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http://p2pfoundation.net/Network_Society_and_Future_Scenarios_for_a_Collaborative_Economy>
Thanks for this book, Michel and Vasilis. "Future Scenarios for a
Collaborative Economy" is exceedingly timely and I would
recommend it to
anyone interested in the Commons specifically, or in political
economy
more generally. In response, I've written something in between
a review
and a letter to the authors. I address Michel because he
posted it.
Hopefully he will respond to a few of my comments!
I like the book, Michel, but I must also say, I'm somewhat
mystified by
it. I like the very sophisticated strategy that it sets out at
the end
for a possible transition to a society of commons-based
production. I'm
mystified by the rather simplistic presentation of contemporary
capitalism at the beginning. What explains the gap?
First of all, I would like to explain a few caveats. This book
explicitely says at the beginning it doesn't want to be yet
another critique of capitalism. There are two reasons for this,
first that I am probably not up to that task. I am far from being
the classic intellectual who would have the time to keep up with
all that necessary reading; I am more of a digital curator ,
playing a role as a networker and catalyst, from a certain and
very specific angle: that of someone who believes that the core
condition for change is structural first, i.e. a focus on the new
mode of production that is emerging, and that is mostly embedded
in the present political economy, but also starts to show early
sings of an 'organic system', i.e. that it can eventually find the
way to self-reproduce itself, and to create an accumulation of the
commons, to replace the system of accumulation of capital. What
interests us, me and Vasilis, are the specific parts of capitalism
that 'react' to this emergence, i.e. the systemic logic of
cognitive capitalism (living off rents) that is now in part
morphing to netarchical capitalism, i.e. forms of capitalism which
are entirely geared, not to destroy the emergent commons, but to
subsume it and profit from it. So I see it that way, there are
many scholars, who have studied in depth the current evolution of
capitalism in its complexity, but they are missing an evolution of
major import if they ignore the emergence of peer production,
which I feel they do. If you know of any, let me know, but I
haven't seen them yet. We have plenty of "social-democratic" or
"social-liberal" approaches (Benkler, Tapscott, Rifkin), but I
have not seen any thinker of the left. Yes , Michael Hardt and
Toni Negri speak about the common, but it is a very 'metaphysical'
approach, that is not concretely linked to the actual emergence of
peer production and its institutions.
On the other hand, we are more closer observers of the emergence
of the commons, and that part of capitalism that reacts and adapts
to it. Thus, as Orsan suggests, p2p theory does need an upgrade,
but it may not be us that are able to carry out such a necessary
integration. But the book hope at leasts to jumpstart that
process, which is why I really rejoice in your critique. I hope
that it may wake up more classic thinkers of the left to take the
challenge of peer production into account.
In Part I you adopt the theoretical framework of "long waves of
capitalist development" as put forth by Kondratiev and
Schumpeter, and
more recently, by Freeman and Perez (Trotsky and Mandel aren't
mentioned). In its most general form, the long-wave idea is that
capitalist society periodically goes through major
depressions, during
which investment is withdrawn from production. Meanwhile
inventions
accumulate until such time as conditions look good, and a
massive wave
of technological investment lays the foundations for a new
growth cycle.
Right now we're in such a depression. Therefore you try to
analyze the
possible futures of the current "techno-economic paradigm."
There is some ambiguity here, but that's OK. On the one hand
the book
follows Carlota Perez, explaining that the information technology
paradigm has run up against a set of internal contradictions
and that a
mature phase of sustained growth can only come under new
political and
institutional arrangements. On the other hand it hints in
certain places
at the emergence, in the upcoming years or decades, of an
entirely new
paradigm (which, according to Schumpeter or Freeman, implies a
distinct
set of technologies and organizational forms). And then near
the end it
quite strongly claims, with Marx, that capitalism must now be
overcome
in favor of a different system. The upshot seems to be that
the new
society will emerge from the old, perhaps not entirely
smoothly, but not
through an apocalyptic rupture either. That's realistic and
desirable,
in my view.
I agree with that assessment, but I think the situation is
complicated by very real ecological and structural challenges. In
my reading, the emergence of peer production is too fresh to be
able to affirm that we are 'right now' in a pre-revolutionary or
revolutionary situation. So we had the 'sudden systemic crisis' of
2008, and the Depression that followed it, but nowhere near enough
of the political and institutional changes that would be necessary
to launch a new successful kondratieff wave. So the wave will come
(though probably after another 'aftershock'), it will incorporate
'green' and 'p2p-commons' aspects subsumed in a new capitalist
compact, but it will be weak and messy as it will lack a new
'social compact'. On the plus side, it also gives the
counterforces time. The aim for me is that, by the time the next
mid-term Kondratieff wave hits, the counter-economy of the commons
will have sufficient force to have achieved at least 'parity'. It
is only once parity is achieved, that a true phase transition
process will be on the agenda. So the priorities right now, are
to develop those type of practices of governance and property, and
those types of politics and policy with the social movements
aligned with it. What is to be done right now is nothing less than
a grand reconstruction of emancipatory politics, aligned around
the structural changes brought about by both 'subsumed' and
'organic' forms of peer production. This is why our proposals are
dual, on the one hand our proposals for 'open cooperativism', i.e.
a set of interventions to create an organic counter-economy; and
on the other hand, the 'Commons Transition Plan', a set of
proposals to renew the transformative politics and policies of
emancipatory social forces.
