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Tero Toivanen

Peer to peer production as the alternative to capitalism: A new communist hor... - 0 views

  • This article argues that a section of knowledge workers have already created a new mode of production termed Peer to Peer Production (P2P) which is a viable alternative to capitalism. Although still in its emerging phase and dominated by capitalism, P2P clearly displays the main contours of an egalitarian society.
  • This mode of production is very similar to what Marx (1978 a, 1978b) described as advanced communism.
  • Commons have existed since the inception of humanity in various forms and among various civilizations (Marx, 1965; Polanyi, 1992; Ostrom, 1990). But all of them, except commons of knowledge, have always been territorialized, belonging to particular communities, tribes, or states. Hence, as a rule, outsiders were excluded. The GPL created a globally de-territorialized, almost all-inclusive commons. It only excluded those users who would refuse to release their own products under the GPL license
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  • As knowledge became a major factor of informational capitalism a draconian copyright regime grew dramatically (Lessig, 2005 ). The GPL/GNU pioneered a juridical-productive strategy for producing global commons of knowledge and protecting them against the invasion by capitalism. In this sense, Stallman’s initiative was a major milestone in the struggle of knowledge workers against informational capitalism
  • The production of Linux was truly a revolution in the organization of cooperation among a large number of producers. Marx argued that any scientific knowledge was a product of collective work (Marx, 1981: 199 ), as each scientist built upon the achievements of previous ones. But this collective aspect of science was not a result of conscious and simultaneous cooperation among scientists but of contingent transfer of knowledge along a time and space axis.
  • The combination of GPL license with the Linux mode of cooperation represents the gist of the P2P mode of production, which coincides with the general principles of advanced form of communism, described by Marx.
  • 1) There will be no equivalence, between each individual’s contribution to social production and their share from the total social products. They will contribute according to their ability and will use products according to their needs. Money as the quantitative measure of value will disappear (Marx, 1978b). Money does not play any role in internal P2P system, though it still constitutes its external context and inserts pressure on it.
  • 2) In Marx’s advanced communism the division of labor, and with it the state and market vanish (Marx, 1978 a, b). In P2P the division of labor is replaced by the distribution of labor (Weber, 2004) and the logics of state and market are questione
  • 3) Advanced communism, Marx (1978a) envisaged, would transcend alienation not only by abolishing the logic of quantitative equivalence in the realm of exchange between individual and society, and among individuals, and the division of labor, but also by allowing and enabling individuals to use socially produced means of production to materialize their own creative powers. My ethnographic findings show that creativity and peer recognition are among the strongest motivations of P2P producer
  • At this point we can raise the following questions: 1-Is P2P really a new historical mode of production, or just an appendage to the capitalist mode of production? 2-What is its relation to the capitalist mode of production? 3-To what extent can P2P be applied to material production? 4-What are the possibilities that it will replace or displace the capitalist mode of production altogether
  • The P2P production productive forces correspond to what Manuel Castells (2010/1996:70-72) defines as the Information Technological Paradigm (ITP). The all-encompassing ITP emphasises informal networking, flexibility, and is characterised by the fact that technology acts on information, information acts on technology, as well as by the integration of various technologies such as micro-electronics, telecommunications, opto-electronics and computers in a larger system. It is important to emphasise that knowledge workers themselves are an important component, or the most important components, of ITP productive forces.
  • Yet capitalism prevents the free flow of knowledge in all directions in the net. It is true that the capitalist mode of production, adapting itself to ITP, has become global, and has increasingly adopted a network form. However, the sum of all potential links in the net exceeds dramatically the sum of links of the global networks of capital. Hence, the potential of the net, as a paradigmatic productive force of our time, exceeds the capitalist mode of production (Hardt and Negri, 2000)
  • I described briefly above major aspects of P2P that accord to Marx’s understanding of communism. All these aspects contradict the logic of capital. Here I will show how the logic of P2P profoundly contradicts the capitalist division of labour, because division of labour is the key component of any mode of production. Let me emphasize that in P2P we have a distribution of labour and not a division of labour
  • The scholars of post-Fordism argue that post-Fordism has transcended Taylorism by enhancing workers’ skills and involving them in decision making
  • Such claims are at best controversial (Castells, 2010/1996). Many argue that Taylorism is still the dominant form of the organization of the labor process
  • Post-Fordism has replaced the Taylorist impersonal and mechanized despotism with new forms of personal enslavement. Individual producers do not choose their tasks, or the pace, time and place of their work. In other words the work process is micro-territorialized both spatially and temporally. In this sense the contrast with P2P cooperation cannot be stronger. In P2P cooperation the work processes are globally de-territorialized, in terms of both time and space.
  • Brook (1975) showed that in a centralized organization the increase of the number of engineers who work on a particular software problem decreases the efficiency by creating unnecessary complexities at an exponential rate. Raymond (2001) demonstrated that this was not true of de-centered networked cooperation of P2P. Here, the increase in the number of workers increases efficiency and improves the product. This hypothesis can be true of all forms of cognitive production.
  • The commercial use of P2P’s products does not make them commodities because the user does not pay for them and therefore they do not enter the costs of his own commodity. From this follows that the total labor which is globally spent today on different forms of P2P is outside the capitalist social division of labor and circumscribes it.
  • A fully fledged P2P society is not compatible with money and commodity. The commodity form inherently circumscribes the freedoms that are guaranteed in the GPL
  • To sum up, the ITP productive forces combined with the de-centered network-based form of cooperation, the absence of wage labor, voluntary contribution, and the commons form of products constitute the main features of the P2P mode of production
  • Although the P2P mode of production is still an emerging phenomenon, its logic is clearly different from that of capitalism and has been created as a response to the requirements of the new productive forces. Therefore, its historical significance, urgency and novelty can hardly be exaggerated. The capitalist mode of production is a barrier to the realization of the potentialities of knowledge in the era of Internet. It limits human creativity and the development of knowledge workers in general. Therefore, it is no coincidence that a section of knowledge workers have rebelled against capitalist relations of production by lunching P2P. As Söderberg (2008) argues this is a form of class struggle.
  • The new social production consists of islands in the sea of the capitalist mode of production. The relation between the two, as pointed to above, is one of mutual dependence and antagonism. The social production depends on capitalism for acquiring some of the means of production and wages of its contributors, whilst capitalism on the other hand uses the commons of social production for free.
  • The social formation is an integrated socio-economic-ideological/cultural system. It may consist of more than one modes of production. However, one mode of production dominates the others and its imperatives define the overall characteristics of the social formation. In this sense we can speak of feudal and capitalist social formations as distinct from feudal and capitalist modes of production. Although the dominant mode of production dominates other modes of production, it cannot erase their specific logics. The continuous tension and dependency between the dominant mode of production and subordinated ones make social formations dynamic, uneven, and complex phenomena.
  • The capitalist social formation has gone through three partially overlapping phases: the emerging, the dominant and the declining ones. In the emerging phase (1850-1950) the capitalist mode of production dominated the feudal, domestic and other pre- capitalist modes of production worldwide, extracting labor and value from them (Mandel, 1972: chapter 2 ). In the second phase (1950-1980) the capitalist mode of production eroded the pre-capitalist mode of productions profoundly, and replaced them with the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism expanded both intensively, penetrating new domains of productive activity such as services, and extensively, conquering the whole globe. The third phase (1980- onwards) is characterized by the emergence of the ITP paradigm and the social mode of production within the capitalist social formation. This period has been described in terms such as “Network Society” (Castells, 2010/1997 ), “Empire” (Hardt and Negri, 2000), etc.
  • Although the P2P mode of production is still under the sway of the capitalist mode of production, its standing vis-à-vis capitalism is different from that of pre-capitalist modes of productions. While in the two first phases capitalism represented the new productive forces, in the third phase P2P is the new and emerging mode of production and capitalism is the declining one.
  • If P2P dominates capitalism we will have the emerging phase of P2P social formation. I do not want to give the impression that the victory of P2P over capitalism is either a smooth evolutionary process or inevitable. It is fully contingent upon the orientations and consequences of the current social struggle, particularly the struggle of P2P communities.
  • Automation will be a pillar of this transformation, though automation is not a necessary pre-condition for material P2P. In a fully automated production, the P2P production of cognitive factor (research and development, design and software) will bring material production under the sway of P2P.
  • The natural limit to raw material will also place a limit on material wealth and will require rules of distribution. But the criterion for distribution in the global community and within each local community cannot be the contribution of labor by individuals and communities, because cognitive work is globally collective, has no exchange value and does not produce exchange value. Only the needs of communities and individuals defined democratically among and within communities can be the criterion for distribution
  • the success of state and capital in preventing P2P from becoming the dominant mode of production is not guaranteed beforehand. Things can go either way depending on the consequence of social struggles. The P2P movement, if supported by all other social movements of the multitude, may prevail. Social struggle will also determine what type of P2P society we will have.
  • What then are the possible scenarios for P2P production to become the dominant mode of production? Will it grow parallel with capitalism until it overtakes it? Or, will its path of development be much more complicated, marked by ebbs and flows, and temporary setbacks? Will a social revolution that expropriates strategic means of production from capitalists be a prerequisite for P2P production to become the dominant mode of production? What will be the role of social struggle and human consciousness in advancing P2P production
  • “the idea of communism” is becoming appealing again. However it is not enough, though really necessary, to say that “another communism is possible” (Harvey, 2010:259) but to imagine the general contours of communist production. Herein lies the historical and political significance of P2P production. It represents, though in embryonic form, a model for communist production and distribution.
  • What then are the strengths and weaknesses of the P2P production social movement?
  • Its weakness, as Söderberg (2008) argues, is that most of the participants in the P2P production lack an explicit anti-capitalist consciousness, let alone a communist consciousness
  • However, the majority’s involvement in production is motivated by personal reasons, such as doing something exciting and creative, and improving their own skills. However participants are aware of, and value the fact, that they are producing commons.
  • No doubt the formation of a solid collectivist and progressive culture which grows organically around P2P production and other social movements will be essential for the formation of a communist society. Despite the significance of this progressive culture-in-making, it cannot remedy the lack of a clear programmatic communist vision and sustained theoretical critique of capitalism among the participants.
  • The lack of a clear collectivist vision combined with the dominant capitalist environment makes P2P production vulnerable to invasion by capitalism
  • No doubt there is a self-conscious communist section among the producers in P2P production. This communist section must carry out an uncompromising theoretical and critical theoretical struggle within the P2P production movement. However, this struggle should be conducted in friendly terms and avoid sectarianism. Communists should not position themselves against non-communist participants in the P2P movement. Actually, as Barbrook (2007) argues, all contributors to P2P production are involved in a communist material practice, regardless of their attitudes to communism.
  • In addition to the lack of class consciousness among P2P producers, and perhaps as a result of this, the absence of sustained connections/alliances between P2P producers and other progressive social movements is another weakness of the P2P movement. This is also a weakness of other social movements
  • The very fact the Occupy Wall Street was initiated by Adbusters and Anonymous, and that its de-centered/network form of organization, alongside that of Indignados, is very similar to that of P2P, is indeed very promising.
  • The academic and the activist left, on the other hand, have not yet grasped the historical novelty and significance of P2P production.
Jukka Peltokoski

