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

Sat Jan 8 14:01:29 CET 2011

Hi Michel,

thanks for your comments. Very useful, I will reply here to both of your
responses.

I do agree, as you suggest in your first response, that there is always a
multitude of determinations at work and that it is best to avoid or bracket
this topic where we can.

As long as we analyse relations between technologies, economies, and
people*on a micro-level
*, we can indeed carve out these co-productions and co-dependencies, where
different factors and forces are at work at the same time.

For ecample Raymond Williams' critique of McLuhan's technodeterminism is
very correct: all technologies are produced socially, thus people produce
the things and technologies they need and want to make their life better,
ergo: it is nonsensical to say that things determine the actions of people.
Similar Bruno Latour's famous analysis of the hotel key, which is desinged
in a way that people want to get rid of it before they leave the hotel. It
is designed on purpose so big, they don't want to forget to hand it back to
the reception desk.

*On a marco-level* or for a historical analysis however things get much more
complicated as we have to find words which will represent transformations in
the best possible way. And quickly we are back different 'determination
camps' again. See below.

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 6:19 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Andreas,
> I do not use informational mode of production myself as it is quite vague.
>

Neither do I. I have used the term 'digital mode of production' to
distinguish it from a material mode of production. The problem that you
outline below is of course still valid. Digital mode of production is still
vague with respect to emerging social and economic forms. It is also a
simplication due to the material externalities of the virtual.

> I think the issue is that based on the differential characteristics of
> information as a good, it can still be produced in several ways, i.e. in a
> old-style capitalist mode, where information are commodities and are kept
> artificially scarce, or in a new capitalist mode which recognizes that
> information does not need to be commoditized itself. At the same time, this
> new modality is also the seed form of a new 'peer production mode', if it
> can extend itself to the material basis. The issue is that current peer
> production models have both immanent features, reinforcing the current
> system, and transcendent features, both in terms of changing the current
> system but remaining 'capitalist', and containing features which transcend
> the capitalist mode. This is why I usually prefer to consider peer
> production as a seed form, needing further extension and transformation,
> rather than as a full mode. At present, peer production of immaterial goods
> cannot fully reproduce itself without use of the pre-existing mode. This
> requires peer production communities to think and strategize around the
> extension of the 'transcending' aspects of their current practices.
>

With peer production you have made a choice for the primacy of the social
and a specific form of social organisation. Fair enough, but you have made a
choice that puts technologies in second place. This is my question: Does
anybody believe the new interest in issues around peer production and the
commons would have happend anyway, even without the developments of digital
technologies over the past 20 years? Peer productions has always existed.
Various forms of commons and cooperatives have always existed. But the new
interest in these issue is due to the digital, networked, and distributed
technologies, and their capabilities to open up new forms of social action.

> One cannot speak of a mode of production, without these broader social
> relations, but one can of course speak of modalities of production that take
> into account the specifics of the goods considered,
>

Of course not, and nobody using Marxist theory would for get about the wider
social relations. For Marx, mode of production is always both, technologies
and social relations (class relations, power relations, property relations
etc.).

Anyway, this is a mere intellectual problem. There are more pressing issue
at the moment with respect to building the stuff we talk about. I just
wanted to respond to the neoliberal tag.

best
andreas
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