[P2P-F] sharing, essence of things, technological determinism, economic determinism, and neoliberalism

[Andreas Wittel]

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 21st 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
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