Demonetize it!

“Post-Kapitalistische” oder “Nicht-Kommerzielle” Landwirtschaft?

Im Umfeld der Projektwerkstatt auf Gegenseitig (PAG) trifft sich regelmäßig ein Kreis von Menschen aus verschiedene Projekte die sich dem nicht ganz klar definierten Konzept der “Nicht-Kommerzialität” (NK) verbunden fühlen und sich auf diesen Treffen vernetzen und austauschen. Eins der bekanntesten Projekte aus diesem Umfeld ist wohl die “Nicht-Kommerzielle Landwirtschaft” wie sie auf dem Karlshof bei Berlin von einer Hofgruppe und nach deren Scheitern von einer freien Assoziation von Menschen aus dem Karlshof-Umfeld organisiert wurde. Die Unterschiede diese Praxis zur vielfältig umgesetzten Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) bzw. Solidarischen Landwirtschaft werden dort immer wieder kontrovers diskutiert. Bei mir als Mitglied der CSA Freudenthal, einem solchen post-kapitalistischen Landwirtschafts-Experiment, regen diese kritischen Diskussionen immer wieder die Reflektion über das eigene Projekt an. Einige Aspekte dieser Kritik an unserem Projekt und meine Entgegnungen seien hier skizziert.

Zum besseren Verständnis seien die vorherige Lektüre folgender zwei Artikel und der folgende Vortrag empfohlen:

Post-Revolutionäre Möhre
Post-Kapitalistische Landwirtschaft – Potentiale, Probleme, Perspektiven
Post-Kapitalistische Landwirtschaft – Die Zweite

Zum Konzept der “Nicht-Kommerzielle Landwirtschaft” gibt es auch einige Texte:

Keimform-Eintrag
Grundlegendes Statement der alten Hofgruppe
Message zum Ende der NKL 2012
taz-Artikel
NKL – Ein Erfahrungsbericht – Die erste 3 Jahre
Freitag-Artikel
Greenpeace-Magazin-Artikel

Schafft unser Projekt zu wenig Raum für emanzipatorische Prozesse im Kollektiv?

In der “Nicht-Kommerziellen Landwirtschaft” wird viel Wert auf das Lustprinzip, das Wahrnehmen eigener Bedürfnisse und eine Reflektion verinnerlicheter kapitalistischer und diskriminerender Verhaltensweisen gelegt. Die Produktion und deren Output wird diesem Prozess klar untergeordnet. In unserem Projekt ist zwar ein definierter Output nötig, weil wir uns verpflichtet haben, eine Gruppe von Menschen mit Gemüse zu versorgen (s.u.). Aber dies Verunmöglicht nicht einen solchen Emanzipationsprozess. Ob er stattfindet liegt an der Organisierung des jeweiligen Kollektives. Ein emanzipatorischer Produktions-Prozess braucht Zeit (z.B. für gender-spezifische Schutzräume und Reflektionen), Langsamkeit und Achtsamkeit. Dies kann und wird auch in unserem Projekt organisiert: Das dafür benötigte Mehr an Zeit kann bei der Anbauplanung und der Zusammensetzung des Kollektivs berücksichtigt werden. Ebenso kann dieser Emanzpations-Prozess als Ziel in die Gründungsvereinbarung mit aufgenommen werden und erhält damit einen ähnlichen Stellenwert wie der materielle Output an Gemüse. Dies beantwortet auch die Frage nach den Erwartungen der Unterstützer*Innen: Klar erwarten diese eine Vollversorgung mit Gemüse. Aber in der Vereinbarung kann klar festgehalten werden unter welchen “Arbeits”-Bedingungen diese zu Stande kommen soll; und unter welchen besser nicht.

In den wöchentlichen Kollektiv-Treffen wird bzw. kann sich ebenfalls bewusst Zeit dafür genommen werden, zu brainstormen was für unerwünschte Dynamiken im Tätigsein aufgetaucht sind oder welche befürchtet werden, um einen bewussten Umgang damit zu ermöglichen. Letztlich bleibt anzumerken, dass nicht nur der Druck zum Produzieren zwangsläufig der Grund für blödes, herrschaftsförmiges Verhalten ist, sondern genausogut verinnerlichte Logiken, die auch in einem “freien” Rahmen zu den gleichen Dynamiken führen (mackrigem Verhalten, Konkurrenz, gegenseitiges Vergleichen etc.). Die Reflektionsbereitschaft der Beteiligten scheint mir in allen Fällen als Schlüssel zur Emanzipation.

Erzeugt die Verpflichtung zur Gemüse-Versorgung gefährliche “Sachzwänge”?

Die Skepsis der oben beschriebene Verpflichtung den Unterstützer*Innen gegenüber rührt oft aus der Sorge vor Sachzwängen. Dabei kann diese Versorgungs-Verpflichtung den Unterstützer*Innen gegenüber genausogut eine enorme Motivation sein, Streitereien, Konflikte und blöden Dynamiken emanzipatorisch anzugehen, statt sie “auszusitzen”. Mehr noch könnte es gerade in “freien Situation” ohne Verpflichtung auch dazu kommen, dass sich Menschen aus schwierigen Situationen früher raus- oder zurück ziehen und damit persönliche, zwischenmenschliche Herausforderungen in Sachen Ermächtigung und Emanzipation nicht annehmen. Diese Verbindlichkeit auf der zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungsebene in unserem Projekt (in der Gesamt-Gemeinschaft als auch im Gärtner*Innen-Kollektiv intern) kann auch gewollt sein, weil sie der Marktlogik mit ihrer Unverbindlichkeit, Beliebigkeit und Flexibilisierung etwas entgegen setzt. Trotzdem braucht es die Möglichkeit sich aus unerträglichen Situationen raus ziehen zu können. Dafür sind die von uns frei definierte Scheiterkriterien für das Projekt und das Kollektiv enorm wichtig. Sie erlauben nicht “alles aushalten zu müssen”.

Außerdem ist die politische Wirkmächtigkeit der Ernährungsautonomie die nur mir dieser Versorgungs-Verpflichtung gewährleistet werden kann, nicht zu vernachlässigen. Denn die sichere Nahrungsmittel-Versorgung von Menschen jenseits der kapitalistischen Vergesellschaftung ist ein politischer Anspruch, der kaum hoch genug bewertet werden kann. Diese Verlässlichkeit jenseits des Marktes ist ein starkes gesellschaftspolitisches Statement.

Und schließlich: Empfundene “Zwänge” wird es wahrscheinlich immer geben. Auch in einer post-kapitalistischen Ökonomie. Die aus Kooperation entstehende Verbindlichket anderen Menschen gegenüber und speziell in der Landwirtschaft das Wetter, eine damit eng verknüpfte gute, fachliche, agrarökologische Praxis und ein Verantwortungsgefühl dem Boden und dessen Fruchtbarkeit gegenüber sind Faktoren die einen Druck ausüben. Die Bodenfruchbarkeit durch richtige Maßnahmen zum richtigen Zeitpunkt zu steigern oder dem Wettertakt zu folgen können ebenso als besonders befriedigend erlebt werden. Je nach eigenem Charakter und Rahmenbedingungen.

Welche unerwünschten Dynamiken entstehen durch die finanzielle Reproduktion der Kollektiv-Mitglieder durch das Projekt?

Meine These diesbezüglich wäre: Unser CSA-System ist eine Form den Lebenunterhalt zu sichern ohne entfremdende Zwänge von außen. Die Abdeckung des eigenen finanziellen Bedarfs (“Lohn”), ein Jahr im Voraus, kann eine unglaubliche Motivation und Entlastung sein die Freude am Tun gibt. Ich halte es für wahrscheinlich, dass eine marktförmige Tätigkeit außerhalb des Projektes, um die Kohle zum Leben ranzuschaffen, in Durchschnitt und Summe zu mehr Entfremdung führt. Der “Lohn” führt unserer Erfahrung nach ausschließlich zu entlastenden Dynamiken. Sollte durch den “Lohn” in unserem Projekt doch ein Druck entstehen (“Ich muss arbeiten weil ich Geld kriege.”), dann hat dieser viel mit dem eigenen Selbstwert zu tun. Denn je nach eigenem Selbstwertgefühl sagt mensch entweder “Ich muss erst arbeiten damit ich Leben darf.” oder “Ich habe ein Recht auf gutes Leben! Jenseits meines Tuns!”. Daran ist aber nicht der “Lohn” Schuld. Diesen Selbstwert zu erlangen und Selbsticherheit im Forumlieren der eigenen Bedürfnisse zu erlernen sind einige der vielen Dinge die die Mitwirkung am Kollektiv ermöglicht.

Den Lebensunterhalt außerhalb sichern kann dazu führen, dass nur Menschen mit am Markt verwertbarer Arbeitskraft, Fähigkeiten oder Connections zu Geld-Überflüssen die Möglichkeiten dazu haben NK-Projekte zu machen ohne dabei zu verhungern, oder sich extrem entfremden oder verbiegen müssen für die Sicherung des eigenen Lebensunterhaltes: Was das Ganze dann ad-absurdum führen würde. Das Bäuer*Innen durch Ihre Tätigkeit seine*ihre (finanzielle) Reproduktion sichern können und ihre Bedürfnisse in den Fokus des Projektes gestellt werden ist erklärtes politisches Ziel unseres Projektes und überwindet die heutigen gesellschaftlichen Realitäten.

Im Endeffekt ist Geld immer dreckig. Egal wo es herkommt. Und die meisten anti-kapitalistischen Projekte haben bisher nur Inselcharakter im Geldstrom. Und sollte es daher darum gehen diese Inseln in der Summe als möglichst entfremdungsfreie und nicht-marktförmige Räume zu gestalten.

Führen Arbeitsteilung, Effizienz und Professionalität zu unerwünschten Dynamiken?

Ich verstehe unter effizientem arbeiten das Gefühl, dass es “flutscht”, das die Tätigkeit leicht von der Hand geht, das was “weggerockt” wird und dabei alle Spaß haben. Aus dieser Perspektive sind Optimierung und Effizienzsteigerung von Arbeitsabläufen nicht per se Böse. Sie hängen nicht zwangsläufig der Verwertungslogik an. Genauso wenig geht es aber darum immer besonders schnelle, rationalisierte Arbeitsabläufe zu schaffen (wie im Kapitalismus). Ob und was mechanisiert wird; oder in wie weit im Kollektiv die Verantwortungen aufgeteilt werden liegt an den Wünschen der Gruppe. Unser Projekt ermöglicht über all dies frei zu entscheiden. Beispielsweise wurden die gemeinschaftlichen Ernte-Aktionen von Zwiebeln und Kartoffeln als besonders wertvoll für den Zusammenhalt im Projekt erachtet. Aus dieser Perspektive macht es dann wohl kaum Sinn einen Zwiebelvollernter anzuschaffen.

“Professionalität” hat aus meiner Einschätzung etwas damit zu tun das jemand eine Tätigkeit auf eine bestimmte Art und Weise gelernt hat; und ein umfangreiches Fachwissen besitzt. Es kann zum Beispiel dazu führen, dass eine Person versucht besonders schnell und rational zu ernten. Solange diese Arten und zu Weisen tätig zu sein aber nicht zu Norm erhoben werden denen sich andere dann ungewollt anzupassen haben bleibt dies eine individuelle Frage; die nichts desto trotz wichtig ist: Welche Arbeitsweisen habe ich meiner fachlichen Ausbildung gelernt, wie schätze ich diese ein, welche Konsequenzen haben sie für mich und andere. Finde ich sie förderlich oder will ich sie ablegen?

