I've added two replies to the p2p and marxism discussion,<br><br>time for a new round?<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Michel Bauwens <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">not exactly an answer to jean yet, but I thought I add it in this context anyway,<br><br><br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Should we worry about capitalist
commons?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I want to first discuss what aspects of
this point of view I agree with, then discuss the eventual
reservations or disagreements.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The distinction between capitalist and
non-capitalist commons is of course an important one, whose validity
should be acknowledged.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Obviously, commoners should be wary of
both mechanisms.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As an example I want to take the free
software commons.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">These commons usually consist of:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<ul><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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..</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But we want to make a stronger
argument. Not only are these advances beneficial, but they are
actually crucial.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
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