Communisation theory and the question of fascism - Cherry Angioma | libcom.org - 0 views

  • A critical look at some assumptions of communisation theorists - considering that their often determinist historical predictions are not the only possible outcomes.
  • In the search for new road maps to navigate crisis and the possibilities of life beyond capitalism, the concept of ‘communisation’ has become an increasing focus of discussion.
  • The word itself has been around since the early days of the communist movement. The English utopian Goodwyn Barmby, credited with the being the first person to use the term communist in the English language, wrote a text as early as 1841 entitled ‘The Outlines of Communism, Associality and Communisation’
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  • The Barmbys’ use of the term to describe the process of the creation of a communist society is not a million miles away from its current usage, but it has acquired a more specific set of meanings since the early 1970s when elements of the French ‘ultra-left’ began deploying it as a way of critiquing traditional conceptions of revolution. Communism has often been conceived of by both Marxists and anarchists as a future state of society to be achieved in the distant future long after the messy business of revolution has been sorted out. For advocates of communisation on the other hand, capitalism can only be abolished by the immediate creation of different relations between people, such as the free distribution of goods and the creation of ‘communal, moneyless, profitless, Stateless, forms of life.
  • There is what might be termed a ‘voluntarist’ conception of communisation
  • It is voluntarist because there is an emphasis on people choosing to take sides and fleeing capitalist society
  • What I would term the ‘structuralist’ inflexion of communisation is particularly associated with the French language journal Theorie Communiste (TC). More recently its ideas have been elaborated and extended in discussions with like-minded groups including the English language Endnotes and the Swedish journal Riff Raff. Together these collectives have recently collaborated to produce ‘Sic – an international journal of communisation’ (issue number one was published in 2011). I term this approach as ‘structuralist’ because there is much more emphasis on how the possibility of communisation arises from the structural contradictions of a particular stage of capitalism.
  • Communisation must remain a hypothesis, but surely so must the possibility of other outcomes in the heat of crisis – including a rise in populist nationalism, racism and/or religious fundamentalism, incorporating elements of a reactionary ‘anti-capitalism’.
  • In response to the crisis of profitability in the 1970s, capitalism has restructured itself. The old notion of a ‘job for life’ has been scrapped. For many, access to a ‘living wage’ is sporadic and precarious.
  • In shifting the focus from communism as a distant future ideal state to immediate practical activity, the notion of communisation can help us to think about what could happen in the event of such a scenario.
  • The problem with much communisation theory though is that it often seems to assume that under pressure of events, large scale efforts at communisation are inevitable even if their success is not guaranteed.
  • Unfortunately the historic ultra left does not offer many useful tools for understanding fascism and similar movements. By the ‘ultra left’ I mean those currents that trace their origins to the various groups that broke with the mainstream Communist International in the 1920s, including the ‘council communists’ and ‘left communists’ in Germany, Italy and elsewhere. In the 1960s and 70s newer groups emerged that combined ideas from these currents with elements derived from the Situationist International, Socialisme ou Barbarie and others.
  • Communisation resulting in a classless society is only one of the possibilities on the horizon, and those who advocate it need to reflect more on some of the other potential outcomes and how to avoid them.
  • In 1960 the French Bordigist journal Programme Communiste published the notorious article ‘Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi’ which suggested that the mass murder of Jews was not the result of anti-Semitism but simply a moment in the eradication of the petit-bourgeoisie as a result of the ‘irresistible advance of the concentration of capital’.
  • Interestingly it was in this very milieu that the current notion of communisation first emerged: ‘It is not sure who first used the word… To the best of our knowledge, it was Dominique Blanc: orally in the years 1972-74… Whoever coined the word, the idea was being circulated at the time in the small milieu round the bookshop La Vieille Taupe (‘Old Mole”, 1965-72). Since the May 68 events, the bookseller, Pierre Guillaume, ex-Socialisme ou Barbarie and ex-Pouvoir Ouvrier member, but also for a while close to G. Debord (who himself was a member of S. ou B. in 1960-61), had been consistently putting forward the idea of revolution as a communising process’
  • The strength of the historic ultra-left in all its forms has been its refusal to support capitalist currents of any kind – no ‘critical support’ for social democratic politicians , no defending Stalinist police states, no cheerleading for national liberation dictatorships in waiting. It has correctly argued that misery, exploitation and war continue under the guise of ‘socialism’, anti-fascism and democracy as well under fascism and military rule.
  • There is though a permanent danger with this position of seeing all forms of capitalist rule as identical, and of misunderstanding everything that happens under capitalism as simply determined by the logic of accumulation without reference to any other historical or political factors.
  • the issue isn’t just how the state and capital might respond under threat, but how the very dynamic of social antagonism and crisis might give rise to fascism or some 21st century version from below. If it is true that capitalism’s inability to guarantee social reproduction can only prompt various kinds of collective attempts to secure a life worth living, there is no immediate reason why these attempts should take an expansive, internationalist direction. The historical experience would suggest that it is just likely that many people could fall back on some kind of limited national, religious, racial or extended family/clan identity and seek to secure the survival and reproduction of their self-defined group – if necessary at the expense of others.
  • One possible outcome of crisis is a kind of plunder-state in which capital effectively throws one part of the population to the wolves to ensure its survival, suspending the normal rules of property to enable the looting of the resources and personal effects of marginalised communities.
  • many German people, including proletarians, were able to materially benefit from the plunder of the Jews and other minorities.
  • Another possibility is an extension beyond a state-managed plunder towards localised insurrectionary movements with a racist dimension.
  • If more modern revolutionary movements have generally avoided this, mass participation in ethnically-based massacres in the past 25 years in the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda suggests that this is always a possibility.
  • Even a racialized partial communisation is conceivable, in which one part of the community establishes internal relations of equality and sharing of resources while simultaneously ‘ethnically cleansing’ people defined as outsiders. Such a vision is, for instance, promulgated by the thankfully marginal ‘National Anarchist’ scene with its call for racially pure village communities to replace capitalism and the state.
  • At the heart of this contradiction is the fact that capitalism is increasingly unable to guarantee social reproduction, unlike in the past when it largely did so through the wage.
  • It may be true that no localized racist or nationalist ‘anti-capitalism’ could create a lasting alternative to capitalism – social reproduction today cannot retreat from a global human society. Astarian is not alone among the pro-communisers in assuming that any such contradictions can only be temporary diversions on the road to a better future: ‘When the counterrevolutionary proletarian alternatives have demonstrated their ineffectiveness by failing to deliver the economic salvation of the proletariat, communisation will bring about the leap towards the non-economy’
  • But the last hundred years, and indeed much of human history, suggests that in times of crisis the road forward can be terminally blocked by desperate inter-communal violence and the spiral of massacres and reprisals – or when one group is particularly marginalized, massacres without even the fear of reprisals.
  • Countering this possibility does not mean signing up to some state/media/celebrity ‘anti fascist’ popular front, but it does mean being permanently aware of the potential for even apparently radical, insurgent movements to take a terrible direction. It also means challenging potential manifestations of this at every turn within the real movements around us, whether it be the emergence of nationalist anti-migrant sentiments in workplace struggles (e.g. ‘British jobs for British workers’) or rebranded anti-Semitic notions of saving the ‘real economy’ from ‘cosmopolitan’ money lenders (e.g. the dubious ‘moneyless’ notions of the ‘Zeitgeist Movement’ on the fringes of the Occupy actions).
Jukka Peltokoski