Letztlich geht diese Spezialisierung einher mit einer arbeitsteiligen Gesellschaft. Beides ist notwendig. Denn es wird kaum möglich sein, dass sich Menschen in alle Produktionsprozesse die für das eigene Leben nötig sind einbringen und diese mitgestalten. Wissenshierarchien sind daher wohl unvermeidbar. Die Schlüsselfrage ist der Umgang damit. Ich bin überzeugt davon, dass es immer genug Menschen geben wird, die Spaß daran haben ihr Wissen anderen zu vermitteln, was wiederum andere entlastet die auf diese Wissensvermittlung keine Lust haben.

Bei uns ist die Partizipation der Unterstützer*Innen auf allen Ebene und in unterschiedlichster Verbindlichkeit erwünscht. Hier kommt es aber auch auf die Initiative aus dem Unterstützer*Innen-Kreis. Von Mitmach-Tagen bis festen und kontinuierlichen Mitwirkenden ist alles möglich. Auch dies hilft dabei Kehrseiten von Arbeitsteilung und Spezialisierung aufzuheben.

Reflektion des Konzeptes der “Nicht-Kommerzialtät”

Es kann nicht darum gehen nach dem “einen” Konzept zu Suchen. Vielmehr ermöglicht die Vielfalt an post-kapitalistischen Ansätzen ein Mitwirken ganz unterschiedlicher Charaktere an Keimform-Projekten. Dennoch stellt sich immer wieder die Fragen mit welchen Ansätzen welche Logiken überwunden werden könnnen. In diesem Sinne spielen die oben formulierte Reflektionen den Ball zurück an die Verfechter*Innen der “Nicht-Kommerzialtät” und hinterfragen implizit auch teilweise dessen Potential tatsächlich über die kapitalistische Vergesellschaftung hinaus zu weisen.

Vienna Solidarity Economy Congress 2013 – interesting outcomes of demonetization track

The Vienna Solidarity Economy Congress 2013 had almost a thousand visitors, and was very significant by bringing various streams of people together — people from different movements and backgrounds, gathering around the idea of cooperation and commons as the main pillars of any future economy. This is not a real mass event, but almost a must for activists and networkers in Central Europe, allowing them to forge new relations, get informed about other initiatives, bring forward their agenda. They got confronted with a plethora of offerings in two days: 120 lectures and workshops in the framework of the beautiful old Vienna University of Agriculture and in partcicular the modernist, bright Schwackhöfer building, (here some photos from 2009) plus booths, social events and so on. A great melting pot….and also a mirror of ongoing developments:

In the preparation of the congress, several initiatives had decided to merge their planned meetings with this event. Amonst them was the initiative demonetize.it together with the solidarity economy winter school, who decided to run three parallel tracks on moneyless practises and theories of demonetization. It became obvious that demonetization is a discourse of its own and attracted at least two hundred people following one or the other of the 18 lectures/presentations/workshops focusing on the End of Money. When the demonetize tracks called for a final plenary, about 50 people were present and showed their dedicated support for the idea of “networking our way towards demonetization”.

The spectrum consisted of many people with many different “trades”. People who distribute free music, farmners who engage in community supported agriculture, people who want to build build tractors and other open hardware, people who educate children, people who create maps, and so on. It was consensual that building demonetized alternatives consisted of the practical coming together of complementing activities. “If you truly want to make it complimentary, you have to complement each other”. This is an exciting new phase. Every single person in the room agreed with the notion that the logic of exchange and also LETS is not enough or even obsolete, that the idea of “paying back” is an obstacle and that the real future rather lies in “pay it forward”, but this works on the base of agreements and reliable cycles of cooperation and the enormous productivity that comes from people doing what the really want.

To form cycles of cooperation is primarily a local task. You can only cooperate with people you have easy access to. This was the reason and the rationale of creating a new mailing list, which was aptly named “miteinander” (together), and which is meant to promote immediate cooperations and the knowhow about how to establish long – lasting, succesful cooperations. The new list will be in german language mainly and focused on practical issues of establishing cycles of cooperations, whilst the discuss list should continue to focus on theory and fundamental issues of demonetization.

The Structural Communality of the Commons

[Diesen Artikel gibt es auch auf Deutsch. Originally published in The Wealth of the Commons (eds. David Bollier and Silke Helfrich; Levellers Press, Amherst, MA, pp. 28–34). License: CC-by 3.0.]

The commons are as varied as life itself, and yet everyone involved with them shares common convictions. If we wish to understand these convictions, we must realize what commons mean in a practical sense, what their function is and always has been. That in turn includes that we concern ourselves with people. After all, commons or common goods are precisely not merely “goods,” but a social practice that generates, uses and preserves common resources and products. In other words, it is about the practice of commons, or commoning, and therefore also about us. The debate about the commons is also a debate about images of humanity. So let us take a step back and begin with the general question about living conditions.

Living conditions do not simply exist; instead, human beings actively produce them. In so doing, every generation stand on the shoulders of its forebears. Creating something new and handing down to future generations that which had been created before – and if possible, improved – has been part of human activity since time immemorial. The historical forms in which this occurred, however, have been transformed fundamentally, particularly since the transition to capitalism and a market economy. Although markets have existed for millennia, their function was not as central as they have become in contemporary capitalism, where they set the tone. They determine the rules of global trade. They organize interactions between producers and consumers across the world. Some observers believe they can recognize practices of the commons even in markets. After all, they say, markets are also about using resources jointly, and according to rules that enable markets to function in as unrestricted and unmanipulated ways as possible. However, markets are not commons, and it is worth understanding why.

Although markets are products of human action, their production is also controlled by markets, not by human action. It is no coincidence that markets are spoken of as if they were active subjects. We can read about what the markets are “doing” every day in the business pages. Markets decide, prefer and punish. They are nervous, lose trust or react cautiously. Our actions take place under the direction of the markets, not the other way around. Even a brief look at the rules mentioned above makes that clear. Rules issued by governments first recognize the basic principles of markets, but these rules function only as “add-ons” that are supposed to guide the effects of the markets in one direction or the other.

One direction may mean restricting the effects of the market so as to attain specific social goals. Viewed in this light, the supposedly alternative concept of a centrally planned economy turns out to be nothing more than a radical variant of guiding markets. The other direction can mean designing rules so that market mechanisms can flourish, in the hope that everyone is better off in the end if individuals pursue their own material self-interest. The various schools of economic thought reflect the different directions. They all take for granted the assumption that markets work, and that what matters is optimizing how they work. A common feature is that none of these standard schools of thought question markets themselves. That is why markets are at times described as “second nature” (Fisahn 2010) – a manifestation of nature and its laws that cannot be called into question, but only applied.

The habit of treating markets, and therefore also the economy, as quasi-natural beings prompted economist Karl Polanyi to speak of a reversal of the relationship between the social and the economic: “Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system.” (Polanyi, 1957: 57) Before the onset of capitalism, only religious ritual acts were seen as having a life of their own in this way. The attitude was: „We cannot regulate god or the market, we can only attempt to secure their goodwill, perhaps plead or at times outwit them, but we can never get them under control.” In the case of markets, it is the economic augurs of all kinds who take on the task of fathoming divine will. They are interpreters of the inevitable.

Markets are not commons – and vice versa. The fundamental principle of the commons is that the people who create the commons also create the rules for themselves. But are people able to do so? Isn’t it better to trust in a mechanism that may be invisible and impersonal, but that is also generally valid, rather than trying to formulate and negotiate rules oneself? Now we are at the core of the differing concepts of humanity: The market position assumes Homo economicus individuals maximizing their utility.¹ These are isolated people who at first think only of themselves and their own utility. Only by trading on the market do they become social creatures.

Now, it is not these isolated individuals who determine their social relations. As we saw above, they give themselves up to the workings of the markets, trying to derive benefits from them. To make it abundantly clear: Isolated individuals submit to an anonymous power that is not their own by joining it and internalizing its logic. They then have the opportunity to create and confirm their individuality by means of consumption. Consumption is also the medium in which social life takes place. In other words, markets are not only places of distribution; they are places where people connect and develop identities. As consumption does not create true communality, and as many people feel isolated even in a group, the only way out of this dilemma is more consumption. Thus, consumption creates more and more consumption, which matches the producers’ interests to sell more and more to consumers. It also perfectly serves the necessity of the capitalist economy to keep growing. However, consumers can never “buy our way out” of their social isolation. Markets are based on and continuously create structural isolation.

Structural isolation does not mean that we do not come together or cooperate. Yet in markets, cooperation always has the bitter flavor of competition as well.² We cooperate so that we can hold our ground better in competitive situations. With the underlying necessity of competition, any cooperation on one side implies exclusion on the other. One company’s success is another company’s failure. One country’s export surplus is another’s trade deficit. One person’s success in applying for a job means rejection of all the other candidates. One person’s green card means another person’s deportation. It is this aspect of markets which I call structural exclusion. Both aspects, structural isolation and exclusion, permeate our actions, thoughts and feelings like a gossamer web. They determine what people consider normal in everyday life. If a fish swims in endless circles in its bowl and has learned not to bump into the glass, seemingly automatically, it might falsely suppose it is enjoying the freedom of the ocean. If we are to withstand structural isolation and exclusion, we need places and forms of compensation. Besides consumption, which we have already mentioned, families and other social relationships play a central role here. Time and again, we can observe that people who lose their social relationships quickly end up in a situation of real isolation and exclusion.

Structural isolation and exclusion entail another type of behavior, one I call structural irresponsibility. Hardly anyone wants to marginalize others, hardly anyone wants their own advantage to be paid for by others – yet this still takes place. Isolation and separateness on markets also means that we cannot grasp the consequences of a purchase. Perhaps we have heard about people in the Congo working under extreme and inhumane conditions to extract coltan, from which tantalum for producing cellphones is extracted. But do we do without cellphones for this reason? And we have read about t-shirts being produced with child labor, but do we pay attention every time we buy one? Or environmental pollution caused by aluminum production – Do we even know which products contain aluminum?

These are only a few of countless examples that show that it is virtually impossible to exercise personal responsibility under market conditions. Short of massive boycotts or public organizing, consumer purchases cannot alter the labor conditions and environmental effects of production; in this respect, money is an extremely poor means of communication. All of our after-the-fact attempts to contain the harmful consequences of market activity amount to a never-ending task, one that often fails, sometimes colossally – for instance, in limiting global CO₂ emissions.

But that is not the only option, as the commons demonstrate. Here, people are connected to one another. They use common resources, devise rules to sustain or increase them, and find the social forms that fit best. The starting point is always the needs of the people involved, and those needs are never the same. In a commons, the implicit model of humanity is not about individuals’ abstract equality, but rather their concrete uniqueness. People participate actively in the commons process with their rich individuality. Thus, the following is clear: If both the resources and the products are different, and if the people involved remain special individuals, then uniform rules cannot work. But that is not a problem in a commons because, in contrast to the market, the rules of a commons are made by the commoners themselves. It is no simple task to establish workable rules, and they may fail, but there are countless commons that do work, provided that certain conditions for success are taken into account.