I too think some kind of new growth wave is almost inevitable,
within a
decade or so - and though it will probably not be on anywhere
near so
intensive as the postwar growth wave that so many theorists
take as a
norm, it could well be more extensive, reaching far more
people on our
densely populated planet. I also think such a new long wave
does imply
distinctly new technologies capable of attracting new
investment; but in
the absence of radical breakthroughs, the big difference is
most likely
to be in the political and institutional structures that
govern those
technologies. In other words, the current technology set is
more likely
to be augmented and institutionally inflected (as early mass
manufacturing was by postwar Keynesian Fordism) than it is to be
radically transformed (as Keynesian Fordism was radiclly
transformed by
the IT revolution). In other words, we are likely to get an
extension
and amplification of the certain aspects of the current
paradigm, but
under new institutional arrangements.
The problem is, Michel, you never really discuss the current
techno-economic paradigm in any serious way. What you and your
co-author
are talking about, in Parts I and II, is a small though
important field
of activity, the one that can be identified with keywords such
as P2P,
social media, crowd-sourcing, sharing economy, etc. The best
parts of
the book contain significant insight into these activities, as
one would
expect. However, by claiming to discuss the future of the entire
capitalist system and then not really doing so, you blur the
issue and
diminish the potential value of your work.
I have explained why we have done so above, both by choice and
because of our real limitations. Nevertheless, we are unapologetic
in the sense that though emergent, this is really in our opinion,
the key to the transformation of our economies and societies. Yes,
there is plenty going on, but the key lever today, that is our
thesis, is the emergence of peer production, of the commoners and
peer producers, and of netarchical capital. Living in age, I see
the move to middle class realities, I see the popular mobilization
to share more of the proceeds, and this is important, but it is
not crucial. What is crucial is the change in the mode of production.
One can follow Manuel Castells and call the current
techno-economic
paradigm "Informationalism" - or better, "Neoliberal
Informationalism,"
to give some idea of how this mode of production is governed. But
Informationalism does not mean that the only significant
commodity on
the contemporary market is information. Nor does it signal an
eclipse of
industry, as you suggest in chapter 1.
I don't think we are suggesting this anywhere in chapter 1, so
this is either in my view a misinterpretation, or a lack of proper
explanation on our part. What we call for is in fact a new type of
industrialization, ie. open, distributed and solidary forms of
production, where 'what is heavy is local and what is light is
global'. In fact, we don't believe at all that " the only
significant commodity on the contemporary market is information";
we believe that information is being de-commodified.We believe
that in the new emergence commons-driven economy, market
activities develop around this decommodified core, either in
capitalist formats, as in the current free software economy, or as
we propose and is starting to happen, in post-capitalist forms
(market and non-market). We don't believe that at this stage,
these organic counter-forms of peer production can be dominant,
but we believe they can be significantly build and strengthened,
and form the basis of a new politics, just as the cooperative
movement formed the basis of emergent labour in the 19th century.
Instead, Neoliberal
Informationalism has been based on a "lead technology" which
is new kind
of producer goods, namely IT in all its facets (computers,
software,
cables, mobile telephony, communications satellites, etc).
These goods
in combination with networked organizational forms are used to
create
transnational supply chains, constituting what is generally called
"just-in-time production" or "the global factory." The
characteristic
companies of neoliberal informationalism are not Facebook and
Google, as
one would gather from your book, nor even less, recent
start-ups like
AirBnB or Uber. They are giant networked firms like WalMart
and Apple,
which have their products manufactured in China, coordinate
their work
forces and supply chains through sophisticated IT systems, and
sell
their wares on the web as well as in the store. Or they are
specialized
corporations like Cisco, Verizon and IBM, which furnish the
hardware and
software for the new mode of production, distribution and
sales. All
these corporations have evolved under the anti-welfare policy
mix of
neoliberalism, and with the resources allocated by speculative
finance,
which has largely replaced the central planning of national
governments.
Not coincidentally, finance itself is crucially enabled by IT.
Computers, cable and satellite networks, transnationalism and
financial
governance are key aspects of the current techno-economic
paradigm.
