[iDC] Immaterial Labor and life beyond utility

Thu Aug 16 13:25:20 UTC 2007

In my work I expand a little more by stating, not only that together we have
everything and we know everything, but also that together we create and decide
for everything, describing the political essence of that new mode of
production and property.

This experience economy predicates the direct social production of value,
the distribution of everything regarding the economic sphere in first place.

Polanyi stresses that nowadays society functions as a component of market:
economy does not root to the social relations, as it was happening at the
past, but contrariwise the social relations root to the economic system
[1944]. While experience economy contributes to the democratisation and
socialisation of economy (i.e. the means belong to the people: together we
have and know everything), its effects move also backwards. Through
experience economy the social relations change, rebel, and evolve towards a
sustainable and democratic civilisation. The fore mentioned shift is
inherently political; when saying distribution of everything we should
literally mean distribution of everything i.e. means of governance as well.

In my opinion, experience economy is another "evolutionary transmutation" as
well as solution -luckily it is not a desperate remedy- against the
economic, political, ecological and cultural crisis, the world faces
nowadays.

On 16/08/07, Vasilis Kostakis <kostakis.b at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 16/08/07, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The last paragraph of this little thought capsule takes a positive view
> > of the experience economy, as a bridge for a necessary transition from a
> > subjectivity based on 'having' to one based on 'being'.
> >
> > The Experience Economy as a bridge between scarcity and abundance:
> >
> >
> > We live in a political economy that has it exactly backwards.
> >
> > We believe that our natural world is infinite, and therefore that we can
> > have an economic system based on infinite growth. But since the material
> > world is finite, it is based on pseudo-abundance.
> >
> > And then we believe that we should introduce artificial scarcities in
> > the world of immaterial production, impeding the free flow of culture and
> > social innovation, which is based on free cooperation, by creating the
> > obstacle of permissions and intellectual property rents protected by the
> > state.
> >
> > What we need instead is a political economy based on a true notion of
> > scarcity in the material realm, and a realization of abundance in the
> > immaterial realm. Complex innovation needs creative and autonomous workers
> > that are not impeded in their ability to share and learn from each other.
> >
> > In the world of immaterial production, of software, text and design, the
> > costs of reproduction are marginal and therefore we see emerging in it
> > non-reciprocal peer production, where people voluntary engage in the direct
> > creation of use value, profiting from the resulting commons in a general
> > way, but without specific reciprocity.
> >
> > In the world of material production, where we have scarcity, and costs
> > have to be recouped, such non-reciprocity is not possible, and therefore we
> > need modes of neutral exchange such as the markets, or other modes of
> > reciprocity.
> >
> > In the sphere of immaterial production, humanity is learning the laws of
> > abundance, because non-rival goods win in value through sharing. In this
> > world, we are evolving towards non-proprietary licences, participatory modes
> > of production, and commons-oriented property forms. Positive forms of
> > affinity based retribalization are emerging.
> >
> > But in the world of scarce material goods, a series of scarcity crises
> > are brewing, global warming being just one of them, that is creating the
> > emergence of negative forms of competitive tribalizaition.
> >
> > The logic of abundance has the potential of leading us to a
> > reorganization of our world to a level of higher complexity, moved
> > principally by the peer to peer logic.
> >
> > The logic of scarcity has the potential of leading us to generalized
> > wars for resources, to a descent to a lower form of complexity, a new dark
> > age as was the case after the disintegration of the Roman Empire.
> >
> > So the challenge is to use the emergent logic of abundance, and inject
> > it into the world of scarcity.
> >
> > Is that a realistic possibility?
> >
> > In the immaterial world of abundance, sharing is non-problematic, and
> > the further emergence and expansion of non-reciprocal modes of production
> > will be very likely. "Together we know everything", is a rather achievable
> > ideal.
> >
> > In the material world of scarcity, abundance is translated into three
> > key concepts that can change human consciousness and therefore economic
> > practices. The notion of 'together we have everything' seems not quite
> > achievable, we therefore need transitional concepts.
> >
> > The first concept is the distribution of everything. This means that
> > instead of abundance, we have a slicing up of physical resources and the
> > physical means of production, so that individuals can freely engage and act.
> > This means an economy that moves towards a vision of peer-informed market
> > modes such as fair trade (a market mechanism subjected to peer arbitrage of
> > producers and consumers seen as partners), social entrepreneurship (using
> > profit for conscious social progress). Objective tendencies towards
> > miniaturization of the physical means of production makes this a distinct
> > possibility: desktop manufacturing enables individual designers; rapid
> > manufacturing and tooling are diminishing the advantages of scale of
> > industrial production, and so do personal fabricators. Social lending
> > creates a distribution of financial capital; and the direct social
> > production of money through software is not far away from being realized in
> > various parts of the world (see the work of Bernard Lietaer); If indeed
> > scarcity will create more expensive energy and raw material, a
> > re-localisation of production is likely, and peer-informed modes of
> > production will be enabled to a much greater extent.
> >
> > The second concept is sustainability. Since an infinite growth system
> > cannot last indefinitely, we need to move to new market concepts as
> > described by the throught schools of natural capitalism (David Korten, Paul
> > Hawken, Hazel Henderson), capitalism 3.0 (Peter Barnes' proposal to use
