[P2P-F] contribution to the p2p and marxism debate: Should we worry about capitalist commons?

Sat Mar 19 13:46:39 CET 2011

not exactly an answer to jean yet, but I thought I add it in this context
anyway,

  Should we worry about capitalist commons?

 There is a particular strand of thinking, which we have featured on
occasion on our blog, with authors such as Massimo de Angelis of The
Commoner, Syvlia Federici George Caffentzis of Midnight Notes, and Martin
Pedersen, who particularly stress the need to be wary, and denounce,
tendencies towards 'capitalist commons', which in there mind, have to be
fought and resisted against.

 I want to first discuss what aspects of this point of view I agree with,
then discuss the eventual reservations or disagreements.

 The distinction between capitalist and non-capitalist commons is of course
an important one, whose validity should be acknowledged.

 A non-capitalist commons is a commons that can socially reproduce itself
and whose activities guarantee its continued existence to the benefit of the
commoners; a capitalist commons is a commons which helps the (expanded)
reproduction of capital and the capitalist system. The latter is distinct I
believe from commons that are used and enclosed by non-commoners to their
benefit, while weakening the commons and its use for commoners. An example
of a pure 'capitalist' commons would be a patent commons that is constituted
by an alliance of companies, and perhaps only usable by them.

 Obviously, commoners should be wary of both mechanisms.

 Nevertheless, we live in complex societies with many hybrid modalities,
where such distinctions are not clearcut. I think the believe that commons
are either pure or otherwise capitalist commons is a false dichotomy, and
that the reality is that we have mostly hybrid commons processes that
combine both aspects.

 As an example I want to take the free software commons.

 These commons usually consist of:

   -

   a commons of code, which can be used by all developers, including the
   corporations that build more value on the code (mostly through the waged
   labour in their employ) and market services and products related to it
   -

   a community of developers, a majority of which is usually also employed
   by said corporations, but generally also consists of volunteers freely
   adding to the commons
   -

   a set of institutions that manage the infrastructure of cooperation
   needed by this commons, such as the FLOSS Foundations, and which may have
   representatives of said corporations on the board

 Now, the role of corporations is usually very important: 1) they use and
expand on the code, usually though by keeping substantial improvements only
to themselves; 2) they hire developers in order to develop their commercial
activities, and their services are therefore constituted by both the value
created by this paid labour, but also by the common value created by other
corporations and especially the free labour that went into the commons. I
don't think there is any doubt that such a commons aids the reproduction of
the system of capital. The businesses created around such commons are
usually also dependent on those commons, and contribute to their
maintenance.

 But does that mean that such a system is necessarily a negative one for the
commoners? This is actually far from being the case. First of all, it
guarantees the continued reproduction of the commons itself; in our actual
society and economy, it is very difficult to expand digital commons without
such corporate support; and the commons remain available to all, as
guaranteed by the free software licenses; in addition, the paying of
developers creates and maintains a livelihood around the commons, with free
software developers actually constituting a kind of privileged labour
aristocracy. The influence of these corporations is real, and sometimes
(often?) dominant, and they use all kinds of value extraction and enclosure
mechanisms, but nevertheless, they also contribute to the commons. And just
as importantly: they are dependent on the commons and community of commoners
and constrained by the license, the codes and norms of the software
community.

 This is why free software developers and commoners nevertheless consider
such free software commons as a fundamental advance. It creates more
freedom, makes the code base universally available, and often creates a
vibrant economy. Many developers create their own enterprises and sometimes
cooperatives as well. What is important here is that we have a system that
both serves the reproduction of capital, but on a new basis of the commons;
and a system which at the same time serves the reproduction of the commons
and the commoners.

 Such type of hybrid 'capitalist-commons' are without a doubt an advance
over the purely wage-labour based forms of software creation. This is
certainly the way the developers themselves see it, but also the wider
community of digital knowledge workers.