From the theory of peer production to the production of peer production theor... - 0 views

  • The object of this article is to give an interpretation of the ideological positioning of various movements and intellectual groupings and individuals within the ‘left field’ of peer to peer theory production.
  • What we understand under the concept of “the Production of Peer Production Theory” are the various attempts to make sense of peer production, both in terms of its place in the current dominant economic system of capitalism, and in terms of its future potential.
  • 1. Yochai Benkler: peer production as an adjunct to the market
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  • we aim for a fair synthesis
  • Our main counter-argument is this: under capitalist conditions, peer production is not capable of self-reproduction and therefore not a full mode of production or value creation. We make an important distinction between the self-reproduction capability of a peer production project as a whole, and the social reproduction at the individual level. The reason is that there is no real universal possiblity for the reproduction of the human life of peer producers under capitalist conditions.
  • We would characterize Yochai Benkler’s vision as a reformist or meliorist approach, seeking to improve and balance some of the negative aspects of capitalism through increased peer production dynamics.
  • 2. Oekonux: free software as a germ form that is prefigurative of a peer production society
  • free software production is a full mode of production that is born within capitalism but destined to supersede it, based on a understanding of germ form theory.
  • The description of Meretz considers free software as a full mode of production, prefigurative of a wider transformation of the current capitalist mode of production.
  • We would characterize the main argument as stating that the deep lowering of transaction/coordination/communication costs, creates the possibility for a new mode of production next to the market and the firm, which produces value through ‘social allocation’.However, for Benkler, the new modality exists ‘in addition’ and in complementary with market dynamics.
  • On the collective level, we can see that peer production occurs when a pool of voluntary contributors can create commons-oriented value, under conditions of participatory governance, i.e. through the social, and not market or hierarchical, allocation of productive resources. This can occur on a collective level, but only if we abstract from the need for the social reproduction of the individuals who contribute.
  • there is no autonomous social reproduction within the commons itself
  • 3. Dmytri Kleiner’s Venture Communism
  • For Kleiner, peer production can only occur if commoners also own the common stock of production.
  • Kleiner proposes that peer producers would create common stock cooperatives, and use a specific licence, the Peer Production or Copyfarleft license, to protect their shared innovation commons from private appropriation by capitalist forces.
  • Like with the P2P Foundation’s approach, Kleiner also recognizes the continuation of the politics of class, as long as we live in a class-based society.
  • Our contrasting peer production IS a proto-mode of production, which means that indeed value is created in a radically different way in peer production, but that it’s lack of self-reproduction capabilities makes it dependent on capitalism.
  • Kleiner’s strategy is exactly what can make it independent and capable of self-reproduction since its combination with common-stock physical production entities, would guarantee the self-reproduction capability of individuals and collectives contributing to the commons.
  • creating a real counter-economy
  • 4. George Caffentzis and the Anti-capitalist commons
  • two kinds of commons, i.e. anti-capitalist commons which exist to produce value in a different way, and which function against capitalism, and commons which are used by capital for its own self-reproduction and act in favour of capitalism
  • Politically, pro-capitalist commons are represented by the neo-Hardinian school of Elinor Ostrom
  • while the basic premise of the existence of capitalism-compatible commons is correct, the making of a radical dichotomy, based on the necessity to struggle against capitalist commons, is absolutely counter-productive.
  • Our approach stresses that it is more productive to focus on the post-capitalist potentialities of peer production, and make them real and concrete, than to fight against commons that are compatible with capitalism.
  • it makes only sense to undertake efforts to make the commons more autonomous from profit-maximizing entities and the system as a whole. This can be done through strategies such as those proposed by Kleiner and the P2P Foundation.
  • In the interpretation of the P2P Foundation, social change occurs because proto-modes of production, which are initially embedded in a dominant economic system, and benefit that system, become gradually more efficient, and capable of self-reproduction, and therefore create the conditions for a phase transition to occur, in which the new emergent mode of production, achieves its independence over the formerly dominant model.
  • For the P2P Foundation, an integration needs to occur between the new prototype model, i.e. the field of peer production proper, as it emerges in multiple social fields and attempts to become more autonomous; the social mobilization of progressive social forces (i.e. politics and even ‘revolution’ are crucial remaining aspects of social evolution), and political/policy oriented movements that are capable of creating new institutions.
  • Politically, § we differ from the Benklerite approach because we believe peer production has the potential to succeed capitalism as the core value and organisational model of a post-capitalist society § we differ from Oekonux by stressing the lack of autonomy of peer production under current conditions § we differ from the Telekommunisten approach by stressing it a proto-mode of production § we differ from the Caffentzis approach by stressing a post-capitalist approach centered on the autonomy and self-reproduction needs of peer producers, rather than guided by a core hostility to capitalism
  • P2P Foundation also has an integrative and integral approach, this means that despite differences, we seek commonality around aspects of our friends and allies that we may differ from in other aspects.
  • § we agree with Benkler and similar approaches that peer production improves on the current conditions of capitalism, i.e. we generally support the spread of commons and p2p-oriented practices § we agree with Oekonux that peer production carries within itself the seeds of a post-capitalist value system § we agree with Kleiner’s proposal for a peer-based counter-economy § we agree with Caffentzis that we need a preferential treatment towards autonomous commons approaches that create a counter-logic within the present system
Jukka Peltokoski

Postcapitalism and the city - 0 views

  • bullshit jobs
  • Capitalism’s response mechanisms
  • a) to maximise capacity utilisation of low-skilled labour and of assets.
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  • b) to artificially inflate the price and profitability of labour inputs
  • Things that in all previous eras of capitalism the elite desired to be as cheap as possible—to ease wage pressures—are now made as expensive as possible
  • capital migrates away from production and from private-sector services towards public sector services.
  • capitalism being replaced by a stagnant neo-feudalism
  • central bank, pumping money into the system
  • the state, propping up effectively insolvent banks
  • the migrant labour exploiter
  • the innovator someone who invents a way of extracting rent from low-wage people
  • But as soon as technology allowed it, we started to create organisations where the positive effects of networked collaboration were not captured by the market.
  • Wikipedia
  • Fortunately there is a third impact of info-tech. It has begun to create organisational and business models where collaboration is more important than price or value.
  • Linux
  • the platform co-operatives
  • The technology itself is in revolt against the monopolised ownership of intellectual property, and the private capture of externalities.
  • We must promote the transition to a non-capitalist form of economy which unleashes all the suppressed potential of information technology, for productivity, well.being and culture.
  • The strategic aim is: to reduce the amount of work done to the minimum; to move as much as possible of human activity out of the market and state sectors into the collaborative sector; to produce more stuff for free.
  • If the aim is for humanity to do as little work as possible, you can do it through three mechanisms. One is to automate. The other is to reduce the input costs to labour, so that we can survive on less wages and less work. The third is to push forward rapidly the de-linking of work and wages.
  • The city is where the networked individual wants to live
  • First—be overt. Help people to conceptualise the transition by actually talking about it.
  • Next—switch off the great neoliberal privatisation machine.
  • We know what it’s there for—to hand public assets to the private sector so that the profits of decaying businesses are temporarily boosted
  • The next proposal is more radical: model reality as a complex system.
  • Next—promote the basic income.
  • The basic income is an idea whose time is coming, because there won’t be enough work to go around. For me the basic income is a one-off subsidy for automation—to un-hook humanity from bullshit job creation and promote the delinking of work and wages.
  • However, it’s a transitional measure.
  • Next—actively promote the collaborative sector over the market and the state.
  • You have to understand the benefits of these entities are not completely measurable in GDP terms.
  • The building block is the co-op, the credit union, the NGO, the non-profit company, the peer-to-peer lender and the purely voluntary or social enterprise.
  • You have to promote new ways of measuring activity and progress.
  • Finally, understand and fight the battle over the externalities.
  • the state and eventually the commons should have first rights to all the data just the same as in a republic it owns all the land
  • Ultimately, however, the greatest good comes from the common ownership and exploitation of data, because it establishes the principle that this vast new information resource—which is our collaborative behaviour captured as data—is part of the commons.
  • Would capitalism collapse?
  • But you would attract the most innovative capitalists on earth, and you would make the city vastly more livable for the million-plus people who call it home.
  • No. The desperate, frantic “survival capitalists” would go away—the rip-off consultancies; the low-wage businesses; the rent-extractors.
  • All the other challenges would remain: the environmental challenge—not just low carbon but the preservation of quality living environments in a city sometimes deluged with visitors. Also the ageing challenge and the debt challenge.
  • a common platform for the left, for social democracy and for liberal capitalism
  • I could be completely wrong. But if I am right, it makes sense for all cities to ask themselves: could we become the first city to begin a demonstrable and tangible transition away from neoliberal capitalism, towards a society of high equality, high well-being, high collaboration?
  • the collaborative city, the city of participatory democracy, the networked city
Jukka Peltokoski