Self-organization works if it is in fact self-determined. For this reason, an important aspect during the rule-making process is taking the participants’ different needs into account—be it in form of consensus or compromise. It is decisive that people feel a sense of fairness. Fairness is not the same thing as formal justice: It describes agreements that nobody feels they need intervene against. That, too, is different in the case of markets. Here, there is a system of equivalent trading that is formally just, because in an ideal market, assets of the same economic value change hands. But first, this holds only on average; individual cases can be unjust or even fraudulent.

Let us recall: People who maximize their own benefit do so at other people’s expense, and those other people have to bear the burden. Second, equivalent trading means that different productivities may be expressed in the same prices, but in real terms, in different amounts of effort necessary to achieve the same price. Developing countries have to work much harder than industrialized ones for the same monetary yield. Is that fair? No. The market ignores differences; commons take them into account. What is more: the market pushes differences aside, commons thrive on them. If a few varieties of rice obtain the highest profit, then all other varieties of rice are displaced from the market. Participants in the commons, in contrast, are aware that diversity is not a flaw – an impediment to “maximizing value” – but a positive quality. It means more creativity, more variety, more opportunities for learning, a better quality of life.

Self-organization can fail. It is often unsuccessful if alien logics creep into practices of the commons, and that can occur in very different ways. For example, if equal portions of a finite resource are made available for the people involved to use (formally just), then it may well be that individuals feel this arrangement to be unfair. This may be the case if the resource is of lesser quality, or if the needs of the people involved differ for reasons made transparent. Formally equal distribution must be augmented by additional criteria that are to be taken into account until everyone feels things are fair.

As soon as fairness is neglected, the danger arises that individual strategies for maximizing utility prevail. Then, market thinking enters into the commons. If one person begins to push through his or her individual goals at other people’s expense, fairness is undermined to an ever greater degree. Others respond in kind, a downward spiral sets in, and in the end, self-organization fails. Market ideologues are aware of this effect and occasionally employ them in order to destroy commons. For example, in Peru (and elsewhere) the proposal was made to divide up land that had previously been used jointly and to distribute it to the indigenous population with individual titles of ownership – formally just, of course. Members of communities were to be transformed into isolated, utility-maximizing individuals. The indigenous population rejected this plan because they realized it would endanger their lifestyle.³

Commons work only if everybody is included in the community and nobody is excluded. They are based on cooperation, and they generate cooperation. They enable responsible action, and they require it. In this sense, the social practices of commons represent structural communality. Commons projects represent a practical rebuttal to the Homo economicus paradigm. Nobody has to have certain characteristics in order to participate in commons projects, but many people change when they do. In commons, people can live as what they have actually always been: societal beings who jointly create their living conditions. In contrast to the logic of the market, individuals have nothing to gain from having their way at other people’s expense. A central step in learning about practices of the commons is understanding that one’s own needs are taken into account only if other people’s needs are also part of the common activities. I call this aspect of the commons structural inclusion. The Ubuntu⁴ philosophy of the Zulu and Xhosa puts it in these words: “I am because you are, and I can be only if you are.”

Actually, this expresses something obvious. It seems so special to us because we have been trained from an early age to struggle as individuals against others. Selection determines our experiences at school; opportunities in life are allocated along with grades. We experience selection in markets when we need to sell our labor or our products. We experience selection when we are sick or old, when we worry about receiving appropriate care. Selection is the means of structural exclusion employed in the logic of the market. Whatever “doesn’t make money” falls between the cracks.

To be sure, the commons have boundaries, and it must be decided who belongs and who does not. We have learned from Elinor Ostrom that drawing such boundaries is important – at least in the case of rival common resources⁵. In a commons, there is a very different social logic at play than in market settings; the criteria for access and use may include one’s local affiliations, contributions of labor and particular uses of the commons. For example, rules of open-access usage make sense for goods that are non-rival and not consumed or “used up” (such as collaborative websites like Wikipedia or free software programs); such rules help avoid underuse of the resource and the danger that they might be abandoned. In contrast, goods that are rival and consumptive (such as land, water or fisheries) require other sorts of rules because in such cases the problem is overuse, not underuse.

What is decisive in the success of a commons is which rules are recognized by the community as reasonable or necessary. Here, the primary question is not whether something pays off, but what sustains the commons and their resources so that everyone involved can benefit in the long term. The social form is valuable in and of itself, as social relationships are the decisive means for settling disputes. And conflicts are to be resolved in such a way that everyone feels that the process and its results are fair, as discussed above.

Thus, commons structurally generate responsibility on the part of their participants for preserving the resource and the collective relationships, while markets generally do not. Commoners are in charge of shaping the social relationships involved; therefore, they can take responsibility for their actions. However, this also entails their responsibility to do so. In the commons, it is possible to deal with conflicted goals and varying needs before taking action. In the market, however, action comes first, and then the consequences are dealt with later. The market is seldom capable of mediating between different needs and identifying responsible solutions because maximum profits is the touchstone for choice.

We are all aware of such paradoxes: We want to drive on a good road network without congestion, but object to having major roads pass by our front doors. We want environmentally friendly energy to replace nuclear power, but we object to windmills marring the landscape. We object to fish stocks being depleted, but want to purchase fresh and cheap fish. Different needs and goals conflict with one another, and the one that can mobilize the most (market and political) power will prevail. First, we create a fait accompli, then we have to suffer the consequences.

In the commons, people are capable of mediating between different needs and desires from the outset. Farmers can come to an understanding about joint usage of pastures in advance, and can do so time and again to avoid overexploitation of the common resource; fisherfolk can arrange for sustainable fishing quotas, in contrast to nation-states, each of which wants maximum usage for itself; free software projects can agree on programming priorities. Filmmaker Kevin Hansen speaks about commons cultivating a sense of overarching responsibility: “A commons approach innately presumes responsibility and rights for all. No one is left out. It is the responsibility of all commons trustees (effectively, this means everyone) to be responsible – even for those who do not speak. (…) … [T]his includes not only the young, elderly or disabled people who cannot speak for themselves. It also means the disenfranchised, the poor, the indigenous and other humans who have traditionally not had a significant voice in politics and economics.”⁶

While including everyone is part of the logic of the commons in terms of principle and structure, such inclusion does not occur automatically, but must be implemented intentionally. The freedom to shape arrangements that exist in principle also entails a necessity to do so. That is different from market relationships, where rules are set externally and uniformly: Whichever option earns money prevails. In a commons, communities must themselves determine the rules appropriate for individual situations and for the people involved in them. In the process, the temptation to achieve gain at the expense of others after all is ubiquitous, coming from the logic of the market. Yet to the other, I am the other as well. If I prevail at the expense of others, they will do the same (or exclude me). That would be the beginning of a downward spiral, a development we know well. The company that lowers wages faster than others generates more jobs. The one that cuts benefits most can obtain credit in order to survive. That is the logic of the markets, where most people end up losing, and even the winners cannot be sure whether they themselves might be among the losers tomorrow. We can establish commons and their structural communality, inclusion and generation of responsibility on the part of their participants only in opposition to the logic of exclusion. That is never easy, but it is worth the effort.

References

Fisahn, Andreas (2010): Die Demokratie entfesseln, nicht die Märkte, PapyRossa.

Polanyi, Karl (1957): The Great Transformation, Boston, Beacon.

Notes

1 See essay by Friederike Habermann on pp. 13–18.

2 See essay by Michel Bauwens on pp. 375–378.

3 See http://womblog.de/2011/05/27/peru-vorschlag-der-individuellen-landtitelvergabe-fr-indigene-stt-auf-kritik/ as well as the contribution by Dirk Löhr on the question of land in this volume, on pp. 410–415.

4 The word “ubuntu” roughly means humanity, loving one’s neighbor and community spirit.

5 The concept of rivalry is explained by Silke Helfrich on pp. 61–66.

6 http://vimeo.com/25486271

Stefan Meretz (Germany) is an engineer, computer scientist, and author who lives in Berlin. His publications focus on commons-based peer production and development of a free society beyond market and state. He blogs at www.keimform.de.

Why I Still Doubt

[This is part of an debate regarding parecon and peercommony between Michael Albert and me. It is a repy to Michael Albert's Peercommony Doubts Parecon? All articles can be found on the debate overview page – more will follow.]

Parecon, like capitalism, is based on paid labor, apparently based on the reasoning that people wouldn’t otherwise work enough. In my preceding reply I had doubted that assumption. When defending payment for work, you, Michael, seem to consider money as mere “information,” guiding people’s choices about how much they need to work and how much they can consume. You also seem to imagine a very impoverished model of social interaction where no other information that could influence such choices is available:

As I wrote in the original piece, “[the gap between consumption and production arises] not because people are either greedy, lazy, or irresponsible, but because people have no way to know what is responsible and moral.”

It must be a very sad society indeed where payment is the only thing that makes people “responsible and moral.” That’s not the kind of society I want.

Implicit in your remark is the admission that payment for work would not be necessary if there were other ways of closing the information gap, of bringing people’s consumptive needs and their productive needs together. I think that such other ways exist and have discussed them in my previous texts.

You reject the idea that people are generally “greedy and lazy.” But a related idea clearly underlies all your arguments: consumption is good, and hence to be maximized, while work (production) is bad and to be minimized:

I reply that if we disconnect work and income, people will typically want to work too little for the social good to be optimally met, and people will want to take more from the social product than is available. If we don’t correlate what people do and what they get, people will have no indication excessive or diminutive choices are wrong.

The last sentence again points to your impoverished social model where money is the only indicator of how to behave. And yet, such choices can be informed by other indicators rather than the brutal “if you cannot pay for it, you won’t get it.”

Parecon says your share of the social product should accord with your duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor.

What about socially valued labor that is not onerous? You seem to think it doesn’t exist, or only so rarely it doesn’t matter.

Do we agree there is such a thing as just and unjust allocation so that that a person could get too much or too little of the social product relative to what they have contributed, and that a good economy should equilibrate work/leisure allotments to a fair balance for all?

No, we don’t agree on that. You obviously see contributions as something essentially negative, as some kind of sacrifice that people make for the common good but to their own detriment. Hence they have to be rewarded (by getting more social product) for any contributions they make and punished (by getting less social product) if they don’t contribute enough.

Seeing contributions as mere sacrifice might be appropriate for most work in capitalism, but a society that wants to go beyond capitalism should try to do better than that. The “balance” you mention reminds me of the modern concept of “work-life balance,” where work is seen as something essentially separated from life. It’s quite clear that you have to be compensated for working when, instead, you could be living!

But does it have to be like that? Can’t we make work, contributing, a part of life, so rewarding in itself that it doesn’t require a separate additional reward? I think we can, and should. By not even trying to make work something better than what it is in capitalism, parecon is aiming far too low.

You argue that everyone – with no norms and little information – will consume and work appropriately.

I never said that. Information – stigmergic hints – are essential, and social values – an ethics of sharing and caring – are important too. I just say that money is a poor substitute for information, and an even poorer substitute for ethics.

At the same time, you argue that if people have needed information, and also have options only to operate within indicated limits, people will so want to violate those agreed limits that it will only be to avoid starvation that they participate.

Your really seem to think that money is nothing more than information, a neutral layer that “informs” people how much their contributions are valued and how much their consumption costs. But in the next sentence you reveal that it is something very different indeed:

This is like saying people will stop at red lights if no one knows you should do so because there is no red light norm – but people will want to run red lights if everyone knows you should stop or, indeed, if it was impossible not to stop.

Putting a chain around somebody’s feet is not the same as merely “informing” them that they should not go too far away. Throughout your text you protest against my using the word “coercion,” but here you talk quite happily about physically preventing people from going somewhere. If that’s not coercion, then what is?