> > trust as property forms because they impose the preservation of capital),
> > cradle to cradle design and production processes so that no waste is
> > generated. We need to move to a steady-state economy (Herman Daly), which is
> > not necessarily static, but where greater output from nature, is dependent
> > on our ability to regenerate the same resources.
> > The third concept is that of sufficiency. Abundance has not just an
> > objective side, it has a subjective side as well. In the material economy,
> > infinite growth needs to be replaced by sufficiency, a realization that
> > status and human happiness can no longer be dependent on infinite material
> > accumulation and overconsumption, but will become dependent on immaterial
> > accumulation and growth. Having enough so that we can pursue meaning and
> > status through our identity as creative and collaborative individuals,
> > recognized in our various peer communities.
> >
> > And this is where the experience economy comes in! It is the agent of
> > that shift, from a need to have, towards the higher needs to be and to
> > experience. Only a rich experience economy can avoid a culture of
> > frustration and sacrifice, and the repressions and unhappiness that such
> > could entail. This experience economy however, will not just be created by
> > commercial franchises, but there will also be the direct social production
> > of cultural value. Businesses and peer communities, enabled and empowered by
> > a partner state, will have to create a rich tapestry of immaterial value,
> > and the thicker the surrounding immaterial value, the lighter our attachment
> > to mere having will be.
> >
> >
> > On 8/16/07, Paul B. Hartzog < paulbhartzog at gmail.com > wrote:
> > >
> > > On 8/13/07, Vasilis Kostakis < kostakis.b at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > To begin with, Paul claims ,amongst others, that "the authentic life
> > > is
> > > > always a subversion, a resistance, a revolution, against some
> > > attempt by
> > > > someone else to bind it, to bound it, to define it, to constrain
> > > it…"
> > > > whereas afterwards he states that "to live authentically means to
> > > create in
> > > > each moment something that cannot be taken and used for other
> > > purposes
> > > > because it is necessarily invisible to those who would attempt such
> > > a
> > > > theft". To be honest I cannot follow this syllogism as I find it a
> > > bit of
> > > > oxymoron. More specifically, supposing that authentic life is a
> > > revolution
> > > > against some attempt to bind it, we simultaneously accept that
> > > authentic is
> > > > visible to its opponents or in other words to its exploiters.
> > >
> > > Thanks for pointing out my little cul-de-sac :-)  I was thinking that
> > > the word "attempt" helped to clarify, but on review it seems it didn't
> > >
> > > help much.  Off the top of my head, a weak example might aid:
> > >
> > > Imagine a narrative in which "they" have designs to steal your book of
> > > Aristotle, because they perceive that it is the source of your power
> > > to resist their Machiavellian schemes.  What is "invisible" to them is
> > > that it is your experience of the substance of Aristotle and not the
> > > possession of the commodity Aristotle that is the source of your inner
> > >
> > > strength.
> > >
> > >
> > > > Furthermore, Paul's final conclusion, which I find brilliant, is
> > > that "the
> > > > really interesting and revolutionary things going on in the world
> > > are
> > > > invisible to those who would oppose them".  Therefore, I believe
> > > that the
> > > > really revolutionary things are visible to their opponents, who,
> > > however,
> > > > fail to spot and feel the real essence of them - resembling humans
> > > despite
> > > > that they can see the flower and even smell it, they are incapable
> > > of taking
> > > > real advantage of it: humans can only cut (by "killing") it, while
> > > bees
> > > > succeed in channelling bliss from it.  In that case both bees and
> > > humans can
> > > > see the flower (it is not invisible) , but, to put it in Paul's
> > > terms, the
> > > > true substance of the experience -the authentic- belongs entirely to
> > > bees,
> > > > and the superficial one to humans.
> > >
> > > Thank you.  Much of the work I have been involved with (futurist work)
> > > has been for corporate clients.  I have had deep discussions with my
> > > colleagues as to the possibility that we are fore-warning our enemies
> > > by teaching them about the economic importance of open-source, or
> > > cooperation, etc.  These are troubling possibilities.
> > >
> > > What is fascinating however is that by and large they truly seem to be
> > >
> > > incapable of "seeing" the essence of recent changes in production.
> > > The music industry literally cannot understand the reality of digital
> > > sharing; they (so far) only see it as epiphenomenal to their
> > > established (industrial era)  economic processes.  It is an
> > > aberration, a parasite; it could not stand on its own (they say).
> > >
> > > I will be giving a talk in November at De Montfort about
> > > Oort-Cloud.org (an endeavor by myself and Richard Adler) and "Social
> > > Publishing" in general ( http://www.oort-cloud.org/?q=node/2 or
> > > http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/09/02/social_publishing.php ).
> > > The notion of social publishing receives the same treatment from
> > > traditional publishing that music file sharing received from the music
> > > industry:  almost complete blindness.  It is the same treatment that
> > > wikipedia receives from traditional encyclopedists (knowledge
> > > elitists).
> > >
> > > I have yet to find a good metaphor for this, so I am asking for all of
> > > your help.  A good example from history, of a new process that was
> > > ignored and/or downplayed by the establishment ("It'll blow over" or
> > > "It's a fad") would suffice.
> > >
> > > much thx,
> > > -Paul
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > > http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
> > > http://www.panarchy.com
> > > PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
> > > PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
> > > PHartzog at umich.edu
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > > The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
> > >                  --Muriel Rukeyser
> > >
> > > See differently, then you will act differently.
> > >                  --Paul B. Hartzog
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
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