<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Michel Bauwens</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 8:19 PM<br>Subject: p2p and marxism debate, first 'real' reply to Jean Lievens<br>To: p2p-foundation <<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org">p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org</a>><br>
Cc: jean lievens <<a href="mailto:jean.lievens@base.be">jean.lievens@base.be</a>>, <a href="mailto:orsan@tie-netherlands.nl">orsan@tie-netherlands.nl</a>, Walton Pantland <<a href="mailto:waltonp@gmail.com">waltonp@gmail.com</a>>, Raoul <<a href="mailto:raoulv@club-internet.fr">raoulv@club-internet.fr</a>>, Vasilis Kostakis <<a href="mailto:kostakis.b@gmail.com">kostakis.b@gmail.com</a>>, George Papanikolaou <<a href="mailto:georgepapani@gmail.com">georgepapani@gmail.com</a>>, "Dafermos, George" <<a href="mailto:g.n.dafermos@tudelft.nl">g.n.dafermos@tudelft.nl</a>>, Johan S�derberg <<a href="mailto:johan.soderberg@sts.gu.se">johan.soderberg@sts.gu.se</a>>, Andy Robinson <<a href="mailto:ldxar1@gmail.com">ldxar1@gmail.com</a>>, phoebe moore <<a href="mailto:pvm.doc@gmail.com">pvm.doc@gmail.com</a>><br>
<br><br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(Jean, in response to <a href="http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/p2p-and-marxism-in-search-of" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/p2p-and-marxism-in-search-of</a>?, first identified theme)<br>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The historical failure of socialism and
the continued dominance of capitalism</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Dear Jean,</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Here is a start to my response to your
stimulating text. I will use my own proposed fragmentation of your
text and respond section by section; not necessarily as a direct
response to your arguments, but certainly covering the same topic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Topic one is the historical failure of
socialism and the continued dominance of capitalism</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I think I can broadly share your
assessment:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<ul><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">the historical movement's relative
failure:</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The fact that the mainstream labour
movement has accepted all the main principles of the current dominant
system, and has now, in its social-democratic or actually
'left-neoliberal' form, mainly become a crisis manager for the
system, being on the defensive in terms of civic rights, welfare
rights and solidarity mechanims. It's merely trying to stem the flows
of the losses</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Stalinist wing, who counted on the
solidarity of the totalitarian regimes, has collapsed with the
disappearance of those regimes.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I think what has collapsed though is in
effect the believability of a systemic alternative to the present
system, leaving workers and citizens in a defensive mode, under the
constant aggressions of financial capital and its predatory demands.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Some general critical points:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<ul><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">the socialist movement was
generally a movement that operated within capitalism, and demanded
better modalities for those that it represented, which it actually
achieved with a relative successful</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">the successful revolutions turned
into counter-examples, as they actually also used the main
modalities of capitalism, i.e. waged labour in factories, under even
less free conditions</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I also have more fundamental critique.
My opinion is that Marxism did not have a real transition strategy,
i.e. it assumed that workers movement needed to take control of the
commanding heights of the economy and that only then could a
transition start, after a change in ownership and governance. My
reading of history is that previous phase transitions did not occur
that way. What in fact happened is that proto-feudalism and
proto-capitalist practices first occurred within the old dominant
system, and through centuries of maturation, achieved critical mass,
slowly forming an intermeshed counter-logic, and creating a social
basis for its demands. Only when these demands could not be met by
the older system, and that older system could no longer provide the
needs of the population, did phase transitions actually occur.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But it is very hard to see
proto-socialist practices within the capitalist system?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My hypothesis is that these are only
occuring in the last two decades, under the form of commons-based
peer to peer production practices. In other words, it is only now
that we see the slow maturation of post-capitalist practices, which
are slowly intermeshing, are forming the basis for a circulation of
the common, and create a social basis for a future phase transition.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What is happening is that commons-based
peer production is that proto-modality, and that it is this modality
which will be at the basis of future social and political
revolutions.</p>
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