Best, Charles
----- Begin forwarded message ----- From: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 at xxxxx.com> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:31:37 -0800 (PST) Cc: iDC at mailman.thing.net Subject: Re: [iDC] 1. Some notes on value...
Thanks Johan for that perspective, and for tying the value of user communities to the existing wages labour. I do tend to find that a reductionist, capitalist-centric perspective though, to say that the value of user-communities is derived from the wages of microsoft employees, and when you say that this explains IP expansion, but how does it explain IP subversion, including the one's of capitalist groups themselves, such as the very pragmatic embrace of netarchical capitalists like Google, YouTube et al, which are basing their whole value creation strategies on the lack of IP, even as they are legally obliged to take some actions to respect the current regime.
Unlike you perhaps, though I'm not sure what your take on it is exactly, I can see a capitalism that does not rely on IP (though that does not mean I wish for it), I can imagine an evolution in which capitalism accepts open content/software/design ... I'm not sure how viable it is, but you can see large sections embracing the trend. At least, they're going to try it. (historically, sectors of the ruling class rejected IP, so they can culturally see it as not an absolute necessity, it's only necessary for certain sectors, and I will post an article showing that it is the sector which is most endangered by current developments).
So the key issue for me is this: the system is increasingly dependent on positive social externalities, and as Adam observes, the third circuit of ethical value is one of the means to monetize and fund that value creation. But it is a very dysfunctional way in which most of the monetary value is captured by them, and large scale precarity is the result.
I would put it that way: use value is being created exponentially, creating a circuit that is ethically satisfying for the social world, but does not insure its social reproduction, as exchange value is only created linearly out of it, creating an increasing gap between the two. What Adam is addressing in my mind, the last part, is can we invent separate and new value circuits, which do directly benefit the user value communities, and ensure the social reproduction of the effort.
The analogy of domestic work is interesting. We did find a solution, generalized wage labour for women, which brought certain advantages, but at the same time, is itself a large part of the unraveling of family and relational life. In this case, the social world did not find a means of social reproduction that was optimal for social intimacy. We can similarly imagine solutions to social innovation, which will be on capital's terms, and will not solve the needs for full human emancipation.
Passionate peer production is what humanity always wanted, the autonomous-in-relation unfolding of the need for work creation with others, we have subverted the existing system to allow an unprecedented opening for it, but its force is so huge, that it is in the end, not containable within the framework of the old system.
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