[P2P-F] labour power as a common pool resource

Sun Jun 19 22:59:11 CEST 2016

"I'm eager to see Tom's reaction, on how his theoretical analysis and
wishes, are confronted with the reality of labor commons actually emerging,"

First, I would argue that the early labour movements had more of the
character of what I call "labour commons unionism" than do the current-day
state-certified organizations. One needs only to read the manifestoes of
the ten-hour day movement in the U.K. or the eight-hour day movement in the
U.S. to see the prominence of solidarity with the unemployed.

For evidence of actually emerging labour commons today, one has to look
outside of organized labour -- which, I would maintain is one of the big
reasons organized labour has been in decline. Consider what happened with
the wild fires in Fort McMurray. There was a great deal of spontaneous
self-organization in receiving communities to feed and shelter the
evacuees. Rebecca Solnit wrote about the generality of this kind of
response to disaster in *A Paradise Made in Hell*, which she discussed with
Jonathan Rowe in this radio interview back in 2009:
http://jonathanrowe.org/interview-rebecca-solnit-a-paradise-built-hell

How these two sides relate is that early labour movements were collective
responses to "disasters" -- widespread unemployment, wage cuts, dangerous
working conditions, etc. Whether and how large numbers of people will
mobilize to respond collectively to climate change, precariousness,
plutocratic austerity can only be a matter of speculation at this point.
One cannot prescribe how such a mobilization will evolve. What I am trying
to anticipate is what kinds of tools will educate people in ways that will
enable them to respond most effectively to the challenges of transition
from an unsustainable fossil-fuel based industrial society.

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
wrote:

> I'm eager to see Tom's reaction, on how his theoretical analysis and
> wishes, are confronted with the reality of labor commons actually emerging,
>
> but I don't share Tibi's analysis that this is un-problematic, in fact,
> what Tibi and Sensororica are doing, how well would be the question, is to
> create membranes that 'discipline' extractive capital to the needs of the
> commoners; if that is NOT done well, it can also be an extractive mechanism
> that allows corporations to profit from the largely free labour donated to
> these platforms
>
> that is as much a struggle as the struggle between labor and capital in
> commodity labor,
>
> Michel
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 1:17 AM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu <
> tiberius.brastaviceanu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Tom for sharing this article. I am going to read it with great
>> interest. I copied Alexandre from Ouishare MTL, who has a passion for the
>> future of labor.
>>
>> Here's my first gut reaction to this.
>>
>> The underlying assumption is the struggle between labor and capital. But
>> if our economic system is reconfiguring this relationship is no longer the
>> same.
>> Peer production networks like www.sensorica.co can be seen as new ways
>> of organizing labor, co-managing resources, redistribution of benefits, ...
>> All the means of production belong to individuals, are co-owned or are
>> under nondominium or commons property regimes, and they are shared
>> according to some rules. I don't like to think of the network as an
>> accumulation of labor, labor potential that serves capital, unless you are
>> thinking about centralized crowdsourcing platforms that play the role of
>> intermediary between the crowd and corporations. In the case of SENSORICA I
>> see it as an aggregation of labor, skills, resources, for projects that are
>> driven by the crowd, for the crowd.
>>
>> If you bet on platform capitalism and you think that these centralized
>> crowdsourcing platforms will rule the world, the uberization of work, then
>> labor, as subjected to corporations for production, distribution and
>> rewards, then you might want to think of protective measures for labor, you
>> may want to make it possible for labor to achieve a new equilibrium of
>> forces.
>>
>> If you bet on peer production a la SENSORICA all this opposition
>> disappears.
>>
>> There is a Facebook thread where I mention our observations of capital
>> being more and more subjected to peer production rules, from our experience
>> with servicing corporations.
>>
>> Some links
>>
>> Interfaces between open p2p networks and classical institutions
>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ABmC6YJsszlIPoL-YXU3GF-PLHY0tmQdocBExswh7Lw/edit>
>> On redistribution of resources
>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F19rvACy80_0k3p32dI2NReuVkmozRvDJceaQCuf8y0/edit>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 12:53 PM, Michel Bauwens <
>> michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>>
>>> thanks Tom,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 11:36 PM, Tom Walker <lumpoflabor at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yes, Michel. Briefly, a few years ago I wrote a piece called "Time on
>>>> the Ledger" that sketches the rudiments of a social accounting framework
>>>> that could be used by a labour commons unionism. It's posted on Scribd:
>>>> https://www.scribd.com/doc/44657733/Time-on-the-Ledger-Social-Accounting-for-the-Good-Society
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 4:41 PM, Michel Bauwens <
>>>> michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Could you be very specific about this Tom,
>>>>>
>>>>> I work with post-corporate entrepreneurial coalitions and labour
>>>>> mutuals , and it would be of interest to me if you could explain the
>>>>> practicalities of how this would work ?
>>>>>
>>>>> have you looked into contributive accounting systems like Sensorica's
>>>>>
>>>>> how does that relate to your ideas,
>>>>>
>>>>> for example:
>>>>> http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Interfacing_Open_Peer_Production_Organizations_with_Classical_Institutions
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> CheckFrom: Tom Walker <lumpoflabor at gmail.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: [Debate-List] (Fwd)
>>>>>         Radical leisure, less work, more commoning (Eva Swidler)
>>>>> To: P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>
>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>>         <
>>>>> CANz+BQxMmvc9SEh1Rf52GHqiJirV_6RCOUzYA_KYJGM+RpD8rQ at mail.gmail.com>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>>
>>>>> I hope this article sparks the conversation that needs to take place.
>>>>> It
>>>>> certainly raises the issues that need to be addressed.
>>>>>
>>>>> In my view, the next step in thinking about labour, leisure and the
>>>>> commons
>>>>> is to conceptualize labour power as a common pool resource. Unions have
>>>>> traditionally bargained for collective terms for individualized work
>>>>> contracts, which reinforces the selling time for money paradigm. "A
>>>>> fair
>>>>> day's work for a fair day's wage." Treating labour power as a common
>>>>> pool
>>>>> resource, however, would require the development of an entirely
>>>>> different,
>>>>> social accounting framework in which collective interests of security
>>>>> and
>>>>> community -- commonalty, to use the Luddites' term -- are prioritized.
>>>>> I've
>>>>> written a few things on labour power as a common pool resource and Paul
>>>>> Burkett discussed the concept in Marx and Nature.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>
>>>>> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
>>>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>
>>>>> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
>>> http://commonstransition.org
>>>
>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>
>>> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>
>>> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> t!b! <http://www.google.com/profiles/tiberius.brastaviceanu>
>> co-founder of SENSORICA <http://www.sensorica.co>: an open value network
>> (or open enterprise)
>> co-founder of CAKE <http://aces-cake.org/>: consulting for the new
>> economy
>> founder of Multitude Project <http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/>:
>> informing the new multitude
>>
>> Google Profile <https://plus.google.com/117593809719446924575/about>
>> Facebook Tiberius Brastaviceanu
>> <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000279944184>
>> Twitter  @TiberiusB <http://twitter.com/TiberiusB>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
> http://commonstransition.org
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>

-- 
Cheers,

Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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