Transnational Republics of Commoning | David Bollier - 0 views

  • The nation-state as now constituted, in its close alliance with capital and markets, is largely incapable of transcending its core commitments to economic growth, consumerism, and the rights of capital and corporations -- arguably the core structural drivers of climate change.
  • Because the piece -- "Transnational Republics of Commoning:  Reinventing Governance Through Emergent Networking" -- is nearly 14,000 words long, I am separating it into three parts.  You can download the full essay as a pdf file here.
  • In moments of crisis, when the structures of conventional governance are suddenly exposed as weak or ineffectual, it is clear that there is no substitute for ordinary people acting together. 
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  • collectively our choices and agency are the ultimate guarantors of any values we may wish to secure
  • They can create their own cultural spaces to deliberate, collaborate and share resources without market and state structures that are often cumbersome, expensive, anti-social or predatory. 
  • A key political challenge of our time is to figure out new ways to preserve and extend the democratic capacities of ordinary people and rein in unaccountable market/state power, otherwise known as neoliberalism. 
  • Neoliberal economics and policy insist upon debt-driven economic growth, extractivist uses of the Earth, consumerism and nationalism
  • the creative use of new digital technologies on open network platforms could inaugurate liberating new forms of “open source governance.”
  • The superstructures of law and governance can achieve only so much without the consent of the governed.
  • Benkler
  • Rifkin
  • Tapscott
  • Mason
  • Bauwens
  • potentially transformative Commons Sector
  • the innovations now unfolding in various tech spaces suggest the outlines of new post-capitalist institutions
  • new types of group deliberation and governance software platforms such as Loomio and Co-budget; digital platforms that enable better management of ecological resources; and “blockchain ledger” technology, which is enabling new forms of network-native self-organization, collective action and “smart contracts”
  • online guilds
  • commons
  • open design and manufacturing communities
  • citizen-science
  • a process of commoning
  • to create functioning commons
  • The collaborative communities now emerging on digital platforms do not worry so much about resource-depletion or free riders – problems that affect the management of water, fisheries and land – as how to intelligently curate information from the multitudes and design effective self-governance structures for virtual collaboration.   
  • The point of the commons paradigm, despite its many different flavors, is this:  It provides “protected” space in which to re-imagine production and governance. 
  • “digital divide”
  • more accessible and transparent than conventional state democracy and more solidly grounded through bottom-up participation and ethical accountability
  • Digital networks are becoming deeply entangled with all aspects of life
  • our lives with digital technologies are profoundly affecting how we regard property, political life, and economic life
  • Facebook, Google, Uber, Airbnb and other corporate “gig economy” players
  • Unlike these capital-driven enterprises, the collaborations that I am describing are fundamentally non-market and socially mindful in character. They are less defined by technology per se than by the new social forms and political /cultural attitudes that they engender. 
  • to move people beyond the producer/consumer dyad and formalistic notions of citizenship, and enable people to enact a more personal, DIY vision of self-provisioning and governance. 
  • The state, having cast its lot with capital accumulation and growth, is losing its credibility and competence in addressing larger needs. 
  • With the rise of market-centrism and rational choice economics, government was devalued and allowed a role only in cases of ‘market failure.’ 
  • standard economics today largely ignores the fundamental, affirmative role that government plays in facilitating functional, trustworthy markets.
  • popular distrust of government has soared.  And why not?  Government has lost its actual capacities to serve many non-market social and ecological needs. 
  • Given this void and the barriers to democratic action, many citizens who might otherwise engage with legitimate state policymaking have shifted their energies into “transnational, polycentric networks of governance in which power is dispersed,”
  • the solidarity economy, Transition Towns, peer production, the commons
  • Thus the impasse we face today:  The neoliberal market/state agenda is inflicting grievous harm on the planet, social well-being and democracy – yet the market/state remains largely unresponsive to popular demands for change.
  • The (Still-Emerging) Promise of Open Source Governance
  • commons based on open tech platforms will play a central role in transforming our politics and polity
  • Electronic networks are now a defining infrastructure shaping the conduct of political life, governance, commerce and culture.
  • many legacy institutions and social practices continue to exist.  But they have no choice but to evolve
  • online commons are lightweight social systems that, with the right software and norms, can run quite efficiently on trust, reciprocity and modest governance structures
  • that enable users to mutualize the benefits of their own online sharing
  • Rifkin notes that the extreme productivity of digital technologies is lowering the marginal costs of production for many goods and services to near zero.  This is undercutting the premises of conventional markets, which are based on private owners using proprietary means to extract profits from nature, communities and consumers.
  • We are glimpsing at the outlines of a new economic system based on sharing and the collaborative commons. It is the first new paradigm-shifting system since the introduction of capitalism and communism. 
  • The “collaborative commons” that Rifkin describes is a hybrid capitalist/commons economy that is able to exploit the efficiencies and higher quality produced on open networks. 
  • “prosumers”
  • are able to create their own goods and services
  • But when some good or service is offered for at no cost, it really means that the user is the product:  our personal data, attention, social attitudes lifestyle behavior, and even our digital identities, are the commodity that platform owners are seeking to “own.”  
  • To combat corporate exploitation of open platforms, many efforts are now afoot to establish digital commons as viable alternatives.  The new models are sometimes called “platform co-operativism.
  • Digital commons are materializing in part because it is easier and more socially satisfying to participate in a commons
  • the most valuable networks are those that facilitate group affiliations to pursue shared goals – or what I would call commons
  • Open source tools and principles could unleash this value – but it would subvert the business model.
  • “hacktivists,” makers, software programmers and social media innovators who are consciously attempting to build tech platforms that can meet needs in post-capitalist ways, often via commons
Jukka Peltokoski

Solidarity economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The definition of "solidarity economy" is widely contested.
  • abolition of capitalism
  • practical solidarity with disadvantaged groups of people
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "humanizing" the capitalist economy
  • a struggle seeking to build an economy and culture of solidarity beyond capitalism
  • "économie solidaire"
  • often considered part of the social economy,
  • An organisation seeing itself as part of the solidarity economy generally goes beyond achieving purely social aims: it aims to put right an injustice by expressing solidarity
  • Miller, Ethan.
  • Grassroots Economic Organizing
Tero Toivanen

In this world, but not of this world - Gilles Dauvé | libcom.org - 0 views

  • An ecologically-reformed capitalism is impossible. Let us have no illusion about de-growth, non-growth or un-growth. Capitalism is escalation: it does not des-escalade. Self-control is not a capitalist habit or virtue.
  • Unfortunately, history knows no such insurmountable limit. Civilizations in fact change for social reasons. Capitalism can only be stopped by the proletarians' will and ability to transform it into something utterly different.
Jukka Peltokoski

Book of the Day: Funding an Economy of Civic Spaces in the Cooperative City through Com... - 0 views

  • Funding the Cooperative City focuses on the post-welfare transition of today’s European societies: with austerity measures and the financialisation of real estate stocks and urban services, the gradual withdrawal of the state and municipal administrations from providing certain facilities and maintaining certain spaces have prompted citizen initiatives and professional groups to organise their own services and venues.
  • The self-organisation of new spaces of work, culture and social welfare was made possible by various socio-economic circumstances: unemployment, solidarity networks, changing real estate prices and ownership patters created opportunities for stepping out of the regular dynamisms of real estate development.
  • cooperative ownership
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  • new types of investors, operating along principles of ethics or sustainability, or working on moving properties off the market.
  • inventing new ways to enable, finance and govern community-run spaces.
  • European municipalities responded to this challenge in a variety of ways.
  • The question if community capital can really cure the voids left behind by the welfare state has generated fierce debates in the past years.
  • crowdfunded urban infrastructures.
  • in the course of the economic crisis, many European cities witnessed the emergence of a parallel welfare infrastructure:
  • This collection brings together protagonists from various cities to help shaping a new European culture of urban development based on community-driven initiatives, civic economic models and cooperative ownership
  • community organisations
  • crowdfunding
  • participatory budgeting,
  • invest
  • pre-financed
  • some cities chose to support local economy and create more resilient neighbourhoods with self-sustaining social services through grant systems
  • priority neighbourhoods
  • The granted projects, chosen through an open call, have to prove their economic sustainability and have to spend the full amount in one year.
  • the public sector plays an important role in strengthening civil society in some European cities, many others witnessed the emergence of new welfare services provided by the civic economy completely outside or without any help by the public sector
  • n some occasions, community contribution appears in the form of philanthropist donation to support the construction, renovation or acquisition of playgrounds, parks, stores, pubs or community spaces. In others, community members act as creditors or investors in an initiative that needs capital, in exchange for interest, shares or the community ownership of local assets
  • Besides aggregating resources from individuals to support particular cases, community infrastructure projects are also helped by ethical investors.
  • Creating community ownership over local assets and keeping profits benefit local residents and services is a crucial component of resilient neighbourhoods.
  • complementary currencies
  • The fact that many of the hundreds of projects supported by civic crowdfunding platforms are community spaces, underlines two phenomena: the void left behind by a state that gradually withdrew from certain community services, and the urban impact of community capital created through the aggregation of individual resources.
Jukka Peltokoski

