Hello everyone,

this is a late contribution to the very interesting debate between Roberto and Martin on abundance, free culture, information exceptionalism, and the essence of things. I am responding to Roberto's call for others to jump in to break the deadlock. I found myself strangely in the middle, agreeing with Roberto on some issues and with Martin on others.

I share Martin's reservations about free culture. As long as we have not found a way to pay for the labour of cultural workers while all the rest of economic activity maintains the status quo this is a dangerous road to travel (I wont't go into this any further as this is another issue). I side with Roberto on the difference between digital and material things and their implications for human behaviour. And I find myself sitting on the fence when it comes to the economic implications of this difference. For sure it is important to make a distinction between the material and the digital side of the information economy (see Patrick's clarification on the two sides of cyberspace on 4.1.2011)

Roberto writes (1.1.2011):

'I assert that the differences between the agricultural, industrial and information modes are of primary importance. These differences arise from the very nature of the goods involved in each mode, and the differences propagate to the level of social relations, including the thinking of people involved in the production of such goods....'
'In short, you cannot ignore the nature of the different goods themselves (living, non-living material, non-material) when considering what kind of social relations are appropriate for particular goods...'
'The point is you cannot ignore the nature of the different types of goods, because their nature often determines or significantly influences the way the goods can be produced and the social relations that arise out of such production modes.'

Martin responds (1.1.2011)

'I find it reductionistic, simplistic and in denial of the material base. It relies upon the export of the costs - the externalities - of that production, and is as such very close to neoliberal thinking...'
'In political philosophy terms I consider the primary and deterministic view on "production process" and "thing in question" somewhere between crude marxism (as I said earlier, but this is probably an idiosyncratic
error, since I don't really know much about marxism) and neoliberalism: void of social relations around it and disregarding externalities. At any rate: the shaping of social relations have been subjected to the essence of a thing - so if we can generate a list of essential shareability properties, then all we need is a computer to calculate degrees of sharing? No need for politics, no need for dialogue: the thing determines. What a horrible vision and logical conclusion.'

'I do not want to envisage a world in which the essential properties of a thing determine whether it is shareable or not. It sounds so mechanic and reductionistic.'

In a response to Michel Martin (same day a bit later) explains further:

'Therefore, in some situation, for argument's sake, it might also be more easy to share a car than it is to share a poem digitally. It all depends on access and configuration of society.'

Let's start with this last quote. I would question this statement. Can you give an example to make this claim work? Provided someone has access to a digital device (computer, mobile etc.) and access to the internet it will always be easier to share a poem than to share a car. And if access to digital technology and to digital networks doesn't exist there is no point discussing this.

Sharing the poem digitally is easier than sharing a car because the sharer of the poem can keep the poem, whereas the sharer of the car has to give away the car. The sharing of a poem is obviously a form of communication and social interaction with respect to the message and the meaning of the poem, but the act of sharing does not rely on any social interaction at all. It is a one-way street. Under normal circumstances nobody would negotiate with a possible sharer whether to send the poem or not. They just do it. In contrast car sharing needs social interaction and those who engage with car sharing, say within a household on a long term basis, have probably all experienced how this can bring about social conflicts.

This is the difference: If material and biological things (cars and mangos) are being shared they do not just get multiplied. Sharing a car means not having access to the car all the time, sharing a mango with someone else means that both can only eat half of the mango. This form of sharing usually involves the notion of sacrifice and most anthropologists would argue that it is precisely this sacrifice that produces an intensification of social relationships, a strengthening of social ties.

The sharing of digital 'things' does not involve any sacrifice. Digital things just get multiplied. So if we share a poem digitally we do share it in an abstract way, we share the meaning of the poem, we share our taste in poetry and literature, but we do not share the file.

For this reason one could argue that the term sharing is in fact very problematic, even misleading, for digital 'things'. It seems that sharing, like stealing, has entered the language of digital practises due to mere ideological reasons. Both terms are used to justify new forms of social practices morally. Sharing is good, stealing is bad. But copying is neither good nor bad, neither sharing nor stealing, it is just copying, multiplying.

A very sad example of the social implications of digital sharing can found in a story published by the Telegraph a few days ago. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8241015/Facebook-friends-mock-suicide-of-woman-who-posted-goodbye-message.html). A 42 year old woman in the UK posted a message on facebook to her 1048 friends on Christmas day, announcing that she will commit suicide and that she has just swallowed the pills. Her message was widely discussed in her network and led to 148 responses where her 'friends' discussed the statement and the former breakdown of this women's relationship. But nobody bothered to call her, call the police, or go over to her place, even though many of her friends discussing her post lived very local. So she died. It's a story we probably won't find in Clay Shirky's next book appraising the positive implications for social media on human relationships. I am mentioning this story cause I don't think it is far fetched to assume that this woman would still be alive had she 'shared' her intentions not on a digital network, but with somebody in a 'real' encounter.

As stated above, the sharing of material and biological things is harder to do compared to the sharing of digital things, but because it is harder is has different implications for the quality of social interactions.

With respect to 'sharing' in the digital realm and its implications for social interaction I would distinguish between two form of 'sharing', which draws on a distinction by Bruno Latour, between intermediaries and mediators. Intermediaries transport messages (content, code, meaning) without transforming them. Mediators transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or the elements they are supposed to carry. So the sharing as intermediary refers to a pure dissemination of content (e.g. file-'sharing'), whereas the sharing as mediator refers to, say mailing lists, blogs etc. This form of 'sharing' is exchange and/or collaboration. The first form of digital 'sharing' is about distribution, the latter about exchange, creation and production, and obviously this form of sharing has always existed; it is not at all specific to the digital age. Sharing as distribution has another social quality than sharing as creation and collaboration. It is a lower form of social interaction and produces less communication, weaker ties, less room for conflicts etc.

In my view it does make sense to carve out different qualities of sharing, as these qualities are closely connected to the material and digital worlds in which they exist as social practices. If this is true it does also make sense to analytically distinguish between the properties of digital and material things and consequently to claim that these properties determine or at least facilitate rather specific forms and qualities of social relationships. I concede that this might be simplistic and mechanic but it helps in terms of understanding differences which in my view are important ones. This surely is neither a crude marxist nor a neo-liberal position. It is plainly a position usually associated with technological determinism. As most people would put Marx in the camp of technological determinism, one could call this position a Marxist, or alternatively one associated with McLuhan or with actor-network theory, among many others one could refer to.

It is certainly not a neo-liberal position as it does not make any statements with respect to the realm of economics. My point really is that we have to be careful to distinguish between technological and economic determinism.

For the latter things do indeed get much more complicated due to the material externalities of 'digital' things and due to the different forms of digital sharing (distributing and creating). Roberto does make a connection between different properties of things (biological, material, digital) and different modes of production. Even though I do not agree at all with the claim of biological abundance in the 21^st century world we live in, I find this connection rather interesting.

Is it neo-liberal per se to speak about an informational mode of production and to distinguish this mode from an industrial or an agricultural mode of production? I have my doubts. It would only be a neoliberal position if the material externalities of digital production and distribution would be denied, which nobody does. What makes this debate so complicated is that it is still impossible to evaluate in any way the relevance of (and the impact for) these material externatities for this digital mode of production.

best wishes,

andreas