************************************Disclaimer****************************************************** > The information contained in this message is BPCL's Confidential and > Proprietary information and is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) > named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, > he/she is hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or > copying of this communication or any of its content is strictly prohibited. > In such case, please advise the sender immediately and delete it from your > system. Further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are > those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be > implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of > BPCL. > -- 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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A survey about some sociological issues related to copyright in the digital age
by M. Fioretti 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

Greetings, thanks in advance for forwarding this request from Simone Aliprandi to whoever it may concern: Object: A survey about some sociological issues related to copyright in the digital age By this message I would like to introduce a survey that I recently created in order to go more in depth with the study of some sociological issues on the topic "Copyright in the digital age: attitudes, social perception and level of awareness". The questionnaire takes approximately 15 minutes to complete; it is online and completely anonymous (we do not ask your name and we do not record your IP address; so please relax and answer sincerly to the questions). The results of this research will be included in my Ph.D. thesis and made available with an open access/copyleft approach. Each person's attendance is important in order to accomplish my research, so I hope that you will be able to dedicate the time to answer the survey. It would also be very useful and appreciated if you could share this announcement with your friends and collegues. HERE IS THE WEBPAGE FOR THE SURVEY: http://www.aliprandi.org/en/survey Thanks. Simone Aliprandi – Ph.D. candidate at Centro Qua_SI of Bicocca University of Milan.

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Fwd: [fcforum] Students for free culture conference at New York City Febreary 19th-20th 2011
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Fuster, Mayo <Mayo.Fuster(a)eui.eu> Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:30 PM Subject: [fcforum] Students for free culture conference at New York City Febreary 19th-20th 2011 To: "fcforum(a)list.fcforum.net" <fcforum(a)list.fcforum.net> Hi! The Students for Free Culture network will celebrate its annual conference in New York City February 19th-20th (More details at: http://conf11.freeculture.org) I am part of this network and attended the conference of 2008 in Berkeley; it was a very good conference. It is a great occasion to expread the Fcforum process (2009 Charter, 2010 work on sustainability etc) and build USA connexions. I was wondering if there is someone else from the e-list who is planning to attend the conference or/and would be willing to attend it and help to contribute connexions with the Fcforum process. There is a possibility to apply for funding. The dates are a bit short in time to arrenge it, but if there is someone availeble please say it. Cheers! Mayo «·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·» «·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·» «·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·» Research Digital Commons Governance: http://www.onlinecreation.info Ph.D European University Institute Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of California, Berkeley. Phone Italy: 0039-3312805010 or 0039-0558409982 Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748 E-mail: mayo.fuster(a)eui.eu Skype: mayoneti Postal address: EUI - Badia Fiesolana Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) - Italy ----- + info http://list.fcforum.net/wws/info/fcforum ------- -- 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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Net Delusion review
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/01/delusions-aside-the-n… Zeynep: “But I disagree that the reason online protests do not work is that they are online, or they are easy. The reality, at this juncture in history, is that nothing really works. The Internet is not the problem; global citizen disempowerement is. It’s not the technology that is failing politics but it is our politics that has failed. … Political activism is not failing because people are too busy watching cat videos online, but because of a fundamental collapse of citizen leverage on institutions of power like governments and corporations. I find it ironic that, after correctly warning about the dangers of an Internet-centric worldview in which everything is perceived through the prism of the Net, Morozov himself is caught in a net-centric analysis of political activism’s decline. If surveillance, censorship and propaganda are the three pillars of authoritarianism, information, organization and leverage are the counter-pillars of citizen power. And the Internet provides the best and most appropriate infrastructure for strengthening all three. Morozov correctly claims that it does not do so in an unmitigated manner but unmitigated is not the same as ineffective or irrelevant. In this regard, the Internet is the greatest antidote to anti-communitarian forces. Frankly, I find even the most mindless lolcat sites on the Internet to be an improvement over canned-laughter-filled sitcoms. The point of lolcats is not the lolcats themselves, but to share them with friends, comment on them, make more of them, and enter the community via the joke. It’s the community, not the cat, that matters. (If you doubt this, try selling a book of lolcats and see how well it does.) I write this review in the aftermath of an atrocity; the assassination attempt in Arizona on a Congresswoman that claimed the lives of six others including a child. Every Internet community I am part of is roiled and there is widespread discussion on most of them about the event. Fifteen years ago, we’d all be watching TV, not communicating with each other.”