But indeed, something that physically restrains people’s movements is a much more apt metaphor for money than the innocent term “information.” Information informs people’s choices, while a lack of money (and the consequential need to earn it) forces them.

Prices, Values, and the Market

But money not only forces people, it also puts them into antagonistic relations. That antagonism exists between buyers and sellers – the more money the seller gets, the less the buyer keeps to get other things. And it exists between different sellers of the same or similar goods: if buyers choose another seller instead of me, I don’t earn money.

Hence sellers are forced to compete against each other, trying to outsell their competitors. And buyers, as least those who buy in order to sell (input for their own products) are forced to choose the cheapest seller who offers what they need. These antagonistic relations are forced upon people by their use of money, not only in capitalism, but apparently in parecon too.

At least it seems so. You haven’t answered my question whether you want prices without values (in the sense of Marx) or values without markets. According to Marx’s analysis, values emerge as a consequence of the market, which forces companies and laborers to compete against each other. Your non-answer is unfortunate, since money and price are impossible to understand without the underlying notion of value.

Implicitly the same concept of value that underlies capitalism seems to be assumed:

More relevantly, but following the same logic, nor can I spend ten hours doing what average intensity by a competent worker would do in five hours, and claim ten hours effort – because only five was socially valuable. Thus, I have a strong incentive to avoid doing things I can’t do competently. Parecon’s workers have to be doing socially valuable work to be remunerated. If I am particularly bad at doing some job, so my doing it is not a socially valuable use of my time, I can’t do it for income, or at least I can’t do it for full income, because some of my time spent at it will not be socially productive.

This is exactly value as it exists in capitalism: the value of a good is the average amount of labor necessary to produce it (including necessary materials, pre-products, and partially tools), assuming reasonably skilled workers and the best generally available technology. Apparently you not only want workers to compete against each other, with those less skilled dropping out or having to accept a reduced payment. You also want firms to compete against each other, just as in capitalism:

Addressing another concern you raised, in any good economy workers should not apply their efforts at tasks they cannot do well enough for the result to be socially desired. But, you implicitly wonder, how can we deal with that positively? Well, if full employment is ensured, and parecon does that, and if incomes are just, and parecon does that – then if a workplace cannot produce things people desire at costs people find acceptable – it should not continue operating. We should not squander valuable assets on insubstantial benefits.

In an an earlier text, you also make it clear that workers’ cooperatives really have to compete against each other:

Workers councils whose proposals have lower than average social benefit to social cost ratios are forced to increase either their efforts or efficiency to win the approval of other workers.

The lowest bidder wins the price. Of course, this also means that workplaces have to use whatever tricks they can get away with in order to reach costs that are at least “average.” (That notion is a bit misleading here since sub-average workplace have to decrease their cost or drop out completely, thus decreasing the new average and putting more pressure on the remaining workplaces.)

Environment, customers (who might get something that is e.g. less healthy or durable than they had hoped for), and workers themselves will likely suffer as a result of these tricks, but that can’t be helped. It’s competition. Or would community standards prevent that, as you’ll probably argue? They might to some degree, just as laws in capitalism prevent some of the worst behavior that unregulated competition would otherwise produce. But the problem with such remedies that they can only compensate – to some degree – for the bad effects that the system introduced in the first place. People are set up against each other, being forced to “beat” others in the competitive struggle. That’s not easy, and in order to increase their chances everybody is practically forced to interpret standards and rules “generously” or to violate them altogether whenever they think they can get away with it. Not because people are bad, but because the system leaves them no choice.

In such a situation, the promise of “full employment” becomes implausible too. What becomes of the workplaces that cannot compete and instead “squander valuable assets on insubstantial benefits?” In theory, the people working there will “simply” have to find work in other areas, thus increasing the intensity of competition elsewhere. In practice, of course, that’s far from simple. That everybody would find work “somewhere” sounds as implausible as everybody finding a job in capitalism.

Regarding the price of goods, which also troubled you, in parecon a process of cooperative negotiation equilibrates what firms offer to produce and what consumers seek to enjoy. The prices that emerge from this cooperative negotiation of inputs and outputs numerically summarize true personal, social, and ecological costs and benefits.

That negotiation seems to be basically the same process that underlies exchange in capitalist markets every day. “Can you make that for me for $5?” – “Impossible.” – “OK, X say they can, I’ll buy from them instead.” – “Wait, we’ll see what we can do.” Etc.

The closer one looks at parecon, the more similar to capitalism it seems to be. In parecon, the negotiation between potential payers and potential producers takes place upfront, before the goods in question are actually produced. In end-user markets, it’s usually the other way around. But that’s hardly a significant difference, and upfront-negotiation markets are common in capitalism too (e.g. for “B2B” transactions between different companies).

Time Logic and the Gender Bias of “Socially Valued Work”

Michael, you want all “socially valuable work to be remunerated”: people are paid whenever they do something socially useful. For determining payments, you subscribe to the efficiency logic: like any good manager, you don’t want to pay person A for ten hours when person B could do the same job in five. This reasoning is generally dubious, since people would hardly accept it for other activities: “You spent three weeks reading that novel, while another person could have read it in one!” – “Why didn’t you sleep with X instead of Y? You could have reached orgasm in half the time!”

When one enjoys doing something, there is no reason to minimize the time spent doing it. But you seem unable to conceive “socially valuable work” as anything else than a sacrifice.

Even capitalism could not exist if all “socially valuable work” was subjugated to the logic of efficiency. There are many useful activities which require a rejection and reversal of that logic to be done well. People who spend the least possible amount of time with their children will hardly be the best parents. Ill and old people don’t benefit from attendants and doctors dealing with them as quickly as they can.

Such “care” work is the often invisible “backside” of capitalism. Capitalism couldn’t exist without it, but it largely occurs outside of capitalist companies. Often it is unpaid and most of it is done by women. When it is moved inside the capitalist sphere, e.g. in privatized, for-profit hospitals and nursing homes, the results are often detrimental for the recipients of the care. In this area, the “get the job done in the shortest possible time” logic of capitalism is even more ominous than elsewhere.

Parecon wants to organize all “socially valuable work” according to this efficiency logic. This leaves a worrisome alternative. Either, the parecon proponents don’t mean what they say but think that much care work will still occur outside the formal economic sphere they want to reorganize via participative planning. In this case, it would continue to be unpaid and unrecognized, just increasing the workload of those who do it. Most likely, it would continue to be a burden mainly for women, thus perpetuating the gender division of work characteristic for capitalism.

The other, hardly better alternative is that parecon indeed subjugates all care work to its logic of efficiency and effort minimization. The outcome for those who need care would hardly be pleasant.

How the Gap between Production and Consumption is Closed

In my previous reply I had noted that merely paying people for work and requiring everyone to pay for goods will not close the qualitative gap between the goods that are produced and the goods that are needed. Closing this gap either requires a fully-fledged market with competition between companies and laborers, or else some kind of coordination mechanism among producers and consumers. Parecon tries to realize the latter in form of “participatory planning.” I had wondered why you seem to think that participatory planning is able to close the qualitative gap between production and consumption (producing the wrong kinds of goods) but not the quantitative gap (not producing enough goods), since the latter is just an aspect of the former.

You haven’t directly responded to that, except by saying:

How do you think a pareconish firm, with certain resources, tools, and people, and which has to be doing socially valued production to warrant its inputs and its workers incomes, can operate inefficiently or even slothfully or incompetently, and yet have those in it do just fine, feeling no reason to change their ways?

But it’s not a question of efficiency within firms – rather the question is how to organize the social production of work, how to ensure that each firm produces things and services that are useful to somebody, and how to ensure that everyone’s needs are fulfilled. Market competition can do that, though only for those who can afford to pay. While it was unclear to me how parecon hopes to accomplish the same, from the above discussion it seems that the planning mechanism are competition-based and hence can probably do that same. Though at the same social costs of putting people against each other, forcing everyone to compete against others and excluding those who cannot pay. This answers my question, though not in a way I’m happy about.

Balanced Job Complexes and Bureaucracy

I had also wondered why “balanced job complexes” are necessary in the general case. I agree it might take special agreements to distribute tasks which nobody wants to do, but if person A likes doing things which you consider “rote and disempowering,” while person B likes doing things you consider “empowering,” why shouldn’t both do what they like? You merely addresses this by repeating that

parecon balances job offerings for empowerment effects because if jobs are unbalanced regarding empowerment, then after people choose among them, some people will be subordinate to others in a class hierarchy.

The question why you think that some tasks are inherently disempowering and prone to cause subordination is still open. If I like doing something, how can just doing it cause me to become subordinate to others?

In closing, I had expressed some concerns about the bureaucracy which parecon seems to entail. Doesn’t it needlessly make everyone spend a long time in planning meetings, and isn’t there the risk that a privileged class of bureaucrats would emerge?

But who do you see as bureaucrats in parecon? And how, in light of having self management, balanced job complexes, and equitable incomes, will anyone in parecon aggrandize themselves into being a privileged class?

This remark doesn’t address the concern that the pareconish bureaucracy “takes too many evenings,” as Oscar Wilde is supposed to have complained about socialism. If this concern is justified, and it seems to be, then the emergence of specialized bureaucrats is almost a given. The one reason for balanced job complexes that seems somewhat sensible is that it would try to prevent that, forcing everyone to stay involved in the bureaucratic processes whether they want it or not. But that would hardly work in the long run. Trying to create a bureaucracy without bureaucrats seems as futile as trying to make water run uphill.

»Reichtum ist nicht Geld, sondern ein gutes Leben zu haben«

Die Kirchenzeitung der Diözese Eisenstadt (Österreich) martinus hat mich zum bevorstehenden Kongress Solidarische Ökonomie interviewt:

Vor dem Hintergrund der derzeitigen Krisensituation wird die Frage nach Alternativen immer drängender gestellt. Zugleich gibt es immer mehr lebendige globalisierungskritische Bewegungen und eine wachsende Anzahl an Projekten gemeinschaftlicher Produktion.

Der Berliner Informatiker Stefan Meretz ist einer der Referenten am bevorstehenden Kongress „Solidarische Ökonomie“ in Wien. Im „martinus“-Interview erklärt er, wie die Idee der Solidarischen Ökonomie mit der christlichen Lehre in Zusammenhang steht.

Weiterlesen bei martinus…

Kongress Solidarische Ökonomie

Vom 22. bis 24. Februar 2013 findet der Solidarische Ökonomie Kongress in Wien in der Universität für Bodenkultur statt. In 100 Veranstaltungen wird eine breite Palette von Themen angeboten. Eine Gruppe von Workshop-Anbieter*innen hat sich zur Themen-Schiene »Demonetarisierung« zusammengeschlossen, an dem sich auch einige Leute von keimform.de beteiligen. Die Demonetize-Veranstalter*innen haben folgenden Text zum Kongress formuliert:

Das Verhältnis von Solidarischer Ökonomie zum Geld ist unklar. Viele Ansätze zur Veränderung der herrschenden Wirtschaftsstrukturen sehen Geld und Warentausch nach wie vor als elementare Formen wirtschaftlicher Beziehungen. Doch mehren sich die Perspektiven, die das Geld grundsätzlich kritisieren und überwinden wollen, weil es Solidarität verhindert und Herrschaftsbeziehungen fördert. Die Schiene bietet Einblick in eine Reihe von verschiedenen Zugängen zu Kritik des Geldes, seiner Voraussetzungen und Folgen. Dies schließt Ansätze ein, die eine Welt ohne Geld vorstellbar machen wollen.