 That doesn't mean that commoners should not want more and better
modalities. For example, they could create enterprises that are not
profit-maximisers, but cooperatives, or they could use the peer production
license, which allows free usage of the commons only to other commoners and
thereby creates a counter-economy. So the existence of a capitalist software
commons can be both a social advance, have problematic aspects, be
beneficial to different players, such as corporations, users and developers,
etc..

 The right attitude is to strenghten the commons part and the commons logic,
to fight against abuses and enclosures, and if you have radical aims of
social transformation, to continue to work according to these aims in the
broader context of the totality of the shift towards p2p and commons-based
modalities.

 But we want to make a stronger argument. Not only are these advances
beneficial, but they are actually crucial.

 The reason is that the alternatives modes of production based on the
commons, cannot be created ex nihilo, but must be created within an
environment that is dominated by the alien logic of the older dominant mode
of production, i.e. the circulation of capital.

 It is simply inconceivable that a slave-based empire could undergo a phase
transition towards the feudal mode of production, without the existence of
proto-feudal modalities within that system; it is equally inconceivable that
the feudal mode of production could have a phase transition towards the
capitalist mode of production, without proto-capitalist modalities existing
within that feudal system. It is the ultimate strengthening and intermeshing
of these proto-capitalist modalities, which creates the basis for a
political and social revolution that ultimately guarantees the phase
transition.

 In other words, the existence of commons-based peer production, as
proto-practices for a full mode of production that has still to be created
after a phase transition, is itself a vital condition for that later
transition. These proto-practices have to evolve within the older system,
first as emergent practices, then on a parity level, before they can become
dominant themselves.

 So the question of 'capitalist commons', requires an approach that
recognizes to what degree they benefit the commoners in the short and
mid-term, to what degree they make a particular commons sustainable, but
also on a systemic level, to what degree they are part of a broader change
that fosters proto-commons practices that can serve as a basis for ultimate
expansion on a systemic level.

 Just as important is not to be blinded by any perceived absolute 'enemy',
but to see the interests of the commoners first and foremost. Each
commoner's community is involved in its own construction, struggles and
negotiations, and makes its own arrangements with the surrounding ecology of
enterprises, which depends in part on local, national, and global balance of
forces; and the goal must be to make its own commons autonomous and for the
maximum benefit of the commoners and the surrounding society. Rather than
striving for acceptance of any a priori credo of anti-capitalism, because
that is in the end the goal of the authors we mentioned above, what is
really needed is to be in relations and concrete solidarity with the
commoners, within the larger context of global social change towards a
commons-based society. Within the context of 'really existing' hybrid
commons, which are part of the broader process of reproduction of capital,
what matters is to strengthen those elements which strengthen the
circulation and expanded reproduction of the common(s).

 Within the broader context of a capitalist society in which
profit-maximising companies are geared towards maximal surplus value
extraction, the existence of commons will always be precarious at best, and
subject to enclosures and exploitation, such as the well-known capture of
the value of the free labour of the commoners. Nevertheless, even within
that contradictory process, there is a further strengthen of modalities of
commons-based peer production, which is a harbinger of the society to come.
And some forms of netarchical capital actually have a vested interest in the
continued existence of the commons. These activities are contradictory but
still contribute to the creation and strenghening of particular commons,
which are also in the interest of the commoners, user communities and
citizens generally.

 Within the broader context of a political economy based on the circulation
of capital, there can be no fully independent social reproduction of the
commons, but, many elements of such full social reproduction are being born
and gradually intermeshed, and it is our task to further strengthen that
process, within a context of hybrid capitalist commons. Most commoners are
not necessarily motivated by a political and social vision of such a future
commons-based society, but their social conditions as digital knowledge
workers nevertheless lead them to construct and protect concrete commons.
This process is absolutely vital for the transition, and any political and
social phase transition can only occur when sufficient numbers of them
revolt against the limitations imposed on this hyperproductive modality, by
outmoded, repressive and life-undermining modalities of capital. This
process is underway but requires a continuing strenghtening of commons-based
modalities.

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