Thanks Massimo, your example of the small vendors in Tahir square is pertinent, but then, look at the strategy of the protest, which is predicated on the broadest possible unity, including even with the army, while they are actually fighting not a family dictatorship but a military dictatorship ... (the tahir class alliances are well explained here at http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out) i'd like to make a difference between subjective and objective factors, you point out the subjective fact of the analysis of 'collaboration is the new competition', but so does IBM and at the same time, it is also strengthening the free software commons. In Tahir square, I have no information about the subjectivity of the vendors, but they might as well be petty profit maximisers than acting in solidarity with the movement. Their motivation would not stand in the way of their objective cooperation with the Tahir commons. To go back to the example of the Common, I don't know enough about them, but, following your argument in your last phrase, I conclude that if they would not force everybody else to act according to a market logic, that such would be compatible with a commons approach? What makes you conclude that Common argues that there is a market solution for everything and that it is obligatory and that this is indeed 'what seems to be happening' in the example I have circulated? I do agree with this conclusion of yours, but again, the subjective intent of a particular player, may not be the most important factor for a particular commons. You probably know my own proposed approach, that of creating vehicles for the commons that have the social reproduction of the commons of its contributors as the main reason of being (and thus keeps the circulation of surplus value within the commons), and failing that, for commoners to choose partners according to the criteria of preferential attachment, i.e. to choose to collaborate with those entities that are maximally aligned with the values of the common project. However, in the current circumstances neither choice is always available, and therefore the most realistic criteria is to go for an ecology which allows for the commons to continue to co-exist, provides a living for its contributors, in the context of maximum (by force relative) autonomy of that commons and its commoners. Without conflating HBR with the commons, I do think the creation and emergence of the free software commons, the creation and emergence of multiple knowledge commons, and the creation and emergence of open design commons, is part of an emancipatory process; repressents a social advance, despite all the difficulties associated with such developments in the current context. I also think that the existence of a large movement towards fair trade, social financing, ethical markets, social enterpreneurships, the growth of cooperatives, the players in social and solidarity economies, are generally positive steps within the current context. Michel On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Massimo De Angelis <[email protected]>wrote:
you can work out the answer by reflecting on the motto of the web page http://fearlessrevolution.com: "collaboration is the new competition" . . .well actually, competition has always been based on degrees of collaboration, pitting different forms of social cooperation one against the other . . .the ideas of this web page would be great, assuming 90% of our livelihoods was reproduced outside capitalist markets, so as if we really needed something outside the commons, well, this could be how to go for it . . .But as they stand, they are just another way to make business, one business strategy among many, maybe preferable and kinder than others, maybe its novelty may help some in time of crisis and in presence of lack of imagination and effective powers to work out a non-profit business alternative, . . .hence, if contingent necessity requires it, let us collaborate . . . but please, do not conflate this type of stuff being debated on the Harward Business Review with the emancipatory practices that are core for the production of a socially and environmentally just world . . .please, just look at Egypt, they have businesses along many commons in Tahiri square ( http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/02/201127162644461244.htm...), small vendors, but they operate within the contexts of the commons, hence they are not the enemy, but they reinforce the commons. They would become opponents in the very moment they were to declare that all in the square had to organise as a market, or if they were to define procedures that for every problem one had to find a market solution and this is precisely what seems to be happening in the example you are circulating.
m
On 8 Feb 2011, at 07:51, Michel Bauwens wrote:
I got this from Pat Kane, an initiative that resonates with Umair Haque's Capitalist Manifesto
See: http://fearlessrevolution.com/blog/introducing-common.html
"Benefiting people, communities, society, the environment and future generations is the new advantage in business. Our *new capitalist* brand is about transitioning from competitive advantage to collaborative advantage. COMMON is a brand that is community designed, community owned, and community directed. It is a single open source brand — a living network — for rapidly prototyping many progressive businesses that unleash creativity to solve social problems."
Michel's comments:
why is this interesting, well, in the context of the stress that our friends like Massimo and Silvia Federico place on opposing 'capitalist commons'
my question is the following, generally, as I don't know much about this particular initiative:
- are these people 'enemies' simply because they are 'pro-capitalist'
- or are they friends because their heart is in the right place, and they want to create and share value, and have generally progressive social goals
This is not just a matter of analysis, but also of language, and it poses a key question: should a new 'hegemony' (not the right word, I know, but even in a distributed world, something like that does exist) for a progressive commons approach, not necessarily include progressive social and other enterpreneurs ?
My answer would tend to be yes, as many young people in the West, but even outside the West, especially here in East Asia, think that way; they want to see progress, don't believe in old-style socialism, believe in cooperation and sharing, but believe only free enterpreneurship offers progress and dynamism for their society and their own projects.
Such an approach would require an analysis that distinguished exploitative commons approaches, from genuine commons; but also in a language that doesn't construct such people as enemies, and a pragmatic openness.
To come back to the notion of capitalist/anticapitalist commons, through an example.
Take the free software movement, a movement of a particular labour aristocracy, that has resulted in the creation of a strong commons, strong relatively autonomous communities, but also with a strong ecology of supportive corporate entities, that both profit from those commons, but also, pay wages to free software developers, practice various forms of benefit sharing, and support the communities and commons in various ways. (this of course needs to be problematized, but nevertheless, this is an important side of the equation)
So here we have a commons that is both instrumental to corporate entities and 'capitalism', but also beneficial in substantial ways to a particular type of knowledge workers. In this scenario, both sides have both concurring and antagonistic interests.
The model of the free software movement is not unique, as it is now largely replicated in many other open knowledge, open design and open manufacturing projects, for whom it served as a successfull template
I'm not advocating either uncritical support of the model, nor a pure antagonistic approach, but rather an approach that starts with the interests of the peer producing communities and their commons, and looks at how they can optimally reproduce within current economic and power structures, and advance their goals, step by step, until they are stronger to achieve more fundamental transformations,
In many cases, the creation of a successful ecology of corporate entities, and the attraction of progressive young enterpreneurs who may be willing to create non profit maximisation market-operating entitities, will be a sine qua non for the social reproduction and growth of the concrete commons and their contributors/users
Michel
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