Gewidmet Walther Schütz, dem unermüdlichen Aktivisten für eine Welt selbstorganisierter Kooperation / hosted by krisu und demonetize.it

Nachfolgend die Liste der Veranstaltungen aus dieser Schiene. [Aktualisiert am 19.2.2013]

Freitag, 22.2.

16:00 Uhr

• Einführung in die Kritik der Geldlogik (Uli Frank) – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR07

18:00 Uhr

• Perspektiven jenseits der Geldlogik (Uli Frank, Stefan Meretz) – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR04
• Ressourcenbasierte Wirtschaft als Alternative zum monetären Wirtschaften (Peter Schmidt) – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR10

Samstag, 23.2.

10:00 Uhr

• Geld und Eigentum – abschaffen! … und warum das noch lange nicht reicht! (Johann Bergmann) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS11
• Theorie der Umsonstökonomie – Kritik und Perspektiven (Elmar Flaschart) – Oskar Simony-Haus HS01
• Wirtschaft jenseits von Arbeit, Askese und Ausbeutung: Ecommony (Friederike Habermann) – Oskar Simony-Haus HS01

12:00 Uhr

• Peer-Commonismus: bedürfnisorientiert produzieren (Christian Siefkes) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS06
• Einschlüsse und Ausschlüsse – Wer ist eigentlich dabei und warum? Wer ist nicht dabei und woran liegt das? Wie können partizipative Räume geschaffen und nicht-ausschliessende Praxen entwickelt werden? (Susanne Dieckmann) – Gregor Mendel-Haus Nördl. Turmzimmer
• Von der CSA zum Flächenfreikauf? (Andreas Exner, Flo Ledermann) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS07

16:00 Uhr

• Solidarische Ökonomie der Commons – Ausweg aus dem Wachstumsgetriebe der Marktwirtschaft (Andreas Exner) – Gregor Mendel-Haus nördl.Turmzimmer
• Entweder solidarisch oder mit Geld! Geld ist unsolidarisch (Lorenz Glatz) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS06
• Strukturwissen für emanzipatives Handeln – Solidarische Ökonomie im Spannungsfeld von Regression und Emanzipation (WEG) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS01
• Wie kann Umsonstökonomie/umsonstökonomische Produktion in größerem Maßstab organisiert werden? (Susanne Dieckmann) – Gregor Mendel-Haus HS07

18:00 Uhr

• Post-kapitalistische Landwirtschaft – auf dem Weg zur Schenkökonomie (Jan-Hendrik Cropp) – Wilhelm Exner-Haus HS05
• Gesellschaft jenseits von Tausch Und Geld – Warum, Wohin, Wie und Wodurch? (Alfred Fresin, Franz Nahrada, Ed Landson) – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR07 (Dauer bis 21:00 Uhr)
• Was ersparen wir uns, wenn es kein Geld mehr gibt? (Franz Schandl) – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR04

Sonntag, 24.2.

11:00 Uhr

• Vernetzungsplenum für alle an der Demonetarisierung interessierte Menschen – Franz Schwackhöfer-Haus SR10

Demonetarisierung – Der Diskurs über die Abschaffung des Geldes

[Erweiterte Ausgabe eines Artikels aus der Zeitschrift CONTRASTE. Auf dem Kongress Solidarische Ökonomie in Wien werden an die zwanzig Veranstaltungen stattfinden, die sich bewusst zur Kernthematik "eine Welt ohne Geld" bekennen. Der folgende Artikel wurde aus diesem Anlass geschrieben.]

Es scheint, dass die Zeit der monolithischen politischen Organisationen in der antikapitalistischen Bewegung vorbei ist, dass aber dafür ein neues “organisiertes” Phänomen die Runde macht, das immer größere Bedeutung gewinnt.  Es handelt sich dabei um diskurspolitische Interventionen, den Versuch, über bestimmte Begriffe Schwerpunkte in unserem Denken und Handeln zu setzen. Mindestens drei solcher diskurspolitischer Interventionen sind in den letzten Jahren entstanden: den Diskurs um die Solidarische Ökonomie, den Diskurs zu den Commons und zuletzt um das bewusste Negieren des Geldes als Vergesellschaftungsmedium, die Demonetarisierung. Daneben gibt es freilich noch die Peer-to-Peer Ökonomie, den Diskurs um Susbsistenz und Kreislaufwirtschaften (Circonomy), das Wiederentdecken der Schenkwirtschaft und vieles andere.

Die Vermutung, dass es sich um verschiedene Aspekte ein und derselben Sache handelt liegt nahe, und doch ist es so, dass die einen am grundsätzlichen Verhältnis der ökonomischen Akteure zueinander (Solidarische Ökonomie, P2P Ökonomie, Circonomy), die anderen am kollektiven Bezug auf die inhaltlichen Elemente des Reichtums (Commons, Subsistenz) und die letzten an der Aufhebung der  versachlichten und entfremdeten Form der ökonomischen Beziehung selbst (Demonetarisierung, Schenkökonomie) ansetzen.

Die weitere Vermutung ist dass diese Diskurse nicht nur im Bezug aufeinander, sondern auch immanent viele Antworten im Raum der Möglichkeiten entwickeln, wie wir besser leben und wofür wir uns einsetzen können. Ihr Pluralismus erscheint nicht als Mangel, sondern als Voraussetzung einer raschen und kreativen Entfaltung von Praktiken, die nur in ihrer Fülle und Vielzahl ein Jenseits des kapitalistischen Systems möglich machen und Antworten auf die ungelösten Fragen dazu geben.

Eine Welt ohne Geld ?

Die Demonetarisierungsdebatte ist dabei so ziemlich der jüngste der Diskurse, und wahrscheinlich der schwierigste. Wie auch bei den anderen Diskursen geht es zunächst darum, zu entbergen, dass die herrschende Vorstellung vom Wirtschaften Praktiken ausgeblendet hat, die immer da waren und nur im Bewusstsein mehr oder weniger stark ausgeblendet waren.

Das Muster “Geldfreie menschliche Beziehung” hat dabei durchaus die doppelte Bedeutung, dass einerseits Geld nicht die menschliche Beziehung vermittelt, aber andererseits auch, dass die beteiligten Menschen gewaltfrei miteinander umgehen. Das Andere des Geldes ist eben gerade nicht die Kommandowirtschaft, Rationierung, Zuteilung, Anordnung – sondern die freie Übereinkunft und die Orientierung am menschlichen Bedürfnis.

Dabei richtet sich der Diskurs gegen eine Weltanschauung, für die das Geld nicht nur Garant der Freiheit ist, sondern die auch so tut, als sei Geld die natürlichste Sache von der Welt und das tauschende Verhalten (ich gebe nur, wenn ich direkten Gegenwert bekomme) nun einmal die Verkehrsform erwachsener Menschen schlechthin. Geld wird im herrschenden Denken zum “Kommunikationsmittel der Bedürfnisse” verklärt, mit dem schlichten “Argument” dass im herrschenden Wirtschaftssystem das Bedürfnis ohne Geld stumm und machtlios ist. Da können Millionen Menschen verhungern, Milliarden in verschiedensten Formen der Verwahrlosung existieren, da können Gesundheit und elementare Existenz massenhaft draufgehen, die gute Meinung vom Geld – oder vielleicht einem anderen, besseren Geld – als notwendigem Kommunikationsmittel über Bedarf und Produktion ist nicht totzukriegen. Zumindest war das bis vor kurzem so.

Gegen dieses hahnebüchene Bedingungsdenken – ohne Moos nix los, ohne Göd ka Musi – macht der Demonetarisierungsdiskurs zunächst einmal geltend, dass unsere vergangene und gegenwärtige Realität voller geldfreier Elemente ist, und dass die allgemeine Ausblendung auch darüber funktioniert, dass man diese in lauter Besonderheiten auflöst, statt etwas Allgemeines zu finden.

Von der ursprünglichen gebenden Liebe der Mutter zu ihrem Kind, sozusagen der geldfreien Urerfahrung jedes Menschen, die Genevieve Vaughan als Ausgangspunkt verschiedenster kultureller Praktiken rekonstruiert, über die Ethnographien von Schenkökonomien, Potlach-Ritualen, Stammes-, Hof- und Dorfgemeinschaften, wie sie zum Beispiel die Bielefelder Subsistenzforschung (Mies, Bennholdt-Thomsen, Werlhof) vorgelegt hat, über die Entdeckung von durchaus gewaltigen geldfreien bedürfnis- oder zielorientierten Beziehungsnetzen innerhalb von Orden, Gilden, Organisationen, Unternehmungen, hin zu intentionalen Gemeinschaften wie den Reduktionen der Jesuiten in Paraguay, den israelischen Kibuzzim und vielen anderen: eine Unmenge an Belegen läßt zweifeln an dieser behaupteten Universalität des Geldes. Moderne Entwicklungen wie die freie Softwareentwicklung oder die wachsende Bedeutung des Freiwilligensektors ergänzen diesen Befund.

Doch bleibt die Demonetarisierungsdebatte nicht beim Konstatieren und Verbinden von Fakten stehen. Sie fragt, wieso diese geldfreien Beziehungen vom Geld als “offiziellen” Medium der  Kommunikation umhüllt, überlagert, durchsetzt, infiltiltriert werden konnten und können. Sie fragt weiters, welcher Leistung es bedürfe, um ein geldfreies System der Arbeiten und Bedürfnisse ins Recht und in die Wirklichkeit zu bringen.

Diese Debatte um und das Ringen um geldfreie Gesellschaften ist ja an sich keineswegs neu; im Urchristentum ist sie genauso zu finden wie in linken Strömungen der organisierten Arbeiterbewegung, im Anarchismus, Maoismus, Trotzkismus, bei Che Guevara: und dennoch erschien der Anspruch auf eine grundsätzliche Kritik des Geldes noch vor wenigen Jahren ein absolut toter Hund zu sein.Vielleicht auch deswegen: weil Geldfreiheit mit Unterordnung unter ein moralisches Diktat verstanden wurde. Schon Danton wusste, dass die Währung der Moral das Blut ist. Die  elementare Abscheu davor hat die Geldgesellschaft in einer Art sekundären Moral lange zusammengehalten, getragen von der irrigen Annahme, dass mit Geld jeder nach seiner Facon selig werden könne und niemanden anderen um Erlaubnis fragen müsse.