Exploring the commons by Marco Berlinguer | OpenDemocracy | Social Network Unionism - 0 views

  • Today’s rediscovery of the notion of the commons stems directly from the need to regulate and to explore how to enable the collaborative action of a multiplicity of protagonists who are autonomous
  • Transform! started work in 2004 on the project ‘Networked Politics’, through which we explored
  • new organisational forms of collective action and the implications of an economy increasingly based on information, knowledge and communication.
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  • In October 2009, we co-promoted the first Free Culture Forum (FCF)
  • The FCF released a Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge
  • The Charter lists a variety of ways of achieving sustainability developed by initiatives based on free culture principles, some more consolidated, some still experimental
  • The Charter also promotes the principle of combining several sources of finance, as a way of guaranteeing independence of the creators.
  • What we call the Free Culture Movements comprises a wide range of experiences mainly emerging in the framework of the internet and the digital revolution.
  • We are still living in a capitalist society; and in the last twenty years, one major change has been the qualitatively new importance of information, communication and knowledge both in the economy and in society at large.
  • communities of highly individualised members
  • the potential opened up by the new technologies
  • This goes together with a second question we have often dealt with, that is, why these ‘networked forms’ are emerging in so many movements and indeed in so many aspects of present-day society.
  • these forces have one of their fundamental roots in the movements of the 1960s and 70s and specifically in two salient facts: the shake-up of the Fordist, patriarchal, hierarchical institutions of post-war capitalism and the (connected) repercussions of the massive expansion of higher education.
  • We need to better conceptualise the anthropological transformation which underlies these new patterns of social relationships
  • Which leads us to a third area of issues: the movements we analyse have been emerging from the very core of societal innovation of the last decades. What do we call this? Post-Fordism? The knowledge economy? Informationalism? Cognitive capitalism?
  • When we started Networked Politics, we wanted first of all to deepen the comprehension of the problems that had emerged in the innovative forms and principles of organisation in the global movements. It was in this way that we came to discover parallels with the organisational forms that had emerged in the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement, as well as with various experiences of web communities of collaborative production
  • as producing common resources.
  • logics based on openness to the ‘outside’
  • the logic behind the internet itself
  • But there is also another aspect of this social nature of production that needs to be noted: in many senses, the flows of production appeared to shift away from the formal boundaries of what is traditionally considered productive work, to spread into society at large.
  • the social nature of these processes seems to put pressure on any regulatory, governance and accounting system closed within the boundaries of formally isolated organisations.
  • this configuration also brings people to questioning the adequacy, legitimacy and efficiency of property regimes as we know them, be they private or state mechanisms.
  • The increasing rediscovery of the notion of commons by these movements and many beyond them – has its roots here.
  • When we look at the qualities which need to be mobilised and at the forms of organisation of production in these spheres, we observe an increasing importance of attitudes and capacities
  • creativity, flexibility, development of information, continuous learning, problem-solving, initiative, communicational and relational skills, decision-making, attention, experiential/practical/”tacit” knowledge.
  • embedded in individuals and are not easily reproducible and controllable through planned command or automated mechanisms.
  • depend on motivations which are not easily reducible to the monetary
  • a blurring of entrepreneurial and managerial functions and of dependent work
  • another dimension where the experience of the FC-movements is interesting. There are experiments of a different kind around these problems
  • related to the meshing and mobilisation of different motivations, non-hierarchical division of labour, collaboration and coordination, and so on.
  • working on the basis of a distributional/sharing
  • First, where knowledge, information and communication play a central role, the processes of production appear intrinsically and more immediately social. They benefit and rely on flows and networks of production which go beyond the formal boundaries of any specific organisation (not to say single individuals).
  • a third cluster of problems
  • The increased immaterial and social nature of the processes of production and of products is creating a series of problems in the systems of measures.
  • Such problems are evidently further complicated by the digital revolution, which made it possible that a digital product, once created, can be potentially reproduced “easier, faster, ubiquitously and almost free”
  • In this lies another clue that fundamental difficulties are emerging, which point toward what could be called a crisis of the system of value – which, indeed, has many other roots, well beyond this realm.
  • Fordist forms of production, to be deployed in a non-destructive way, required the invention of a new institutional framework, which crystallised in the Keynesian revolution; which, in turn, to be effectively deployed required the invention of a new system of (public and private) measures and accounts, which culminated in the famous – and today widely contested concept of – Gross National Product. Doesn’t this resonate with the present?
Jukka Peltokoski

Is cooperation what's missing? - 0 views

  • We’re often amazed when someone tells us that “we need more cooperation and less competition,” and all the more when they present the market as the antithesis of cooperation.
  • “But it’s obviously just the opposite!!” we say.
  • The car, any car, symbol of the decentralized world, is a radical example of cooperation. And if you open up a monitor, a computer, a telephone, or a simple appliance and analyze the components that are placed on the motherboard, you’ll see another example
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  • what’s dominant is cooperation, not competition, among other things, because the market for automotive parts is not a true market, but rather a oligopsony (there are only a few buyers at the end of the chain).
  • Competition requires that where one wins, another loses
  • But are we talking about the same thing? Certainly not.
  • Cooperation among big businesses should worry us, not make us happy.
  • the zero sum shows up in a large part of exchanges between humans.
  • does it really make sense to propose rule changes in those environments? Is it possible to hack them? Obviously, if we didn’t think so, we wouldn’t be selling consultancy on the market, but if we thought that was enough, we wouldn’t be committed to building alternatives for ourselves and inviting others to make their own.
  • every exchange that is a zero-sum game is a bad exchange, something that shouldn’t be done because either you lose, or it’s no good at all (when both sides remain the same), or, worse still, if you win at the cost of the other in the exchange, you mine the trust of the other, and you sow an impending, inevitable, and painful betrayal. So, does it really materialize in “a large part of exchanges between humans?”
  • If we read the paragraph, we realize that the setting Julen is talking about is a well-defined institutional environment: labor scales and classical teaching organizations. We’re far from schools of the commons or cooperation based on the deliberation of a phyle.
  • The question is whether or not we think that salaried relationships will continue to be the basis of what we call a business, which organizes a good part of the co-opetition between people to reach the market.
  • Values take hold in different ways, according to the social structures in which we try to develop them. For example, if we put ourselves in the P2P mode of production, the issue is not whether one produces for the commons or for the market, because one will produce with and for both, creating competition and cooperation at the same time, as in the “coming capitalism,” or in every alternative model based on the dissipation of rents.
  • However, a certain degree of cooperation is required, at least on the part of those who are on each side
  • Because cooperation in that mold creates that whole gamut that Sennet and Julen talk about, and generally, apart from an arduous and conscious battle like ner is fighting,
  • debate on deeeper cultural values
  • send salaried work, even if only little by little, to the memory trunk from an inglorious time, and once and for all
Jukka Peltokoski

Our Eyes On the Prize: From a "Worker Co-op Movement" to a Transformative Social Moveme... - 1 views

