---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stefan Merten Hi Mathieu and all! 16 months (488 days) ago Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
Then there's the question of elitism. Something I mention from time to time in relation to expertise.
I think the last one is an important sentence because it emphasizes expertise. In fact I think any society we can wish for needs lots and lots of expertise - simply because it's so complex and has so many fields of knowledge which are both wide and deep. To me this is an undeniable fact which we can not simply "wish away". Still we need to deal with it.
How to reconcile the fact of being a "big man" in a community because of technical competency with a democratic structure? There is no equality when some people have access to tools and controls which others don't understand.
At this point I'd like to stress that (abstract) equality is from the capitalist value set. When I think of a peer production based society I think values like this will / need to be transcended in a positive way. Admittedly I have no clear vision of how this might look like but still I think existing peer production projects give some ideas here.
The bigger the technical system, the more technocratic power grows.
True. When I think about this a bit I think there are these key reasons why this is usually not a problem in peer production projects. * Trust The first key reason can be described by trust. If I can trust a powerful person then I can rely on that person doing "good things". In contrast the term elitism to me transports distrust. Since peer production does not rely on classical personal relationships trust can not build up on a personal basis - at least not by the average user of a peer production project and the developers. I think there are structural reasons why people can trust powerful persons in peer production projects. * Non-alienation The most important one is of course that if at all alienation plays a minor role in peer production projects. Thus those powerful persons follow the same goals as I and therefore I have good reasons to believe that I can trust them. * Transparency An important tool for this is transparency in all relevant procedures. By transparency I have the chance to check my assumption that powerful persons follow the goals of the project - at least potentially. In fact peer production projects usually maintain a high level or transparency. * Availability of source Another point why powerful persons are a minor problem in peer production projects is the availability of the sources. When the sources are available for a potential fork then if those powerful persons leave the right track I can use the sources to do my own thing. In this sense the sources are means of production. If the means of production can not be shared so simply - such as big machinery - then this is a source for problems. Still the other points are still valid. * Balance of power by volunteers On this side of a fork there is still the fact that those powerful persons need the community as much as the community needs them. Since the community consists of volunteers people may simply leave if they are not happy with the way things work. Also power has two faces. On the one hand there is the face that it can be abused like you probably worry when talking about elitism. But on the other hand power can be *used* to move things. In fact I'd say this is one of the duties of such persons. Grüße Stefan -- Diego Saravia [email protected] NO FUNCIONA->[email protected]