[P2P-F] [Commoning] new capitalism and commoning

Tue Feb 8 10:07:12 CET 2011

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.html 
), 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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