  • The contemporary U.S. worker cooperative movement is somewhat ambiguous about its relationship to capitalism.
  • While empathizing with those who feel a sense of "inevitability" in the face of today's powerful capitalist economy (and disagreeing with those who see it as generally acceptable), I hold firmly to the perspective that a more just and democratic economy is both necessary and possible.
  • Operating as isolated businesses or even as networks of businesses, worker cooperatives have barely a prayer (contrary to what some cooperative activists suggest) of growing to "eclipse" and replace capitalist enterprise simply through successful growth and competition.
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  • the long term replacement of capitalism--an economy which socializes costs and privatizes benefits--with an economy of democratic cooperation
  • n economy is an ecosystem, a cyclical whole that includes processes of creation (the "original production" of natural resources by geological, biological, and energetic forces), production (human transformation of resources into goods and services), exchange, consumption (perhaps more appropriately called "use"), the processing of waste, and the recycling of surplus (sometimes called "investment").
  • The worker coop movement must work to build broader alliances, holistic economic and social visions, and contribute to the creation of not only more worker coops, but a transformative social movement capable of changing the culture and economy--the "social ecosystem"--in which worker coops struggle to exist.
  • Operating successfully in a capitalist market, worker coops can support movements for social and economic transformation
  • a cooperative solidarity economy
  • Worker cooperatives are a particular--and effective--structure for democratically organizing the production of goods and the provision of services.
  • link these interventions together--at every point of the economic cycle
  • But even a solidarity economy movement cannot succeed without being intimately linked to broader social change work. It is our connections with the work of anti-racism, feminism, queer liberation, environmental justice, ecological sustainablility, immigrant's rights, counter-recruitment and peace advocacy, labor organizing, grassroots community development, and other movements for cultural and insitutional change that will generate the collective power and momentum needed to effect long-term transformation and generate widespread, committed support for worker cooperatives as economic and social-change insitutions.
  • Indeed, to create conditions under which their success is increasingly possible, worker cooperatives must work to generate, sustain and support institutions at all other points of the economic cycle.
  • constructing reliable markets
  • for goods and services produced by worker cooperatives.
  • from a passive place of "entering markets" to an active place of constructing them
  • What does this "movement building" look like?
  • the creation of a shared story and through this, the development of long-term solidarity between worker cooperatives and other groups working for democratic, community-based economies such as local currencies, consumer cooperatives, housing coops and intentional communities, economic justice advocacy groups, neighborhood associations, local food system projects and more
  • solidarity economy
  • Further examples from the solidarity economy movement outside of the U.S. abound. I delve into some of these more deeply in GEO's recent collaborative issue with Dollars and Sense (see Ethan Miller, "Other Economies Are Possible".)
  • We must, instead, work to transform the very terms of the economic game.
  • Green Worker Cooperatives
  • Red Emma's
  • Wooden Shoe Books
  • Electric Embers
  • Riseup
  • Gaiahost Collective
  • Brattleboro Tech Collective
  • pioneers of cross-sector movement-building
  • it is the work that we as cooperators must embrace if we choose to believe that another economy, and another world, is possible
  •  
    Ethan Miller ehdottaa työosuuskuntaliikkeen viemistä uudelle tasolle. Mukana kiinnostavia esimerkkejä.
Jukka Peltokoski

The Sharing Economy: Capitalism's Last Stand? - Our World - 0 views

  • Access over ownership. After decades of excessive consumerism, this prospect sounded revolutionary.
  • more critical voices are appearing
  • I’d like to set something straight: the collaborative economy and sharing economy (or collaborative consumption) are not the same concept.
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  • reliance on horizontal networks and distributed power within communities
  • opposed to the competition between hierarchical organisations
  • inequality
  • contradictions
  • Empowerment in an era of growing inequalities
  • the exact opposite of capitalism
  • the exact opposite of homo economicus’ iconic egotism
  • Two main groups of criticism have emerged: one on ownership structures and the other on employment.
  • Growing economic inequalities
  • fueled both by patrimonial inequalities
  • income inequalities
  • If we want to assess whether it should be seen as the first part of a new economic paradigm or as capitalism’s latest trick to survive at all costs, we have to analyze its likely effects on inequality.
  • From a collective standpoint, it might well be better to have access to a resource rather than owning it.
  • But if someone asks you to free yourself from all earthly possessions, you should always ask: if it’s not mine, then who owns it?
  • Sometimes, owning is a way not to be owned!
  • sharing economy: after all, it mostly consists of venture capitalist-backed startups
  • Employees and customers are but a mean to an end, and in general, a good way to maximize return on investment is to get your customers to pay as much as possible (non-price competitiveness) and on the other side to pay your employees as little as possible (price competitiveness).
  • shareholders are not peers (from Latin par, “equal”), but overlords
  • your business model is based on your ability to sustain a community
  • This point is the most controversial of all. Sharing economy services could accelerate the phenomenon of job destruction.
  • Despite all those nice speeches about empowerment and entrepreneurship, people in the sharing economy are nothing but an extreme precariat
  • Real wages started stagnating while productivity per capita continued to increase.
  • a new deal had to be made: people would no longer be paid according to the value they actually produced, but they would get — seemingly — unlimited access to credit.
  • computers and robots will soon replace most human labor anyway. Wage labor cannot be saved, and rather than fighting long-lost battles, people should start thinking seriously about solutions such as Universal Basic Income.
  • neo-liberal revolution has left the basic structures of welfare
  • relatively untouched
  • If you cannot predict something with a reasonable amount of certainty, stop arguing endlessly about it and start acting towards the outcome you would like to see
  • What happens next, no one can tell. Are Silicon Valley venture capitalistss currently being fooled into creating the embryo of a P2P economic paradigm, in which they will lose most of their influence? Or are the enthusiasts talking about empowerment being tricked into creating a new kind of serfdom?
  • ancient Skeptic philosophers
  • epoché
  • remarks
  • I will make two
  • First, we should avoid using the concept of a “sharing economy”
  • Men are both altruistic and egoistic, and that’s perfectly fine.
  • Will big companies be able to face new competition from startups and win over new customers? If that is your main concern, you should probably stop talking about communities and peers. If the collaborative economy cannot help you solve our growing inequality problem, it should be of no interest to you.
    • Jukka Peltokoski
       
      Voitontekopaine varmasti on, mutta tässä sitä ehkä kärjistetään holtittomasti. Esimerkiksi yhteiskunnallisissa yrityksissä voitonjakoa rajoitetaan tietoisesti, ja ylipäätään suuri osa yrityksistä tekee lähinnä nollatulosta.
    • Jukka Peltokoski
       
      Onkohan ihan näin. Ainakin paineet yksityistää ovat koko ajan kasvussa.
Jukka Peltokoski

Connecting the Dots 8: The Commons as the Response to the Structural Crises of the Glob... - 0 views

  • In our contribution, we want to stress the key importance of what we call a “value regime,” or simply put, the rules that determine what society and the economy consider to be of value. We must first look at the underlying modes of production — i.e. how value is created and distributed — and then construct solutions must that help create these changes in societal values. The emerging answer for a new mode of value creation is the re-emergence of the Commons.
  • In our view, the dominant political economy has three fatal flaws.
  • Pseudo-Abundance
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  • We could call this pseudo-abundance,
  • continuous capital accumulation
  • overuse and depletion of natural resources
  • Scarcity Engineering
  • Scarcity engineering is what we call this continuous attempt to undo natural abundance where it occurs.
  • “Intellectual property”
  • the ability of this privatized knowledge to create profits
  • A good recent example of this “patent lag” effect is the extraordinary growth of 3D printing, once the technology lost its patents.
  • Perpetually Increasing Social Injustice
  • more and more wealth into fewer hands through compound interest, rent seeking, purchasing legislation, etc.
  • To what degree does the Commons and peer-to-peer production function as a potential solution for these three interrelated structural crises of capitalism?
  • Digital networks (such as the internet) have recently enabled a new type of Commons where the knowledge required for human action and value creation has been mutualized. This has led to global open design communities, which jointly create open knowledge pools (e.g. Wikipedia), free software (e.g. the Linux Operating System) or open designs to enable physical production
  • Commons-based peer production emerges when technology enables the creation of open, contributory systems that create Commons.
  • The global open design communities engaging in peer production and mutualization of productive knowledge have no such perverse incentives. These communities design to ensure participation and are “naturally” inclined to design sustainable products and services.
  • The privatization and patenting of knowledge and technical solutions hampers the widespread distribution of necessary innovations. No such impediments exist in the open contributory systems of peer production communities, where innovation anywhere in the network is instantly available to the whole.
  • Peer production, independent of the profit motive, invites and facilitates the creation of solidarity-based forms of economic entities. Being generative towards human communities, these entities are more likely based on socially just forms of value sharing.
  • The Revolution Is Already Happening
  • responses take three forms:1. The sustainability and ecological/environmental movements, attempting to find solutions for the planet’s survival;2. The “Open,” “Commons” and “Sharing” movements, stressing the need for shareable knowledge and mutualized physical resources;3. The cooperative and solidarity economy, focusing on fairness.
  • The good news is that Commons-based peer production is the best way to bring these three necessary aspects together into one coherent system. However, for this to happen, the various movements need enabling tools and capacities. An example is the open source circular economy
  • Similarly, open and platform cooperativism — the convergence of socially just forms of production with shareable knowledge — allows all contributing citizens to create fair, generative livelihoods around the shared resources they need and co-create.
  • We’ve seen post-capitalist practices emerging since the late 20th century — for example, the 1983 invention of the universally available browser. Citizens have been empowered to create value through open contributory systems; these create universally available knowledge, which in turn can be used for material production.
  • emerging globally
Jukka Peltokoski

Europe's Ugly Future: A review of Varoufakis, Galbraith & Stiglitz - Foreign ... - 0 views