Mit der Krise von 2008 entstand grundsätzliches Mißtrauen gegen die bisher sakrosante Welt des Geldes. Eine Ahnung geht um, dass nicht die Gier einzelner Menschen “schuld” ist am Zusammenbruch bisher noch als in obigem Sinn rational empfundener Verhältnisse, sondern dass es gerade die sachgemäße Entwicklung der Logik des Geldes selber ist, die zur massenhaften und unseligen Vernichtung von Reichtum und Lebenschancen führt. Diese Logik funktionierte nur mehr durch Simulation, durch Aufrechterhaltung eines an sich schon nicht mehr lebens- und existenzfähigen Zustandes. Das Mittel der Simulation war und ist die Verschuldung, die Erzeugung von Geld aus Nichts beziehungsweise aus dem vagen Versprechen, dass die Schaffung von Geld zur massenhaften Entstehung von geldwertigem Reichtum führt. An diesem Versprechen und am Versuch es praktisch wahr zu machen droht unsere Welt gerade zugrunde zu gehen. Längst reicht unser Planet dafür nicht aus, und aus den Schuldnern werden nicht nur Verlierer und Gewinner, sondern der Glaube dass das ganze Spiel noch zu einem sinnvollen Resultat führen könnte bricht ausweglos zusammen. Wir können beobachten wie das Geld mit ungeheurer Wucht Privatmacht erzeugt, die sogar die bisherigen Herrscher der Welt, die Staaten, auf immer mehr Gebieten herausfordert. Zugleich sind die Werke dieser Privatmacht so wenig durchdacht, so unkoordiniert, so redundant, so lückenhaft, so chaotisch, so aggresiv, so verschwenderisch, dass aller realer Reichtum, alles kulturelle Erbe, alle Zukunft darin verbrannt werden und für wenige Spektakel eine ganze Welt draufgehen muss – wahrscheinlich auch buchstäblich an Überhitzung.

Ja, und deswegen ist die Frage nach der Welt ohne Geld keine esoterische Fragestellung mehr. Immer mehr Menschen beginnen sich zur Notwendigkeit, dieser verrückten Ökonomie ihren Nervus rerum zu ziehen, ihre fundamentale Macht zu brechen, zu bekennen. Längst ist auch der prekäre Zusammenhang von Staat und Geld klar geworden. Das Politische, die scheinbar andere Seite der freien Willkür, hat sich nur auf der Grundlage des Geldsystems halten und entwickeln können. Jetzt wo das Geldsystem zusammenbricht steht auch der Kaiser ohne Kleider da. Die Finanzkrise des Staates ist zur Krise des Politischen selbst geworden, und alle Antworten in dessen Rahmen sind selbst nur mehr prekär und scheinhaft, weil sie immer von der Annahme dass Geld für die Wohltaten des Staates vorhanden sein muss ausgehen. Die Grundeinkommensdebatte macht hier keine Ausnahme, sie ist einerseits das letzte Opium der Geldsubjekte, aber markiert andereseits auch einen Wendepunkt, indem sie auch schon auf ein Jenseits der Geldbeziehung schaut. Wenn man sich aber auch aus dieser illusionären Vorstellung heraushalten will, bleibt einem aber nichts anderes übrig als das Geld direkt infrage zu stellen.

Diese grundsätzliche Infragestellung der Geldlogik  ist aber wie gesagt schwierig, weil sie uns aufnötigt aus all dem was unsere Existenz heute ausmacht theoretisch wie praktisch auszusteigen. Ausgangspunkt ist unter anderem die Feststellung, dass das Geld  vom einzelnen Menschen gerade nicht aufgehoben werden kann, auch wenn es spannende Experimente gibt geldfrei zu leben. Zu dicht ist das Netz der Abhängigkeiten das um uns gewebt ist, zu wenig haben wir zu geben, auch wenn wir zumindest ab und zu noch einen Schlafplatz für Couchsurfer zur Verfügung stellen können. Spätestens beim Frühstück sind wir dann wieder von einer ganzen Welt von Ware-Geld-Relationen abhängig. Davon dürfen wir uns nicht beirren lassen. Der Gedanke muss sich herausnehmen, nach dem Grund zu fragen, auch wenn uns das kein Geld einbringt. Und nur wenn  wir die Gesetze des Geldes durchschauen, können wir an eine wirkliche Aufhebung denken. Siese hat freilich mindestens vier Dimensionen.

Demonetarisierung als Theorie…

Die erste ist die Erklärung des Geldschleiers. Was ist das eigentlich für ein Kommunikationsmittel, das eindimensional immer nur eines kommuniziert: ich bin so viel, eine Zahl, ein rein quantitativer Ausdruck. und zwar von allem. Ist das nicht extrem verrückt? Die Antwort gibt die Theorie. Weit davon entfernt, ein neutrales Schmiermittel der Ökonomie zu sein, ist das Geld durch seine universell quantifizierende und inhaltsleere Natur nichts anderes als die Form des Wertes: selbstzweckhafter Produktion von Zugriffsmacht auf gesellschaftlichen Reichtum. Geld kann niemals vernünftige Produktion steuern, es ist das Spiegelbild einer für Herrschaftszwecke eingerichteten Welt und von untereinander unkoordinierten Akteuren. Nur deswegen ujnd nur dafür taugt ein “Kommunikationsmittel”, das nichts kommuniziert.

Die nächste Dimension bildet die Frage nach der Funktionsweise von geldfreien Gesellschaften — durch ein Denken das sich die Freiheit nimmt utopisch und visionär  zu sein und daher auch die Bedingungen präzis anzugeben vermag, die die Weiterentwicklung der Gesellschaft braucht.

Eine dritte Dimension besteht darin, die Triebkräfte und Energien zu indentifizieren, die im Bestehenden schon vorhanden sind, um das Geld überflüssig zu machen.

Und erst  eine vierte Dimension umfasst die praktische Kunst, diese Triebkräfte zu aktivieren und zu verbinden um wirkliche Veränderung herbeizuführen.

Die erste breite und weltweite theoretische Artikulation eines neuen radikalen Demonetarisierungsbewusstseins wird markiert durch den Film “Zeitgeist – Moving Forward” des amerikanischen Filmemachers Peter Joseph, der seine Darstellung einer durch Geschäft und Gewalt malträtierten Welt in eine globale Revolte umkippen lässt, die sich spontan durch Wegwerfen von Geld artikuliert. Freilich steht zunächst ein recht fragwürdiges Bild einer geldfreien Gesellschaft bei dieser Wunschvorstellung Pate: die technokratischen Visionen von Jacques Fresco, der ein mit allen notwendigen Daten gefüttertes Elektronengehirn die Bedürfnisse und Ressourcen ein- und zuteilen lässt. Alle haben angegeben was sie brauchen und wieviel sie freiwillig beitragen wollen, der Computer berechnet die optimale Verwendung der Ressourcen und los gehts.

…und als Praxis

Hier aber beginnen schon die Debatten. Wo beginnt die Freiwilligkeit? Was ist, wenn sich Bedürfnisse und Ressourcen nicht ausgehen? Hat nicht jeder andere Vorstellungen von der Welt in der er leben will?

Offensichtlich ist der Diskurs auf diese Weise nicht zu führen. Demonetarisierung kann nicht vorgestellt werden als ein Zustand, den man vielleicht noch mit mathematischen Formeln beschreiben kann. Vielmehr ist Demonetarisierung verbunden mit der durchaus schmerzhaften (gleichzeitig furchterregenden und befreienden) Erkenntnis, dass eine Ablösung von Geld als Träger der Vermittlung menschlicher Kommandogewalt über fremde Arbeit nur zu haben ist, wenn aus dem wortlosen Kommando ein wirklicher Kommunikationsprozess geworden ist.

Mit anderen Worten: nur durch die Einübung und das Wiedererlernen einer Betrachtungsweise, in der die eigene Reproduktion, das eigene Bedürfnis im Kontext eines positiven Bezugs zu den Bedürfnissen anderer steht, ist Demonetarisierung zwischen Menschen denkbar. Nur wenn Ihnen ihr wirklicher Austauschprozess (nicht das Tauschen von Äquivalenten!) zu ihrem wahren Lebensprozess, zu ihrem wirklichen Bewusstsein geworden ist, können sie sich des Fetischs Geld entledigen. Das wird in verschiedenen Größenordnungen verschieden zu bewältigen sein.

Aber es gilt: Wer dem Geld adé sagen will, der verabschiedet sich auch von einer gewissen Bequemlichkeit und Gleichgültigkeit. Dies wird ein langer Prozess sein, und er wird nicht an einem, sondern an verschiedensten Orten gleichzeitig beginnen. Vielleicht beginnt er auch mit “Inseln der Demonetarisierung”, mit wiederenstehenden Solidargemeinschaften die sich in einem “Innen-Außen-Verhältnis” zur Welt definieren.

Wir hören wieder Ausdrücke wie “Stamm” und “Phyle”. Aber diesmal hat Demonetarisierung keinen moralischen Beigeschmack mehr: diese “Inseln” wissen, dass sie keine Inseln bleiben dürfen, dass jeglicher “lokaler Kommunismus” immer wieder von der Macht des Geldes vernichtet worden ist. Nun hat es nie in der Geschichte eine derart dichte Kommunikationsbasis gegeben, die den Fortschritt der einen sofort zum Fortschritt aller machen kann. Nie in der Geschichte sind Menschen aller Kulturen in der Lage gewesen, sich über theoretische und materielle Aufgaben so rasch zu verständigen, sich zu informieren und zu organisieren.Auf dieser Grundlage können sie sich zur Aufgabe setzen, die einzig wahre Existenzbedingung einer geldfreien Gesellschaft herzustellen: ein globales Aggregat aus Angeboten die in Quantität und Qualität, in Originalität und Diversität die Welt des spektakulären und illusorischen Reichtums übertrifft, der als Ergänzung zu  offener Repression das Begehren der funktionalen und funktionslosen Massen zu kontrollieren und zu kanalisieren versucht.

Die Antwort liegt also in der Mobilisierung globaler Wissenskooperatiion ebenso wie in der Bewahrung und Vervielfältigung kultureller Eigenarten; in der Entwicklung kooperativer Kreislaufschlüsse auf  regionaler, kontinentaler und globaler Ebene ebenso wie im Erzielen von neuen Graden der (lokalen) stofflichen Autarkie. Vielleicht ist das beste das wir sagen können, dass es in der Natur kein Geld gibt – und dass wir immer mehr bemerken, dass wir von dem grandiosen Zusammenspiel der Prozesse, der endlosen Zahl von Nischen und Besonderungen, der Biotope und Vernetzungen, der genialsten Technologien und der verschwenderischsten Reichtümer und Schönheiten in der Welt vor dem Menschen – dass wir davon unendlich viel lernen und es noch viel besser machen können.

Peercommony Reconsidered

[This is part of an debate regarding parecon and peercommony between Michael Albert and me. It is a repy to Michael Albert's Considering Peercommony. All articles can be found on the debate overview page – more will follow.]

Michael formulates various concerns and objections, many of whom are not new to me. I can’t address all of them fully, for lack of space and because many seem to ask for a blueprint of a future, non-capitalist society, which is not something I can or want to give. The meta-rule of all peer/commons-based institutions is that “you have to find your own rules.” Any successful peer project has a history of trial and error. Finding solutions that work for you is an essential part of the game.

But while I cannot describe the exact institutional mechanisms Michael asks me to describe, I’ll give my reasons why I think that people will be able to find and implement them.

Labor as a Problem

Both in parecon and Michael’s objections, the distribution of labor is treated as a big, worrisome problem. How to ensure that all the necessary labor is done? Interestingly, the worries of people who have a good understanding of technology, but lack a critical understanding of capitalism, are usually the opposite. They worry about the rapid disappearance of labor, especially the kind of labor that is “disempowering, … rote and repetitive,” in Michael’s words. I’m involved in the RepRap 3D-printer project, one of the biggest open hardware projects. One topic frequently discussed among the participants is the disappearance of “blue-collar,” physically challenging work, with people worrying about what will become of those that lack the necessary skills to succeed at “white-collar,” non-manual work. Authors like Federico Pistono (“Robots will steal your job, but that’s OK”) are beginning to understand that the ideological notion “Everybody has to work for a living” no longer makes sense. (Though they don’t understand that that notion is at the heart of capitalist ideology and that it didn’t even exist before.)