I agree that this is the case, at the same time, I would strongly
argue that the rapidly accelerating ecological, climate and
resource crisis will severely weaken this paradigm. These
transnational supply chains are extremely unsustainable and so it
becomes a necessity for progressive politics for focus on smart
re-industrialisation and re-localisation of production. The triple
internets of knowledge resources, energy and manufacturing give a
potential basis for a entire new vision of production and
industrialization. The de-industrialization that neoliberalism
wrought in the West is no fatality, and a very fragile construct
in ecological terms. We can't know if we succeed, but we can't
afford not to try, as the alternative is a chaotic desintegration
of the world system.
Now, it's necessary to add that older sectors, such as
petroleum, steel,
chemicals, automobiles, engineering, grain production, etc, remain
tremendously significant for the global economy. They are not
just going
to disappear in the next ten or twenty years. However, the way
these
sectors are articulated, both internally and between each
other, has
effectively been transformed by IT, and that's why we can speak of
Neoliberal Informationalism as a distinct techno-economic
paradigm. As
you and Vasilis point out, this paradigm has been predicated
on low-wage
precarious labor, and it has called on finance to furnish the
means of
consumption through the extension of credit to individuals.
The debt
burden of the working and middle classes has risen
tremendously and now,
in the overdeveloped world at least, these classes can no
longer consume
enough to prop up economic growth. So the system is in a deep
crisis,
one which cannot be resolved by simply pumping money into
asset markets
as various governments have been doing. That crisis is further
intensified by geopolitical factors (rise of Asia) and by
climate change
(which has been made a lot worse by the rise of Asia). How
will the
global political economy reconfigure itself under these
circumstances?
And what can civil society do to influence the next
redeployment of
capital? That's what we need to know.
Agreed, and we believe our proposals are part of this mix of what
is needed, albeit not the whole story, as you correctly suggest,
but it will be a crucial part of that new story.
In Part II, it's really interesting how you present a
diagrammatic field
of four distinct yet neighboring scenarios, divided on the one
hand
between distributed and centralized organization (or local and
global
scales), and on the other hand, between capitalist and
commons-based
development paths (or "for profit" and "for benefit"
activities, as you
also say). However, for the reasons already stated, the
capitalist or
for-profit side of the diagram is not very convincing. In
chapters 4 and
5 we are introduced to two supposedly emergent categories.
First, a
corporate-scale "netarchical capitalism" where sharing and
cooperative
production are enabled by interfaces with closed, privately
controlled
backends that facilitate the harvesting of monetary value from
social
interaction. And second, an individual-scale "distributed
capitalism"
where everyone is asked to become a networked entrepreneur of
him- or
herself, creating their own backends for profit. Now, without
a doubt
these are already both realities. The first has already undergone
significant expansion, partially wiping out the old media
sphere with
some inroads on the hobby, transport, in-person service and
vacation
sectors. The second has all the reality of neoliberal
ideology: it is
the computerized version of the entrepreneurial ideal, where
everyone
freely competes in an open, unregulated economic realm. But
the claim
that these figures represent the capitalism of tomorrow could
only hold
true if "we are not talking about monopoly capitalism" - which
is a
crucial caveat that you supply early on.
But Brian, the fact that capitalism has other more complex
realities, does not at all invalidate that these are important
emegent realities. The exponential growth of netarchical
capitalism is a fact, not conjecture; and the very rapid growth of
precarious cognitive workers is also a fact (along with other
facts such as service workers growth and the growth of industrial
working classes in the Global South). In the Netherlands, the
so-called independent zzp workers (estimated to count for half of
precarious workers only), and reaching 25% of the workforce if I'm
not mistaken, are the most rapidly pauperising sector of the
economy. Again what we are saying is that these are crucial
trends, because they are the ones that are aligned with the
tranformation towards commons driven developments. Netarchical
capital is based on the direct exploitation of human cooperation,
and networked structures, and attendant commons, are absolutely
crucial for the survival and self-organisation of precarious
knowledge workers. The existence of complex other forms of
capitalism does absolutely not invalidate that.
The problem is that we are talking about exactly that, Michel,
just look
around you. The great oligopolies that corral major sectors of
the world
economy, fixing prices and blocking the entry of smaller
actors, are
alive and despicably well in every major economic sector,
including IT;
and they are supported by very solid forces of the national and
transnational state. To suggest that monopoly capitalism is on
the way
out through some force of networked nature is just plain
mystifying, and
that's the principal argument I have with this book.
But we are nowhere suggesting that. In fact, netarchical
capitalism is a new form of monopoly capitalism; and distributed
capitalist networks are rapidly monopolizing as well. Already
bitcoin mining is in the hands of one dominant player and the
ownership of the coins is more concentrated than that of sovereign
money! This is true for all distributed sectors, such as social
lending, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, etc ...