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social media revolution
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003(a)yahoo.com> Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:10 PM Subject: blog update, social revolution part 2 To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> http://gigaom.com/2011/01/29/twitter-facebook-egypt-tunisia/ By Mathew Ingram: " is anyone really arguing that Twitter and Facebook caused the revolutions in Tunisia or Egypt, or even the earlier public uprisings in Moldova or Iran for that matter? Maybe cyber-utopians somewhere are doing this, but I haven’t seen or heard of any. Theargument I have tried to make is simply that they and other social media tools can be incredibly powerful, both for spreading the word — which can give moral or emotional support to others in a country, as well as generating external support — as well as for organizational purposes, thanks to the power of the network. As Jared Cohen of Google Ideas put it, social media may not be a cause, but it can be a powerful “accelerant.”Did Twitter or Facebook cause the Tunisian revolt? No. But they did spread the news, and many Tunisian revolutionaries gave them a lot of credit for helping with the process. Did Twitter cause the revolts in Egypt? No. But they did help activists such as WikiLeaks supporter Jacob Appelbaum (known on Twitter as @ioerror) and others as they organized the dialup and satellite phone connections that created an ad-hoc Internet after Egypt turned the real one off — which, of course, it did in large part to try and prevent demonstrators from using Internet-based tools to foment unrest. As Cory Doctorow notedin his review of Evgeny Morozov’s book, even if Twitter and Facebook are just used to replace the process of stapling pieces of paper to telephone poles and sending out hundreds of emails, they are still a huge benefit to social activism of all kinds. But open-network advocate Dave Winer made the key point: it’s the Internet that is the really powerful tool here, not any of the specific services such as Twitter and Facebook that run on top of it, which Winer compares to brands like NBC. They have power because lots of people use them, and — in the case of Twitter — because they have open protocols so that apps can still access the network even when the company’s website is taken down by repressive governments (athough they didn’t mention Egypt or Tunisia by name, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and general counsel Alexander Macgillivray wrote a post about the company’s desire to “keep the information flowing). In the end, the real weapon is the power of networked communication itself. In previous revolutions it was the fax, or the pamphlet, or the cellphone — now it is SMS and Twitter and Facebook. Obviously none of these things cause revolutions, but to ignore or downplay their growing importance is also a mistake." -- 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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update to zeynep's views on the role of social media in uprisings, the 'dictators dilemma'
by Michel Bauwens 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

http://technosociology.org/?p=286 In another blog, Zeynep examines the internet's potential from the regime's point of view, i.e. the 'dictator's dilemma': "1- The capacities of the Internet that are most threatening to authoritarian regimes are not necessarily those pertaining to spreading of censored information but rather its ability to support the formation of a counter-public that is outside the control of the state. In other words, it is not that people are waiting for that key piece of information to start their revolt–and that information just happens to be behind the wall of censorship–but that they are isolated, unsure of the power of the regime, unsure of their position and potential. 2- Dissent is not just about knowing what you think but about the formation of a public. A public is not just about what you know. Publics form through knowing that other people know what you know–and also knowing that they know what you know. (This point was developed through a Twitter discussion with Dave Parry). Yes, all those parts of the Web that are ridiculed by some of the critics of Internet’s potential–the LOLcats, Facebook, the three million baby pictures, the slapstick, talking about the weather, the food and the trials and tribulations of life–are exactly the backbone of community, and ultimately the creation of public(s). 3- Thus, social media can be the most threatening part of the Internet to an authoritarian regime through its capacity to create a public(ish) sphere that is integrated into everyday life of millions of people and is outside the direct control of the state partly because it is so widespread and partly because it is not solely focused on politics. How do you censor five million Facebook accounts in real time except to shut them all down? 4- The capacity to selectively filter the Internet is inversely proportional to the scale and strength of the dissent. In other words, regimes which employ widespread legitimacy may be able to continue to selectively filter the Internet. However, this is going to break down as dissent and unhappiness spreads. As anyone who has been to a country with selective filtering knows, most everyone (who is motivated enough) knows how to get around the censors. For example, in Turkey, YouTube occasionally gets blocked because of material that some courts have deemed as offensive to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of Turkey. I have yet to meet anyone in Turkey who did not know how to get to YouTube through proxies. 5- Thus, the effect of selective filtering is not to keep out information out of the hands of a determined public, but to allow the majority of ordinary people to continue to be able to operate without confronting information that might create cognitive dissonance between their existing support for the regime and the fact that they, along with many others, also have issues. Meanwhile, the elites go about business as if there was no censorship as they all know how to use work-arounds. This creates a safety-valve as it is quite likely that it is portions of the elite groups that would be most hindered by the censorship and most unhappy with it. (In fact, I have not seen any evidence that China is trying to actively and strongly shut down the work-arounds.) 6- Social media is not going to create dissent where there is none. The apparent strength of the regime in China should not be understood solely through its success in censorship. (And this is the kind of Net-centrism Morozov warns against but that I think he sometimes falls into himself). China has undergone one of the most amazing transformations in human history. Whatever else you may say about the brutality of the regime, there is a reason for its continuing legitimacy in the eyes of most of its people. I believe that the Chinese people are no less interested in freedom and autonomy than any other people on the planet but I can also understand why they have, for the most part, appear to have support for the status-quo even as they continue to have further aspirations and desires. 7- Finally, during times of strong upheaval, as in Egypt, dictator’s dilemma roars. The ability to ensure that their struggle and their efforts are not buried in a deep pit of censorship, the ability to continue to have an honest conversation, the ability to know that others know what one knows all combine to create a cycle furthering dissent and upheaval. Citizen-journalism matters most in these scenarios as there cannot be reporters everywhere something is happening; however, wherever something is happening there are people with cell phone cameras. Combined with Al-Jazeera re-broadcasting the fruits of people-powered journalism, it all comes down to how much force the authoritarian state is willing and able to deploy – which in turn, depends on the willingness of the security apparatus. Here, too, social media matters because, like everyone else, they too are watching the footage on Al-Jazeera. Their choice is made more stark by the fact that they know that history will judge them by their actions–actions which will likely be recorded, broadcast and be viewed by their citizens, their neighbors and their children and grandchildren." -- 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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