So, part of my response to Michael’s inquiry about “the institutions that would lead toward diminishing intrinsically unrewarding labor” is that these institutions are already in place. Almost every innovation in capitalism is about reducing labor. True, capitalists don’t care about whether it is rewarding or not, but usually the “rote and repetitive” labor is easiest to automate. Two objections are obvious: First, there are still tons of rote and repetitive labor, much of which has migrated to China and other Asian countries. Second, what will happen after capitalism? Won’t people lose the will or ability to innovate if the capitalist reason for innovation (more profits!) no longer exists?

But before addressing these objections, I would like to come back to Michael’s term “intrinsically unrewarding labor,” since I suspect there is something intrinsically wrong with it. It suggests that labor, or work (I prefer the latter term when not talking specifically about capitalism) must be “intrinsically rewarding” or else people will never do it voluntarily, without coercion or compensation. “Intrinsic” seems to indicate that the task must be rewarding (satisfying, enjoyable, fun, instructive) in itself, regardless of whether or not it it useful for others. But that misses important aspects of what motivates people, since these factors are not everything.

Nobody enjoys working for the wastebasket; almost everybody enjoys feeling needed, feeling appreciated, knowing that one did something useful. Hence the notion that people, unless convinced by “extrinsic” payment, only do things that they “intrinsically” enjoy without taking the needs of others into account, misses the point. Being useful to others is part of what makes tasks enjoyable.

Back to the point of China and Bangladesh, and all the “rote and repetitive” labor that is still an essential part of capitalism. Can we expect that all that labor will be taken over by volunteers who aren’t forced by the need to earn money? Certainly not, but I don’t think the lack of payment is the problem. The actual problem is any kind of work that nobody does unless forced or paid. I don’t think that humanity can get rid of capitalism without getting rid of (at least) most such work.

Does that mean that overcoming capitalism has to remain a pipe dream? Not at all, but it means that reasoning about abstract institutions is not enough. Overcoming capitalism implies overcoming the often rote, boring, or annoying labor that makes it real. How can we produce an encyclopedia without having to pay people to do it? Wikipedia has solved that problem. How can we produce computers or clothes, without having to pay people? We don’t know yet, but we – humanity – will have to find out.

Indeed I suppose that much of this labor will be “stolen by robots” still during the reign of capitalism. Today, it’s mainly a convenience decision whether to employ low-cost labor or whether to utilize machines, and if and when the costs for international shipping raise again (say due to Peak Oil), automation becomes more attractive.

And after capitalism? Won’t the rate of innovation become much slower if market pressures are removed? I suppose it might well become slower overall, since the reduction of human labor will no longer be a general goal, as it is in capitalism. For work which is not a problem – work which enough people do willingly –, there will be no reason to reduce it.

But tasks that don’t attract enough volunteers are a different matter. Here everybody who wants those things done, but doesn’t want to do them themselves, will be interested in figuring out automatic solutions. Or in finding ways of re-organizing them to make them more attractive for yourself, or for others. It is exactly the lack of an “easy way out” – of a huge number of people who desperately need to earn money and therefore accept almost any job – that will be the driving force for further automation and for the re-organization of work to make it more enjoyable and rewarding.

While Michael and many others see work as the big problem, I don’t, for three reasons:

1. There are enough people, about 7 billion according to latest statistics. Most of these people enjoy working, enjoying doing something useful for others – not permanently, not 40 or more hours per week, but certainly from time to time.
2. There is not that much to do. “Unemployment,” the lack of work for people who want or (more exactly) have to work, is one of the biggest problems today, as any politician will confirm. Moreover, most of the work done today will be unnecessary after capitalism. Much is just overhead of the market and property system – advertisement, banking, most market research, most police work, many state institutions, armies, weapons production. Much of the remaining work stems from the fact that production takes place in private firms who cannot, or don’t want to, re-use the results of the work done in other firms. In peercommony, building upon the works of others is commonplace and such duplicate effort is unnecessary. Moreover, much of the work formerly done by people has already been taken over by machines, and for even more that should be possible.
3. People’s interests about what they like to do and their skills and talents about what they are good at (or can learn) vary a lot. Stigmergy, the hint-based task distribution mechanism of peer production, is about bringing together the various tasks that need doing with the manifold preferences of what people enjoy doing.

Making Your Own Rules

Some of Michael’s concerns are rather strange:

Consider a workplace. Its workers establish a schedule by operating as a self managing collective…. they … establish a norm of five hours of work for each participant. Joe says, screw that, I want to work seven hours (or three hours)

Why should anyone mind if others work a bit shorter, or longer? Even modern capitalism isn’t very strict about that. Part-time work is accepted in many companies, and few companies will object to their employees doing unpaid overtime.

I can think of scenarios where the collective would indeed be unwilling to accept certain behaviors. If Joe came for just one or two hours each day, merely played around with the equipment, and never did any useful work, they would probably say: “Stop that. Either help us here or spend your time elsewhere.” On the other hand, if he spent twelve hours in the workplace, every day, they might suggest him to relax and do less, out of fear for his health or his life beyond work. But if he contributes in a useful way, why should anyone mind if he stays a bit longer or leaves early?

[Joe continues] and I want to work late at night so the rest of you have to turn on the lights for me when no one else is here and you have to get by without me when I choose to be elsewhere.

Just leaving the lights on for some hours doesn’t seem a reason for concern, though the situation could be different if they had highly specialized machinery that uses lots of electricity. Finding times for joint meetings, when necessary, is a different matter. The people running a workplace make their own rules and will expect anyone who joins to accept the rules (though they can certainly try to change them, too).

Does being peers imply that the collective cannot say to Joe, “no, working here conveys certain responsibilities, and if you don’t want to abide them, that’s fine, but in that case you can work somewhere else?”

Of course they can. It’s part of what being peers is about. If they weren’t peers, only the bosses would make the rules.

Self-selection and Trust

Another strange idea Michael seems to have gotten is that self-selection means everybody can act out their own desires, regardless of others. That’s not how it works. Voluntary self-selection means that others cannot force me to do something specific, but also that I cannot force them to accept my contributions.

Suppose I want to play shortstop for the local ball team…. I go down and announce my desire and trot out to play.

Becoming part of a team means being accepted by the team. Nobody can force you to play baseball, but neither can you force anyone to play it with you. Non-coercion goes both ways.

Suppose I decided to contribute as a doctor. I enjoy it, and feel it is useful to me, but it would do immense harm to others.

How could it? To be accepted as a doctor, just as for any other task, you have to prove to people that you know what you’re doing, that you deserve their trust. As Michael Bauwens says, peer production is “anti-credentialist,” so you’ll probably do that in a somewhat different way from today. Not by studying for several years and then receiving a degree that certifies you’re worthy. More likely, you’ll be able to gain that trust in a more “hands-on” fashion. You might become a volunteer of a hospital or another already trusted institution, where you’ll learn and improve your skills under the careful supervision of more experienced participants who’ll ensure you can’t do damage.

Stigmergy and Social Self-organization

Michael asks:

How do I know other’s needs, including people who consume my product, produce what I use in my work, or produce what I consume at home? How do I know if I ought to produce item x? … Siefkes … says “participants leave hints … about started or desired activities, encouraging others to follow these hints and take care of the desired tasks.” … Maybe this can work … for some relatively unimportant undertakings whose timeline is entirely flexible being done by people with independent income.

Only somebody who hasn’t much to do with computing would call Linux “relatively unimportant.” Also, free software projects such as Debian, the most influential, almost entirely community-managed Linux distribution, have to adhere to very strict timelines at least in certain regards. Whenever bugs, especially security-critical ones, occur, they must be fixed quickly or the software will fall in disrepute. They manage quite well. Many people prefer free software because they consider it more secure and bug-free than proprietary alternatives, and quantitative studies support this (cf. Wheeler, Delio).

But for harvesting corn? For smelting steel? For flying airplanes and tracking them, for keeping a hospital clean? All in unison. All with inputs and outputs matching up properly?

Stigmergy, the leaving and following of hints, and the voluntary self-selection of people, is indeed at the heart of peer production. I suspect that this is often wrongly perceived as being entirely noncommittal and just following the “pleasure principle” – today I do this, tomorrow that, starting, abandoning, and interrupting activities at will without caring about other’s need.

There is a piece of truth in that since peer production makes it indeed easy to pursue different interests and engage in manifold activities. But otherwise this notion is very misleading, since it ignores the social coordination and organization which peer production entails. Part of the peer philosophy is “passing the baton”: if you start something, you should either finish it or else try to find someone who takes it over:

When you lose interest in a [task], your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor. (Eric Raymond)

People run hospitals and fly airplanes today, why shouldn’t they do so in peercommony? Does Michael believe that the fear of losing one’s job and income is the only thing that motivates people today, and that a society without such fear would never work? In peercommony as in capitalism there are consequences if you don’t do the things you agreed to do. I could respond that peer producers might still be motivated by fear: not of losing your income, but of losing the respect of your peers if you don’t live up to your (voluntary) commitments, of losing coworkers and maybe friends if you have to withdraw from a project.

But I don’t believe that fear is a necessary motivator, or a good one. There are other reasons why people engage, why they enter and fulfill commitments, why they write software and encyclopedia articles and why they will run hospitals and fly airplanes if given the opportunity. I have discussed these reasons before and won’t repeat them here.

How will peer projects providing e.g. health care, transportation, housing, or food, look like and work? They will be self-organized by people who come together to provide these goods, because they consider them important or because it’s an area of engagement they like. Their goal will be to provide goods to those who need them, not to make a profit or earn money (meaningless notions in a peercommony). But saying much more is hardly possible today, since finding the rules and organizational arrangements of successful peer projects is a trial and error process. Nobody could have predicted in advance how the Wikipedia works. Even its founders’ original ideas turned out to be quite wrong. Only by being flexible about them, by constantly modifying them in ways that made the Wikipedia more attractive for contributors and also readers, were they able to make it a success.

Fairness Without Money

The idea that peercommony doesn’t use money to couple consumption to work seems to worry Michael:

If no one has a social responsibility to do a fair share of work to receive a fair share of social product, then … peercommony is saying, please do less than a fair share of work and take more than a fair share of stuff.

Implicit here is the notion that work is bad and to be avoided, while consumption is good and to be maximized. But I doubt that most people would decide to consume excessively and work very little. Maybe they would if work were generally considered a burden, as in capitalism and, apparently, in parecon. But peer production is about organizing work (useful activities) in ways that make it enjoyable, interesting, and fulfilling – which doesn’t mean it cannot be hard, sweaty, and occasionally annoying, too. If work is organized in such a way, the notion of “sharing it fairly” stops making much sense. If it is a normal and enjoyable part of life, why should one complain about somebody who works less, or more, than the average? As long as everyone is satisfied with what they’re doing, there is no problem. Whenever that’s not the case, it’s a problem that should be addressed, but it’s a qualitative, not a quantitative problem.

Fair sharing of stuff, or consumption, is another issue, since the Earth’s resources are limited. This can be measured by the ecological footprint. These days, the average footprint of humanity is 50% higher than what’s sustainable – 2.7 global hectares per person, while only 1.8 are available. The average footprint in highly industrialized countries is even higher – about 5 hectares in Western Europe, 8 hectares in the US.