  • Fifteen years ago, when the EU established its single currency, European leaders promised higher growth due to greater efficiency and sounder macroeconomic policies, greater equality between rich and poor countries within a freer capital market, enhanced domestic political legitimacy due to better policies, and a triumphant capstone for EU federalism. Yet for nearly a decade, Europe has experienced just the opposite.
  • Since 2008, inflation-adjusted GDP in the eurozone has stagnated, compared with an expansion of more than eight percent in European countries that remain outside.
  • In this situation, a lost decade may well become a lost generation.
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  • Nor has the euro reduced inequality among European countries.
  • The prolonged depression has helped fuel the rise of right-wing nationalists and Euroskeptics. In Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, radical right-wing parties now enjoy more success at the polls than at any time since the 1930s.
  • Trust in EU institutions,
  • has fallen through the floor.
  • The reason currency pegs often depress economic growth lies in the essential nature of monetary arrangements.
  • Varoufakis
  • Galbraith
  • Stiglitz
  • All three would prefer that the system be reformed.
  • Galbraith offers the most succinct explanation of why the system has benefited Germany at the expense of weaker economies:
  • The Greek story is properly a European story in which, as in all European stories, Germany takes the leading role.
  • Varoufakis, Galbraith, and Stiglitz differ on the details, but they all blame the euro system and, especially, Germany.
  • Stiglitz shows that international systems of pegged currencies, of which Europe’s single currency represents only an extreme example, “have long been associated with recessions and depressions.”
  • Most observers now attribute these troubles to the euro.
  • In the real world, however, countries have diverse market positions and domestic institutions, which means that macroeconomic convergence is hard to come by.
  • a currency peg prevents the governments of countries that run trade deficits and incur debt from pursuing healthy economic policies to correct the problem.
  • normally loosen domestic monetary policy (thereby lowering interest rates and stimulating investment), let its currency depreciate (thereby boosting exports, reducing imports, and transferring income to the sector of the economy that produces competitive goods), and increase government spending (thereby stimulating consumption and investment).
  • Deficit countries are thus left with only one way to restore their competitiveness: “internal devaluation,” the politically correct term for austerity
  • permanent austerity becomes the only way to maintain international equilibrium.
  • Citizens grasp at increasingly radical new parties and lack the faith in Europe required to enact needed reforms.
  • Germany has emerged almost unscathed—at least so far.
  • Yet the costs of a flawed monetary system may eventually boomerang and depress growth even in Germany. Austerity is slowly reducing Germany’s ability to sell its goods to other European countries,
  • Despite the EU principle of free movement, many informal barriers to mobility still protect special interests.
  • to force the German economy into line
  • the EU could discourage trade surpluses by imposing a tax on them
  • Another set of structural policies would encourage large fiscal transfers and migration in order to offset the inequities that the euro has induced. In essence, this would replicate the movements of capital and people that make single currencies viable within individual countries.
  • fiscal transfers from creditor countries such as Germany to deficit countries such as Greece and Italy.
  • Stiglitz proposes, Germany and other surplus countries could do more to accept and encourage continuous migration flows from deficit countries.
  • Germans are unlikely to renounce the export-led growth that has stemmed from their 60-year tradition of high savings, low inflation, and modest labor contracts. They are even less likely to accept massive fiscal transfers to other countries.
  • Stiglitz offers the most thorough evaluation of the possible options. There are three. The first entails reforming the fundamental structure of the euro system so that it generates growth and distributes the benefits fairly. Stiglitz details how the EU and the European Central Bank might rewrite tax laws, loosen monetary policy, and change corporate governance rules in order to boost wage growth, consumer spending, and investment.
  • Political opposition to immigration is already strong in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, and these countries would not tolerate many millions of additional foreigners.
  • a second policy option: muddling through. In this scenario, member states would strengthen the EU’s ability to manage the crisis.
  • European Stability Mechanism,
  • The burden of the current system on deficit countries must also be eliminated—a change that requires far more serious reform. Eventually, Europe would have to restructure its debt,
  • GDP-indexed bonds
  • eurobonds
  • the solvency of national banks,
  • Yet Germany and other creditor governments are naturally hesitant to accept financial responsibility for debtor countries.
  • Such reforms would also require the EU to massively expand its oversight over national financial systems,
  • If neither of the two options to save the single currency and restart growth is viable, this leaves only a third option: abolishing the euro.
  • Although Stiglitz would prefer that the euro be reformed, he admits that “there is more than a small probability that it will not be done” and therefore argues for breaking up the system.
  • from Grexit to his preferred alternative of breaking the eurozone into several subgroups, each with its own currency.
  • Yet even the radical step of breaking up the eurozone, Stiglitz makes clear, would probably help deficit countries only if Germany agreed to increase domestic spending, rein in speculation, and reduce deficits.
  • Abolishing the euro might slightly improve the options for deficit countries, but absent deeper structural reforms, it would not eliminate the underlying problem.
  • depressing reading, because in the end, they suggest that there is no easy way out of Europe’s predicament, given the current political constraints. In the long run, muddling through may be the worst outcome, and yet it is the most likely.
  • In response to such a bleak prognosis, many European federalists, particularly on the left, contend that Europe’s real problem is its “democratic deficit.” If only EU institutions or national governments were more representative, they argue, then they would enjoy sufficient legitimacy to solve these problems. The EU needs more transparency in Brussels, more robust direct elections to the European Parliament, a grand continent-wide debate, and political union, the argument runs, so that the resulting European superstate would be empowered to impose massive fiscal transfers and macroeconomic constraints on surplus countries. Alternatively, if more radical alternatives could be fully debated in national elections, then member states might muster the power to pull out of the eurozone or renegotiate their terms in it.
  • everything comes down to choices made by self-interested sovereign states. Governments have little incentive to make charitable and risky concessions, even in a united Europe with economic prosperity on the line. Politicians simply lack the strength and courage to make a genuine break with the status quo, either toward federalism or toward monetary sovereignty.
Tero Toivanen

Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of 'apolitical' money | Yanis Varoufakis - 0 views

  • What is, however, genuinely novel and unique about bitcoin is that no ‘one’ institution or company is safeguarding the so-called Ledger: the record of transactions that ensures that, when you have spent one unit of currency, there is one less unit of currency in your (digital) wallet.
  • The great challenge of creating a non-physical, wholly digital, currency is the pressing question: If a currency unit is a string of zeros and ones on my hard disk, who can stop me from taking that string, copying and pasting it as often as I want and become infinitely ‘moneyed’
  • Bitcoin was born the day in 2008 some anonymous computer geek, using an unlikely Japanese pseudonym (aka Nakamoto), posted an algorithm (on some obscure listserve website) that made something remarkable possible: It could generate a string of zeros and ones that was unique, ensuring that, before it could be transferred from one computer or device to another, a minimum number of other users had to trace its transfer and verify that it left the device of the seller (of some good or service) before moving to the device of the buyer.
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  • bitcoin users must make available computing power to the bitcoin users’ community so that everyone can ‘see’ the Ledger, in order to ensure perfect community ownership of the transactions’ record, as opposed to trusting some government agency (e.g. the Fed) or some private corporation that may have its own agenda.
  • Lastly, to cap the supply of bitcoins, and thus safeguard their value, the algorithm guaranteed that the maximum number of these strings, or bitcoins, could only grow (given the algorithm’s structure) to 21 million units by the year 2040. Once it reached that quantity, its ‘production’ would cease and the users of bitcoins would have to do with these 21 million units.
  • the new currency on the basis of faith in the crudest version of the ‘monetarist’ Quantity Theory of Money (i.e. the idea that the value of money depended solely on the quantity of money supplied to the public) and, thus, aimed at creating the digital equivalent to… gold.
  • ust like gold, there are two ways in which bitcoins can be acquired: One is to buy them using dollars, chickens, silk, honey, whatever… The other is to ‘dig’ for them like 19th century gold diggers dug for gold. To that intent, Mr ‘Nakamoto’ designed his brilliant algorithm in a manner that allowed for ‘bitcoin digging’.
  • Moreover, the algorithm was written in such a way as to guarantee a steady ‘production’ of these strings, or bitcoins, over time and in response to the computing power devoted by users in order to help track transfers and, thus, in order collectively to maintain The Ledger.
  • here are two insurmountable flaws that make bitcoin a highly problematic currency: First, the bitcoin social economy is bound to be typified by chronic deflation. Secondly, we have already seen the rise of a bitcoin aristocracy
  • First, deflation is unavoidable in the bitcoin community because the maximum supply of bitcoins is fixed to 21 million bitcoins and approximately half of them have already been ‘minted’ at a time when very, very few goods and services transactions are denominated in bitcoins.
  • Can these two flaws be corrected? Would it be possible to calibrate the long-term supply of bitcoins in such a way as to ameliorate for the deflationary effects described above while tilting the balance from speculative to transactions demand for bitcoins? To do so we would need a Bitcoin Central Bank, which will of course defeat the very purpose of having a fully decentralised digital currency like bitcoin.
  • Secondly, two major faultlines are developing, quite inevitably, within the bitcoin economy. The first faultline has already been mentioned. It is the one that divides the ‘bitcoin aristocracy’ from the ‘bitcoin poor’, i.e. from the latecomers who must buy into bitcoin at increasing dollar and euro prices. The second faultline separates the speculators from the users
  • ; i.e. those who see bitcoin as a means of exchange from those who see in it as a stock of value.
  • in the case of bitcoin speculative demand outstrips transactions demand by a mile.
  • the available quantity of bitcoins per each unit of goods and services will be falling causing deflation.
  • The Crash of 2008 has infused our societies with enormous scepticism on the role of the authorities, both government and Central Banks. It is quite natural that many dream of a currency that politicians, bankers and central bankers cannot manipulate; a currency of the people by the people for the people. Bitcoin has emerged as the great white hope of something of the sort. Alas, the hope it brings to many people’s hearts and minds is false. And the reason is simple: While it is true that local communities have, in the past, generated successful communitarian currencies (that enabled them to improve welfare in their midst, especially at a time of acute economic crises), there can be no de-politicised currency capable of ‘powering’ an advanced, industrial society.
  • The 1920s thus demonstrates the impossibility of an apolitical money supply. Even though the monetary authorities were insisting on a stable correspondence between the quantity of paper money and gold, the financial sector was boosting the money supply inexorably. Should the authorities stop them from so doing? If they had, the Edisons and the Fords would have never flourished, and capitalism would have failed to produce all the goodies that it did
  • To the extent that bitcoin attempts to emulate the Gold Standard, if a large portion of economic activity is denominated in bitcoin, the dilemmas of the 1920s will return to plague the bitcoin economy.
  • The reason that money is and can only be political is that the only way of steering a course between the Scylla and Charybdis of dangerous ponzi growth and stagnation is to exercise a degree of rational, collective control over the supply of money.
  • And since this control is bound to be political, in the sense that different monetary policies will affect different groups of people differently, the only decent manner in which such control can be exercised is through a democratic, collective agency.
Jukka Peltokoski

