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

yanisvaroufakis.eu/...us-fantasy-of-apolitical-money bitcoin
shared by Tero Toivanen on 22 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • 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.
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Peer to peer production as the alternative to capitalism: A new communist hor... - 0 views

peerproduction.net/...a-new-communist-horizon commons communism P2P Marx
shared by Tero Toivanen on 30 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • 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.
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MOT: Vain Suomessa - Malmi etsitään verovaroilla ja myydään halvalla | Vihreä... - 0 views

www.vihrealanka.fi/...-ja-myyd%C3%A4%C3%A4n-halvalla kaivokset
shared by Tero Toivanen on 30 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Suomessa toimivista 12:sta metallikaivoksesta kymmenen on ulkomaisessa omistuksessa. Suurimman osan metalliesiintymistä on löytänyt työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön alla toimiva Geologian tutkimuskeskus GTK.
  • Kittilän kultakaivoksen – joka on hiljattain perusteista kaivoksista harvinaisesti voitollinen – esiintymä myytiin hieman alle 190 000 eurolla. Viime vuonna kanadalaisomisteinen kaivos tuotti voittoa liki 60 miljoonaa euroa
  • "Esimerkiksi 2008 tem arvioi, että Sotkamon verotulot kasvaa 40 prosenttia kun kaivos (Talvivaara) käynnistyy ja vaikutus pidemmän seurannan pohjalta näyttää, että se on muutaman prosenttiyksikön luokkaa"
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Occupy Eurooppa - 0 views

fifi.voima.fi/...occupy-eurooppa commons tumult eurokriisi
shared by Tero Toivanen on 27 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Sanalla ”vallankumous” on huono kaiku. Se viittaa liiaksi jyrkkään kahtiajakoon työvoiman ja pääoman välillä. Pääoma on nykyisin skitsofreenista, hajanaista ja kaikkialle levinnyttä.Myös prekaari työvoima on hajanaista, eikä sillä ole yhtä edustajaa tai puolustajaa. Siksi vallankumous perinteisessä mielessä, homogeenisten massojen voimannäytteenä yhtenäistä eliittiä kohtaan, ei ole mahdollinen, teeseissä analysoidaan.LUM ehdottaakin uudeksi vallankumoukselliseksi käsitteeksi mellakkaa (tumult). Kyse ei ole väkivallan ihannoinnista, vaan erilaisten kamppailujen näkemisestä yhtenäisenä mullistuksena. Mellakka on asioiden, kamppailujen, näkemysten ja kokemusten vallankumouksellista sekoittumista ja niistä oppimista.Uusien yhteiskunnallisten instituutioiden luominen, julkisen sektorin takaisinvaltaus ja yhteisen hyvän tuottaminen vaatii myös uudenlaista asennetta. Yläluokkaisen vasemmistolaisen ja vihreän eliitin, boheemien porvareiden (bopo), asenne ei juurikaan auta näissä kamppailuissa. Uudet kamppailut vaativat käsien likaamista konkreettisissa töissä, olivat nuo työt sitten hoivaa, rakentamista, koulutusta tai tiedontuotantoa.
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Commons: Alternatives to market and state | STIR - 0 views

stirtoaction.com/?p=2351 commons
shared by Tero Toivanen on 21 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • 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
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Study: Fair Use Contributes Trillions to U.S. Economy | Threat Level | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...fairuse-economy commons immateriaalioikeudet
shared by Tero Toivanen on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 16 Aug 12
     
    The trade group, Computer & Communications Industry Association, in a follow-up to its 2007 report, asks: "What contribution is made to our economy by industries that depend on the limitations to copyright protection when engaged in commerce?" For the year 2007, the fair-use economy accounted for $4.7 trillion in revenue (.pdf) and $2.2 trillion in value added, roughly one-sixth the total gross domestic product of the United States, according to the study. The fair-use economy also employed more than 17 million people with a $1.2 trillion payroll.
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Four Futures - 0 views

jacobinmag.com/...four-futures commons communsim
shared by Tero Toivanen on 11 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 11 Aug 12
     
    Frase considers the endgame of our current political struggles, locating future scenarios along two axes: scarcity versus abundance, and social hierarchy versus equality. This yields four possibilities: communism (abundance with equality), rentism (abundance with hierarchy), socialism (scarcity with equality), and exterminism (scarcity with hierarchy).
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In this world, but not of this world - Gilles Dauvé | libcom.org - 0 views

libcom.org/...ld-not-world-gilles-dauv%C3%A9 commons.fi
shared by Tero Toivanen on 31 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • 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.
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New Left Review - Michel Aglietta: The European Vortex - 0 views

www.newleftreview.org/...l-aglietta-the-european-vortex commons.fi eurokriisi
shared by Tero Toivanen on 31 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 31 Jul 12
     
    michel aglietta Why has the Eurozone emerged as the new epicentre of the global financial crisis, when its origins-the famous subprime mortgages-were American? [1] And why, within Europe, has Greece proved to be the weak link?
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