The reason we stress this, is historical, since it is precisely a
shift within the managerial classes, towards new systems of
production that it could subsume, that prepared the ground for
later phase transitions. It is the Roman emperors and landed
gentry that moved from slavery to the 'coloni' system, and it is
forces within feudalism that financed the growth of the capitalist
sector. But the new feudal and capitalist sectors that were first
subsumed and served the maintenance and survival of the old
system, at the same time created new social forces and
contradictions that prepared the ground for more fundamental
change. So that is our argument, that the emergence of netarchical
and distributed capitalism show a shift from the managerial
classes towards the new modality of value creation and
distribution. Given the understanding that this is precisely how
the two other phase transitions that we now occured, rather than
just deplore and critique this, our suggestion is to learn from
it. This means: how can commoners and peer producers render the
seeds of the new system into a 'organic' system that can reproduce
it. This is therefore the meaning of the two other quadrants, they
represent the organic alternatives to that netarchical capture.
What we are doing is not denying the old class struggle between
capital and labor, which continues to exist and operate, but to
say that a new type of class struggle is emerging, that between
commoners and netarchical capital. And we are saying, and of
course you could dispute this, that this new type of
contradictions is the most pregnant for social change, because it
has in itself the seedform of the new. It is the alliance between
the old and new emancipatory forces, which is key for social change.
Something else really is changing, though; and this is where
the book's
proposals, and more generally, those collected by the P2P
Foundation
over the last decade, are really worth one's attention. What's
happening
is an impoverishment of the former "First World," which is
losing out to
the newly developed countries at the same time as it starts being
subjected to the environmental stresses of climate change.
What one can
see on the horizon is a gradual evening-out of global wages,
leaving
much of the former West in decaying housing with legacy
appliances and
amenities, while populations in the East and South rise up to
a roughly
similar level and then stagnate. That's already happening: and the
frustration it engenders was behind the wave of protests in
2011-2013,
whether in Egypt, Brazil, Russia and Turkey, or in Spain and
the US. It
is precisely the existence of the oligopolies and the
financial elites
(the famous 1%) that account for this dynamic. And we're
likely to see
even more intense frustration and anger as these populations
have to
confront the difficulties of climate change. Under these
conditions,
both newly unemployed people and those who have gained or
retained a
precarious hold on middle-class status are likely to find great
attraction in what the book calls "resilient communities" and
"global
commons." Additionally, intellectuals with a capacity to see the
dead-end future, whatever their class, will start to look for
serious
alternatives.
We agree here. At the same time, I would not consider the system
as static. The fundamental problem for the European population is
that the 'surplus value' is no longer available for positive
social contracts. But this is no law of nature, just as the Latin
American left showed that a revival of the progressive state was
possible (and achieved tremendous social progress in just ten
years, with every percent of GDP growth leading to four times more
poverty reduction than in Asia); just so a renewed progressive
left could set in motion, with a renewed vision of the partner
state, re-industrialization policies that would relocate part of
the surplus , available for social investments.
The discussion becomes tremendously interesting when the "for
benefit"
categories are discussed, in their local and global forms.
This is the
Marxian part of the book, where a change of the system itself
starts to
look desirable. Both the for-benefit categories are based on the
generative matrix of the Commons, and I love the clarity with
which
you've expressed its basic principles: "It could be said that
every
Commons scheme basically has four interlinked components: a
resource
(material and/or immaterial; replenishable and/or depletable); the
community which shares it (the users, administrators,
producers and/or
providers); the use value created through the social
reproduction or
preservation of these common goods; and the rules and the
participatory
property regimes that govern people's access to it."
At this point (Part III), the strict focus on information
production is
abandoned and what comes to the fore are the new possibilities
presented
by the maker revolution: not only 3-D printing, but all the
computer-controlled tools which can use freely circulated
open-source
designs to create practical objects ranging from housing to
automobiles.
One can easily see the relevance of such productive capacities for
impoverished communities, especially when they are beset by
the stresses
of changing climates, violent storms and soon, rising water
levels.
What's more, to take a page from Jeremy Rifkin's recent books, it
becomes clear that with falling costs for solar and wind
generation,
energy production itself could potentially be decentralized
and managed
according to commons principles so as to build resilient
communities.
The combination of alternative energy sources with
micro-manufacturing
techniques represents a possible basis for a new form of
economic growth
that could cater to very large numbers of people despite, or
rather
because of, their inability to reach Fordist and Neoliberal
levels of
grotesque hyperconsumption. If the development of capitalist
production
during the next upswing could be influenced so as to furnish the
infrastructure and toolkits of decentralized energy production and
micro-manufacturing, then the next wave of growth could have many
positive consequences. That's the paradigm shift that we need,
and Part
III makes that quite clear, bravo. The question is, how to make it
happen? What are the "new institutional arrangements" that we
need, and
how to achieve them?
Part of the answer can be found in another ebook we are
publishing, that contains detailed proposals for a Commons
Transition Plan, see
commonstransitions.org