[P2P-F] Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] Mayo Fuster, Barcelona: Review of Benkler, 'The Wealth of Networks'

Michel Bauwens michel at p2pfoundation.net
Tue Feb 24 00:18:37 CET 2015


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From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 12:13 AM
Subject: [NetworkedLabour] Mayo Fuster, Barcelona: Review of Benkler, 'The
Wealth of Networks'
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03-02-2015 | Mayo Fuster Morell
<http://blogs.cccb.org/lab/en/author/mayo-fuster-morell/>

*The Wealth of Networks*

   - P2PValue <http://blogs.cccb.org/lab/en/category/proj/p2pvalue/>
   - Internet Universe
   <http://blogs.cccb.org/lab/en/category/proj/univers-internet/>


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*Gill-nets are set out at a wharf on the Pacific coast, Canada, 1963
<1963>. Source: The National Archives UK
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/7457019872>. *

*A review of the book The Wealth of Networks. How Social Production
Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler, which has recently been
published in Spanish by Icaria publishers, and is being launched at the
CCCB as part of a session on Commons, Public Space Network and the
Geopolitics of the Internet with the participation of the author on 25
February 2015
<http://www.cccb.org/en/curs_o_conferencia-procom_espai_pblic_en_xarxa_i_geopoltica_dinternet-195704>.
The book looks at how information technologies enable extensive forms of
collaboration that can have transformative effects on the economy and on
society, as in the cases of Wikipedia, Podemos at the political level, and
Uber at the economic level, for example. Yochai Benkler is co-Director of
the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University.*

*The Emergence of the Networked Information Economy and Commons-Based Peer
Production*

In 2006, the book *The Wealth of Networks* played a crucial role in drawing
the world’s attention to a phenomenon that was still unfamiliar to large
sectors of the population. Although it may not have been the first text
written on the subject, it was the first reference book that explained the
emerging phenomenon of collaborative production and offered keys for
interpreting and understanding its potential. It’s main message could be
summed up as: “Hey! Something’s going on here and it’s not inconsequential.
It boosts the potential of freedom and autonomy and shifts the balance of
power between markets, the State, and civil society.” Almost a decade after
the release of the first edition of the book – and partly thanks to it –
many more people now sense and take an interest in the political and
economic importance of collaborative production. Today, Wikipedia is the
fifth most visited site in the world, and contains articles in 287
languages. And FLOSS (free and open source software) has transformed the
software industry and become the benchmark in some of the layers that make
the Internet possible. As Benkler predicted, commons-based peer production
has grown exponentially, and is now used in fields such as open mapping,
crowdfunding, and the production of open hardware, as he found in subsequent
studies <http://pas.sagepub.com/content/41/2/213.abstract>, including the
recentP2Pvalue <http://blogs.cccb.org/lab/en/category/proj/p2pvalue/>
project in which we collaborated. Beyond its economic impact, commons-based
peer production has also made an impression on political institutions such
as the European Commission, which recognises the importance of what it has
come to call “social innovation”, and has adopted it as the core element of
its European strategy until 2020.

The changes that have taken place since 2006 and contributed to supporting
Benkler’s arguments are diverse, and include economic, environmental, and
technological factors that have favoured the increasing importance of
social production. The economic “crisis” of 2008 cast doubt on the dominant
neoliberal economic ideology and increased the interest in alternative
models; the crisis in the political system and the welfare system fuelled
new forms of organisation for the political field but also for covering the
needs of large swathes of the population who have been pushed out of the
labour market or are no longer covered by social policies; climate change
and the need to rethink the sustainability of the production system and
reduce the consumption of resources have favoured sharing models, and the
spread of new technologies has expanded the sectors of the population who
are able to participate in net-based collaborative experiences. Taken as a
whole, these macro-processes have favoured the conditions required for new
spaces of innovation, and supported the increasing importance of civil
society as an actor and as a source of alternative models of organisation
other than the prevailing models of the State and the market, as Benkler
had already predicted in 2006.

*Book cover from “The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs
over Self-Interest” by Benkler. Source: Harvard University
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/10/benkler>.*

As a result, the book’s main message has gained validity over time –and in
what seems to be a quirk of fate, its Spanish translation arrives precisely
at a moment of great social effervescence and demands of support for the
commons. And with the passing of the years, the book has also acquired new
meanings. Focusing on the importance of the “classic” examples of Wikipedia
and FLOSS, as Benkler does in his book, could be the key that could guide
us in the current situation, a way of re-channelling the non-commercial
corporate developments that are threatening to distort the phenomenon. It
is worth noting, for example, that if we look at the list of the 50
most-visited websites in the world – a considerable part of global Internet
traffic – Wikipedia is the only site that does not follow a corporate
governance model. Against this backdrop, Benkler’s emphasis on FLOSS and
Wikipedia take on new meaning: the need to return to these classics in
order to reverse the prevalence of corporate models in the development of
social production. This could help us, for example, to rethink the
governance models of services such as Uber.

