Hi Michel and all,
better a late reply than none at all, I guess...
Well, I'm talking about the PPL, not about your fictitious CBRL which I
On 04/06/2014 02:20 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> ok, let me restate it then once again:
>
> you say <commercial usage is generally forbidden>
>
> the CBRL, would say, <commercial usage is generally encouraged, unless there
> is zero reciprocity>; hope you get it this time, it's really not that
> difficult to understand; reading ability should be sufficient. We are not
> talking about equivalent exchange or equivalent reciprocity, requiring
> lengthly and complicated negotations; we are simply talking of moving from
> equivalent exchange to the recognition of participation in a reciprocal economy.
don't know. Other licenses might or might not deserve the same criticism,
but without knowing them I cannot say. And if I understand you correctly,
the CBRL doesn't even exist yet?
How exactly does the "reciprocity" you talk about differ from capitalist
> once again, the PPL is just an instance of the CBRL; so all not-for-profit
> entities (not to be confused with nonprofit) are allowed, and all the
> players who respect reciprocity
"exchange"?
John Restakis (in ch. 6 of Humanizing the Economy):
"Reciprocity is the social mechanism that makes associational life possible. It is the foundation of social life. In its elements, reciprocity is a system of voluntary exchange between individuals based on the understanding that the giving of a favour by one will in future be reciprocated either to the giver or to someone else. A simple example is the loan of a lawn mower by one neighbour - call him Frank, to another – say, Fred. Frank makes the loan on the assumption that at some later date Fred will return the favour. If Fred does not, the basis of reciprocity falls apart. No more loaning of the lawnmower to Fred. Moreover Fred’s non-reciprocity, if it continues, becomes reputational. Others will stop extending favours to Fred also. So willingness to reciprocate is a basic signal of the sociability of an individual. Taken to an extreme, the complete unwillingness of an individual to reciprocate is tantamount to severing the bonds between themselves and other people. Reciprocity is thus a social relation that contains within itself potent emotional and even spiritual dimensions. These elements account for an entirely different set of motivations within individuals than behaviour in the classical sense of “maximizing one’s utility” as a consumer.
Reciprocity animates a vast range of economic activities that rest on the sharing and reinforcement of attitudes and values that are interpersonal and constitute essential bonds between the individual and the human community. What is exchanged in reciprocal transactions are not merely particular goods, services and favours, but more fundamentally the expression of good will and the assurance that one is prepared to help others. It is the foundation of trust. Consequently, the practice of reciprocity has profound social ramifications and entails a clear moral element. Reciprocity is a key for understanding how the institutions of society work. But it is also an economic principle with wholly distinct characteristics that embody social as opposed to merely commercial attributes. When reciprocity finds economic expression in the exchange of goods and services to people and communities it is the social economy that results. Examples range from the provision of burial services through the creation of friendly societies in the 1800s to the promotion of neighborhood safety through organizations like Neighborhood Watch today.
Specifically, in the PPL I see nothing beyond "if you want to use this
commercially and are not a coop, negotiate the terms of exchange with us,
the license owners". That's business as usual in capitalism -- if two
persons or entities want to trade, they negotiate terms. That doesn't
challenge capitalism, it confirms it.
Again, I understand that other not-yet-existent licenses might approach that
situation in a different way and maybe I would be much happier with their
approach. But without knowing them it's impossible to say.
Stop laying words in my mouth please, none of this is true. I agree that
> Since you fully accept the
> subsumption of free software to capitalism, this can only be construed as
> progress, compared to what you are advocating (i.e. no change to capitalism
> at all, I am of course not talking about your unpracticed dreams for a pure
> and perfect p2p society; for the record, i like dreams and utopias).
every phase of transition will be imperfect and contradictory. Indeed I
would claim that what you call "subsumption of free software to capitalism"
is an expression of those contractions, i.e. the fact that the new cannot
emerge "pure" without being touched by and involved with the old. Also, you
might notice that the "subsumption" goes both ways, since many companies
contribute lots of money and development time to free software projects. So
capitalist companies benefit from peer production, but peer production
benefits from them too.
Your "pure", "socialist" scheme would destroy that messy but often mutually
beneficial interaction, replacing it with the usual "lets negotiate until
both sides feel they can do no better" model of capitalism.
(2) is fine for me and I agree with it. But I don't really see how the PPL
> you can't just wait for the end of the market, in a accomodationist or
> attentist way; and you can't just abolish it by fiat; you have to create the
> conditions for: 1) replacing capitalist markets with post-capitalist markets
> and 2) replace market and planning with peer to peer coordination.
contributes to that goal -- certainly not more than the GPL and other
licenses for knowledge and information we already have. It would be
interesting to develop and experiment with new forms of managing physical
commons (in addition to and beyond knowledge commons), but the PPL make no
contributions in that regards.
(1) sounds about as meaningful as saying "replacing market capitalism with
post-market capitalism". Capitalism cannot exist without markets, of course.
And while markets existed without before capitalism and might well exist
after it, capitalism is the only economic system known where markets are
"total", i.e. most people cannot survive without participation in market
transactions. That was never the case before capitalism, where markets were
used for luxury goods and exchange of surplus produce, but most people's
lives didn't depend on them, since most production and distribution was
organized in other ways.
I don't mind the idea of post-capitalist, non-total markets, but I'm more
interested in institutions that might eliminate the "totalitarianism" of
markets, i.e. that ensure that people can get by, and have a good life,
without having to buy and sell in the market. Which, for most people, means
having to sell themselves (their own labor power), since they have nothing
else to sell.
Best regards
Christian
--
|--------- Dr. Christian Siefkes --------- christian@siefkes.net ---------For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified with
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/ | Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
| Wie Produktion zur Nebensache wurde: www.keimform.de/2013/freie-quellen-1/
| Why Production No Longer Worries Us: www.keimform.de/2013/free-sources-1/
|------------------------------------------- OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
science and against obscurantism; we have believed that rational thought
and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both natural and social)
are incisive tools for combating the mystifications promoted by the
powerful -- not to mention being desirable human ends in their own
right. The recent turn of many "progressive" or "leftist" academic
humanists and social scientists toward one or another form of epistemic
relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines the already fragile
prospects for progressive social critique.
-- Alan D. Sokal, A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies
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