The incomplete, true, authentic and wonderful history of May Day - Peter Linebaugh - 0 views

  • Indeed, the native Americans whom Captain John Smith encountered in 1606 only worked four hours a week. The origin of May Day is to be found in the Woodland Epoch of History.
  • people honored the woods
  • Trees were planted. Maypoles were erected. Dances were danced. Music was played. Drinks were drunk, and love was made. Winter was over, spring had sprung.
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  • Monotheism arose
  • Merry Mount became a refuge for Indians, the discontented, gay people, runaway servants, and what the governor called "all the scume of the countrie."
  • it was always a celebration of all that is free and life-giving in the world. That is the Green side of the story. Whatever else it was, it was not a time to work.
  • Therefore, it was attacked by the authorities. The repression had begun with the burning of women and it continued in the 16th century when America was "discovered," the slave trade was begun, and nation-states and capitalism were formed.
  • The people resisted the repressions. Thenceforth, they called their May sports, the "Robin Hood Games." Capering about with sprigs of hawthorn in their hair and bells jangling from their knees, the ancient charaders of May were transformed into an outlaw community, Maid Marions and Little Johns.
  • Thus began in earnest the Red side of the story of May Day. The struggle was brought to Massachusetts in 1626.
  • Thomas Morton settled in Passonaggessit which he named Merry Mount. The land seemed a "Paradise"
  • With the proclamation that the first of May At Merry Mount shall be kept holly day
  • The Puritans
  • the Puritans were the imperialist, not Morton, who worked with slaves, servants, and native Americans
  • May Day became a day to honor the saints, Philip and James, who were unwilling slaves to Empire.
  • The Maypole was cut down. The settlement was burned.
  • On 4 May 1886
  • In England the attacks on May Day were a necessary part of the wearisome, unending attempt to establish industrial work discipline. The attempt was led by the Puritans with their belief that toil was godly and less toil wicked. Absolute surplus value could be increased only by increasing the hours of labor and abolishing holydays.
  • Two bands of that rainbow came from English and Irish islands. One was Green. Robert Owen, union leader, socialist, and founder of utopian communities in America, announced the beginning of the millennium after May Day 1833. The other was Red. On May Day 1830, a founder of the Knights of Labor, the United Mine Workers of America, and the Wobblies was born in Ireland, Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a., "Mother Jones." She was a Maia of the American working class.
  • The history of the modern May Day originates in the center of the North American plains, at Haymarket, in Chicago
  • in May 1886.
  • Virgin soil, dark, brown, crumbling, shot with fine black sand
  • a green perspective
  • The land was mechanized. Relative surplus value could only be obtained by reducing the price of food.
  • It became "Hello" to the hobo. "Move on" to the harvest stiffs. "Line up" the proletarians. Such were the new commands of civilization.
  • Thousands of immigrants, many from Germany, poured into Chicago after the Civil War. Class war was advanced
  • Nationally, May First 1886 was important because a couple of years earlier the Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, "RESOLVED... that eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor, from and after May 1, 1886.
  • Haymarket Square
  • Thomas Morton was a thorn in the side of the Boston and Plymouth Puritans, because he had an alternate vision of Massachusetts. He was impressed by its fertility; they by its scarcity. He befriended the Indians; they shuddered at the thought. He was egalitarian; they proclaimed themselves the "Elect". He freed servants; they lived off them. He armed the Indians; they used arms against Indians.
  • 176 policemen charged the crowd that had dwindled to about 200. An unknown hand threw a stick of dynamite, the first time that Alfred Nobel's invention was used in class battle.
  • All hell broke lose, many were killed, and the rest is history.
  • May Day, or "The Day of the Chicago Martyrs" as it is still called in Mexico "belongs to the working class and is dedicated to the revolution," as Eugene Debs put it in his May Day editorial of 1907.
Tero Toivanen

Commons: Alternatives to market and state | STIR - 0 views

  • the key moment of class struggle is the struggle over property rights.  Those who want an economy that works should focus on property rights.
  •  The agenda is to use debt to privatise more of the economy so education, health care, water provision are owned by distant owners and swopped around to make profit.  A commons based economy puts these and other resources into the hands of local people to manage not for short term greed and the whims of bond markets but for long term need.  Politics is essentially about property rights and the often invisible battles must be made visible and won
  • There is an intellectual task to show that commons, perhaps termed communism, or democratic ownership of society by communities, works
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  • For Marx the rational creative society is a self-owned one based on democratic control i.e the recreation of the commons.  The working class can through revolutionary action transcend capitalism and create a communist society.  Its about commons for Marx not top down bureaucracy
Jukka Peltokoski

Co-operative Commonwealth: De-commodifying Land and Money Part 2 | Commons Transition - 0 views

  • Usury is little discussed today but it is crucial in policy terms.
  • in Germany, Christian Christiansen championed the founding of a number of rural savings and loan co-operatives that went by the acronym JAK, short for Jord Arbete Kapital (“Land Labour Capital”)
  • There were other models that flourished. Dr. Thomas Bowkett introduced a mutual organization in the 1840s to provide housing and smaller loans interest-free.(7) Twenty years later, Richard Starr made some adjustments to the system, and the “Starr-Bowkett” societies spread fast.
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  • in Brazil today. CoopHab is a major housing federation of co-operative savings societies.
  • During the industrial revolution English working people were excluded from bank lending though pawnbroking was rife. Mutual aid savings clubs developed interest-free lending systems for housing. The most successful were the Terminating Building Societies for buying land and building houses.
  • Sweden
  • Operationally, JAK is very similar to a credit union, except that members do not earn any interest on their savings or dividends on their shares.
  • The total cost of a JAK loan covers four things:(12)loan appraisal and set-up cost at a fee that is 2-3% of the approved loan value.an annual administration fee equal to 1% of the loan.an annual fee of approximately $30 to support the JAK educational system and volunteer services.(13)an equity deposit equal to a 6% of loan value to cover risk on any loan in the portfolio.
  • Members are strongly encouraged to pre-save in order to qualify for a loan.(15) Members also contract to continue saving while they are repaying their loans.
  • The Greenbacks would not be backed by gold, but by the farmers’ crops, which would be stored in sub-Treasury warehouses paid for by the government.
  • Swiss WiR
  • President Lincoln
  • free Greenback dollars
  • Lincoln
  • he had led the introduction of a paper money not backed by gold or silver, and had shown that the government could create, issue, and circulate by fiat the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers.
  • the privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.
  • National Farmers Alliance and Co-operative Union, led by Charles Macune, developed the Sub-Treasury Plan.
  • JAK banking, CoopHab and Community Land Trusts work well but are below national policy radar. This is not entirely the case for co-operative commonwealth systems.
  • So this was not simply a co-operative currency. It was a new national currency under a co-operative and state partnership to expunge the debt peonage imposed by merchants and bankers.
  • Infuriated, farmers and workers created their own party in 1891 to carry forwardmonetary reform and a co-operative economy. The new Populist party won some local, state and Congressional elections before falling into decline after 1895.
  • A.C. Townley launched the Non-partisan League (NPL)
  • Bank of North Dakota
  • Henry Ford and Thomas Edison suggested a novel solution.
  • proposed that new money be created by issuing interest-free government bonds
  • Frederick Soddy
  • made the first case for an ecological economics free of debt
  • “100% money.”
  • 100% reserve requirement.
  • Clifford H Douglas
  • He argued that a clear-cut and labour-saving solution would be for Government to create new money, interest-free as “Social Credit.”
  • First all citizens would receive a National Dividend.
  • Second, Douglas proposed that publicly-owned producer banks be set up in each region of the UK to provide finance debt-free to industry and enterprises.
  • From 1929 monetary reform attracted a wide audience In the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada with growing grassroots calls ranging from public banking to universal basic income.(34) The New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt took inspiration from John Maynard Keynes.
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