Re: <nettime> P2P Foundation: A Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy (new book)

[Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>]

On Mon, 01 Oct 2012, Brian Holmes wrote:

> On 10/01/2012 02:55 AM, Felix Stalder wrote:
> 
> >For me, the political test for all these things is whether they are
> >set as alternatives to commodity markets and private ownership, or
> >as alternatives to public infrastructures. In the first case, one
> >might get something interesting, in the second it's compassionate
> >neo-liberalism.
> 
> I don't wanna nitpick, but the question is whether the share-tech
> rollout of the electronics corporations is USED as an alternative to
> the commodity markets and private ownership.

[...]

> All I can say is we better use 'em. The current crisis is mopping up
> the remains of the postwar welfare-state institutions. To the exact
> extent that new forms of social cooperation do NOT emerge, there
> will be increasing social violence as predatory capitalism is taken
> to its logical conclusions on the ground.
> 
> To the extent that they DO emerge, we have the chance to create
> something fabulous and new, the very figure of generosity,
> solidarity and beauty in the social realm. It's what Virno called
> "the non-state public sphere."

In my perception of what you are saying then such a project would
hit the spot: http://commonsforeurope.net/theproject/
or Code for America FWIW, same thing basically.

but I still have doubts about this conclusion and the main reason to be
skeptical is the use of the "bottom-up" concept within huge projects
that were just born yesterday and should help facilitate emerge some
kind of grassroot enthusiastic app-flickering rub my iphone things.

to me it just feels that this very possibility to USE is being predated:
aggregation (and exchange value) is the only real (and monetized) value.
after all, what I'm linking above are politburo platforms (what creative
industries really are) for the emergence of cornu-copias of what certain
avantgardes have made in the past.

The problem here lies in the fact that they are made without involving
the very people who are struggling to build bottom up, not even
consulting them: they are made by aggregators in need to re-establish
everything in a completely sanitized way. Sanitizing: obviously the
politburo is pushing for a reformist rethoric and total abstraction of
services in order to not disrupt the city-jail architecture which as
of today is totally established and ticking like a clockwork.

Even those alternative instances to develop new kinds of economies by
and for content producers (free software, sharing and torrenting music,
tape copying) are being un-democratically shut down (see ACTA, SOPA,
PIPA and now CETA) while we are fed the representation of a benevolent
public apparatus ran by the very same beaurocrats in the past 20 years,
(now with more politburo powers, far pensionable age and better aging
technologies) who will favour "new emergent instances" of tamed and,
last but not least, non-paid work for them.


> Yes, you live in interesting times, my friends.

I'm Not Sure about this.

What I'm sure is that both capitalism and socialism inclined people in
power for the past 20 years at least share equal responsibility for
being the very problem that negates all possibility to innovate through
this and the coming time, without an extremely painful (and likely to
fail) revolutionary moment.

  Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a
  muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can
  make of capitalism.  -- Walter Lippmann

ciao



-- 
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