*The commons in Benkler*

Benkler, like other jurists who have gone back to the concept of the
commons –such as Lawrence Lessig (although in other aspects there are clear
differences between Benkler and the founder of Creative Commons licences)
and Carol Rose (and her Comedy of the Commons
<http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1828/>) – understands the
commons in the sense of open access: according to this view, the commons
refers to resources that allow people the freedom to use them, without
anybody being able to interfere in their ability to access to them, or in
the way they use them. This approach, which has mainly been developed by
cyber jurists, does not place the emphasis on the conditions of production
of a resource, or on the type of human grouping, and instead focuses on the
conditions of access for individuals. It revolves around freedom among
individuals. This open access view of the commons contrasts with that of Elinor
Ostrom <http://elinorostrom.indiana.edu/> – winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize
for Economic Sciences –, whose perspective was based on notion of natural
commons. In Ostrom’s view, the commons is a governance model in which
individuals in a group can actively participate in defining the rules of
interaction in regard to the common resource that they share. Benkler does
not argue against Ostrom’s view, but he believes that there is a need to
develop a theory of the commons that integrates both approaches, because
Ostrom’s view is only applicable to a very small number of cases, and is
not sufficiently applicable to the open nature of the digital commons,
where it becomes difficult to identify a discrete, stable “subject” on whom
governance would fall. Benkler also argues that is more important to focus
on relations than on resources: in other words, on the free and open nature
of the relational environment, rather than on the (non-excludable and
competing) nature of resources, as in Ostrom’s case. Benkler is concerned
<http://www.benkler.org/Commons_Unmodified_Benkler.pdf> that by restricting
ourselves to Ostrom’s view, we would leave out key resources that form part
of the system (from roads and waterways, for example, to the Internet),
thus limiting the potential impact of promoting a commons-based framework.

*The creation of a networked public sphere *

In the second part of his book, Benkler discusses the political
implications of the emergence of a new information environment and the
creation of a networked public sphere that favours new forms of collective
action and a new balance of powers in regard to influencing the political
agenda and public policies. Developments in this regard since 2006 appear
to prove him right. The emergence of the Arab Spring, the 15-M movement,
Occupy Wall Street, and the long list of countries that are part of the
recent wave of political mobilisations, as well as the new forms of
political “party” organisations such as Syrizia in Greece, various cases in
Latin America, and Guanyem and Podemos closer to home, illustrate the
insightfulness of his argument. Aside from looking at emergent political
mobilisations, in *The Wealth of Networks* and subsequent works, Benkler
has focused on analysing the democratic qualities of the networked public
sphere as a space of debate among conventional and non-conventional
political actors. More recently, defending the democratic nature of
organisations such as Wikileaks, or using case studies such as the
mobilisation against the SOPA law (“Ley Sinde” in Spain), Benkler has shown
the extent to which a networked public sphere favours a greater plurality
of voices and the possibility of the political impact of non-conventional
actors. In other words, the empowerment of civil society.

 *Book cover from the “Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere:
Mapping the SOPA-PIPA Debate”, by Yochai Benkler, Hal Roberts, Rob Faris,
Alicia Solow-Niederman i Bruce Etling.  Source: Harvard University
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/8416>.*

*The geopolitics of the Internet*

Lastly, Benkler offers an analysis of the political economy of the Internet
– including the main development trends – and of the web of geopolitical
interests that are trying to influence its governance and future
development. And he pays particular attention to the potentiality of
technology based on de-centralised models and open spectrums.

Yochai Benkler’s visit to Barcelona on 25 February is a great opportunity
to rethink, through his works, the “transition” that we appear to be in the
midst of.




   1. 2015/1987. The Old Internationalism and the New: On Labour, Social
   Movements and Internationalism. (A Reader).
   http://snuproject.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/1987-e-reader-ed-by-pete...
   <http://snuproject.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/1987-e-reader-ed-by-peter-waterman-on-labour-social-movements-and-internationalism-the-old-internationalism-and-the-new/>
   2. 2014. From Coldwar Communism to the Global Justice Movement:
   Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist.
http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/from_coldwar_communism
   _to_the_global_emancipatory_movement/
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/from_coldwar_communism_to_the_global_emancipatory_movement/>
(Free).

   3. 2014. Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor), December 2014. 'Social
   Movement Internationalisms'. (Free).
   <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>
* <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>*
   4. 2014. 'The Networked Internationalism of Labour's Others', in Jai Sen
   (ed), Peter Waterman (co-ed), The Movement of Movements:
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/>Struggles
   for Other Worlds  (Part I).
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/> (10 Euros).
5. 2012. EBook: Recovering Internationalism
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/recovering_internationalism/>.  [A
   compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download
   formats]
   6. 2013. EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical
   Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/
   7. 2012. Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: *For the
   Global Emancipation of Labour  <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>*
   8. 2005-?
   <http://interfacejournal.nuim.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Interface-1-2-pp255-262-Waterman.pdf>
   Ongoing. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.???. Needed:
   a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!)
   <http://interfacejournal.nuim.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Interface-1-2-pp255-262-Waterman.pdf>
   9. 2011. Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a
   Globalised, Informatised Capitalism
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/>(2011) (c. 1,000
   pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980's-90's).


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