For people from these countries, a radical reduction of their footprint is necessary for a sustainable and fair world. But why tie people’s consumption, and hence their footprint, to how much they work? Why should a person that works 50% longer than typical (maybe because they like what they’re doing) have a footprint 50% above the sustainable average? That doesn’t make sense.

Maybe another kind of accounting system is needed to ensure that everybody’s footprint stays within fair limits? If so, it couldn’t be based on money and work, but would rather measure the eco-footprint of all the goods they use. I don’t preclude that possibility but I suppose it would be difficult to organize in a fair manner. There are reasons such as illness that can cause a person’s footprint to go above the global average and shouldn’t be held against them. Rather than imposing a strict footprint limit, a hint-based system might be a better solution. It would inform people whether their personal footprint is below or above the fair average, thus guiding (but not forcing) their decisions.

While a drastic reduction of their footprint is required for people in the Western world, I doubt it would mean a drastic reduction of quality of life. US Americans have a footprint 60% higher than in Europe, but hardly an European would believe that the quality of life in the US is 60% higher. And capitalism is an extremely wasteful system – many of the produced things are never sold or hardly used, things are designed to break early and to instill follow-up needs, and production methods are often unnecessarily wasteful (regarding resource usage, not monetary cost). Overcoming capitalism and its wasteful patterns should allow a large reduction of footprint without forcing anybody to abstain from goods they really like.

Die doppelten Commons

Die Struktur der Commons illustriere ich gerne mit der nebenstehenden Grafik. In anderen Darstellungen geht es nicht um Commoning und Produkte, sondern das Commoning wird aufgetrennt in seine Aspekte Gemeinschaft und Regeln, während die Produkte sowie der (hier rote) rückbezügliche Pfeil zu den Ressourcen fehlen.

Ich fand die Wiederentdeckung der Fähigkeit von Gemeinschaften, sich jenseits von Markt und Staat eigenständig Regeln zu geben, immer verständlich, meinte aber auch früher schon, dass die notwendige Betonung des sozialen Aspekts nicht zu Lasten der Tatsache gehen dürfe, dass aus all dem Commoning auch immer »was heraus kommt«.

Inzwischen denke ich, dass hinter der unterschiedlichen Weise der Illustration tatsächlich eine inhaltliche Differenz steckt. Diese Differenz bezieht sich jedoch nicht auf divergente Commons-Theorien, sondern auf unterschiedliche Commons und zwar auf den realen Unterschied von alten und neuen Commons. Ausgedrückt in  Formeln sieht das so aus:

• Alte Commons = Ressourcen + Gemeinschaft + Regeln
• Neue Commons = Ressourcen + Commoning + Produkte

Alte oder traditionelle Commons beziehen sich vorwiegend auf vorfindliche natürliche Ressourcen, also auf Wasser, Wälder, Wiesen, Landschaften usw., sofern für diese Ressourcen ein in der Regel lokales Commoning existiert (die Atmosphäre gehört daher nicht dazu: ein globales Commoning existiert nicht). Sicherlich gibt es auch Aktivitäten der Neuschöpfung und Weiterentwicklung, doch sind solche Aktivitäten stets dem Ziel der Erhaltung existierender Ressourcen untergeordnet. Insgesamt sind traditionelle Commons ressourcen- und erhaltungsbezogen.

Mit neuen (engl.: »emerging«) Commons sind in der Regel solche Projekte gemeint wie Wikipedia, Freie Software, Open Design, Open Hardware usw. — also nichts, was wir vorfinden, sondern etwas, das wir neu schöpfen. Bestandteil von Neuschöpfung und Weiterentwicklung ist dabei als untergeordneter Aspekt immer auch die Erhaltung des bisher Geschöpften. Insgesamt sind neue Commons produkt- und entwicklungsbezogen.

Die Differenz von alten und neuen Commons wird deutlich, wenn wir uns nochmals die Gütersystematik vor Augen führen (siehe untere Abbildung). Dort ist eine der fünf Dimensionen die der Ressourcen, die unterschieden werden in solche, die wir vorfinden (»natürlich«) und solche, die wir herstellen. Der Begriff »natürlich« kann hierbei nur als Näherung verstanden werden, da es »natürliche« im Sinne von »unberührten« Dingen auf der Erdoberfläche kaum noch gibt (höchstens darunter).

Vorfindlichkeit ist gleichwohl ein fließender Begriff, denn inzwischen wachsen Generationen heran, die etwa Freie Software »vorfinden«, während die natürlichen Ressourcen oft ebenfalls Resultat langandauernden Einwirkens und Gestaltens durch Menschen waren. Dennoch ist der Unterschied intuitiv klar: Bei traditionellen Commons sind Natur-Ressourcen selbst Gegenstand des Commoning (Erhaltung, Pflege, begrenzte Nutzung), während bei neuen Commons Ressourcen stets Ausgangspunkt für die Neuschöpfungen und Weiterentwicklungen sind. Dabei erweitert sich der Ressourcen-Begriff auf alles, was für diese Entwicklungen benutzt wird: also nicht nur Natur-Ressourcen, sondern ebenso Vorprodukte, Wissen, Fertigkeiten, Produktionsmittel usw.

Eine Zwischenposition — das wird hier nicht vertieft diskutiert, aber dennoch erwähnt –  nehmen »soziale Commons« (eigentlich ein Doppelmoppel) ein, also solche, bei denen es um »unmittelbar soziale« Aktivitäten geht wie etwa die Pflege von jüngeren, älteren oder anderweitig unterstützungsbedürftigen Personen (engl.: »Caring«). Sofern es ein Commoning gibt (klar: kommerzielle Verwahrstätten gehören nicht dazu), handelt es sich um Commons, bei denen Schöpfung und Erhaltung in eins fallen.

Mal wieder ein paar Formeln zum Verhältnis von Produktion (Neuschöpfung/Weiterentwicklung) und Reproduktion (Erhaltung), wobei der Pfeil die Bedeutung von »ist Aspekt von« hat:

• Alte Commons: Produktion => Reproduktion
• Neue Commons: Reproduktion => Produktion
• Soziale Commons: Reproduktion => Reproduktion

Sicherlich ist die (Sphären-) Spaltung von Reproduktion und Produktion ein Resultat kapitalistischer Entwicklung und nicht ewig und natürlicherweise die notwendige Art und Weise, die Lebensbedingungen der Menschen herzustellen und zu erhalten. Doch davon müssen wir zunächst ausgehen, sollten aber die Perspektive der Überwindung der Sphärenspaltung nicht aus dem Blick verlieren.

Dies alles so überlegt wird mir klar, warum es zwischen den »alten« und »neuen« Commoners so oft ein Unverständnis der jeweils anderen »Seite« gibt. Es handelt sich schlicht um eine reale inhaltliche Differenz, hinter der unterschiedliche Commons mit unterschiedlichen Praktiken stehen. Diese Differenz sollte nicht kaschiert, sondern offen thematisiert und möglichst begriffen werden. Dieser Artikel ist ein Vorschlag dazu.

Eine reale Aufhebung der Differenz von alten und neuen Commons wird erst jenseits des Kapitalismus möglich sein, da die kapitalistische Verwertungslogik den Unterschied von Produktion und Reproduktion erst als Gegensatz erzeugt und schließlich in (geschlechtlich, d.h. sexistisch strukturierte) Sphären geschoben hat.

Erst mit dem Aufkommen der neuen Commons ist die Perspektive der Aufhebung denk- und machbar geworden. Entscheidende neue Qualität, die die neuen Commons ins Spiel gebracht haben, ist die Vernetzbarkeit. In der obersten Grafik wird das durch den roten selbstbezüglichen Pfeil von den Produkten zu den Ressourcen veranschaulicht. Selbstbezüglich heißt hier nicht, dass es die gleichen lokalen Commons sein müssen, die eigene von ihnen geschöpfte Produkte als Ressource nutzen, sondern es können potenziell alle Commons sein.

Damit ist eine allgemeine Vernetzbarkeit aller Commons gegeben — ein Element, dass bei den traditionellen Commons so nicht vorhanden war. Sie konnten sich immer nur auf sich selbst im Sinne gleicher (Natur-) Ressourcen beziehen, was die Bildung von Meta-Commons (Commons von Commons in polyzentrischen Systemen) keineswegs ausschloß. Doch eine universelle Vernetzbarkeit und damit gesellschaftliche Verallgemeinerbarkeit ist erst auf Grundlage der neuen Commons möglich. Nun erst ist es möglich, an eine commonsbasierte Aufhebung der Warenproduktion zu denken.

Nebenbei gesagt widerspreche ich damit auch Vorstellungen, die von einem gleichsam beliebigen Ausstieg aus dem Kapitalismus oder von einem »Überspringen« der kapitalistischen Entwicklungsphase etwa auf Grundlage der unter feudalen Verhältnissen historisch gewachsenen Commons ausgehen. Erst die kapitalistische Entwicklung ermöglichte die Entstehung und Entfaltung der neuen Commons — technologisch wie auch sozial.

Das klingt sehr nach alten Über- und Unterordnungsverhältnissen. Dem ist aber nicht so. Aus meiner Sicht hat die Revitalisierung der Commons insgesamt mit der doppelten Krise des Kapitalismus zu tun: Die Warenproduktion ist immer weniger (bis drohend gar nicht mehr im Falle eines großen Crashes) in der Lage, die Lebensbedingungen der Menschen zu sichern, wobei sie gleichzeitig die natürlichen Lebensgrundlagen immer »effizienter« ruiniert. Auf diese doppelte Krise geben die doppelten Commons eine doppelte Antwort, sozial wie ökologisch — potenziell zumindest –, indem sie im Kern (=Keimform) eine neue Produktionsweise verkörpern.

Die »alten Commoners« bringen ihre Erfahrungen bei der Erhaltung natürlicher Ressourcensysteme ein. Darauf können sie sich aber nicht ausruhen. Sie müssen neues hinzu lernen, das durch die neuen Commons in die Welt gekommen ist und die Chancen auch für »ihre« Commons erkennen. Die »neuen Commoners« hingegen bringen aus der kapitalistischen Kernlogik oftmals einen Produktivismus mit, der leicht natürliche Grenzen aus dem Auge verliert. Da müssen die »neuen Commoners« hinzulernen. Und alle zusammen müssen schließlich einsehen, dass dies nur jenseits der Warenproduktion geht. Das ist die aktualisierte Bedeutung des Slogans des »jenseits von Markt und Staat«.

Müssen? Ja, heraus führt kein Weg dran vorbei.

My Doubts About Parecon

[This is part of an debate regarding parecon and peercommony between Michael Albert and me. It is a repy to Michael Albert's Summarizing Participatory Economics. All articles can be found on the debate overview page – more will follow.]

While I like the goals of the Parecon, one thing that confuses me is that Parecon, while intended to overcome capitalism, still resembles it in an essential aspect. Society still revolves about paid labor: everybody is forced to work for money in order to be able to buy the things they need to live. Why is that so? Do we really must forever force people to work because otherwise they wouldn’t?

A typical proponent of capitalism would probably respond: “Yes, humans are just lazy bastards. Without coercion, nobody would work and humanity would perish.” Michael Albert argues a bit smarter, but essentially in the same way:

If we disconnect work and income, … people will typically choose to work too little for the social good to be optimally met, and people will choose to take too much for the system to even work because the available output will fall well short of available demands for income.

So, everybody it still a bit too lazy and a bit too greedy for society to work without coercion, it seems. But is that claim as self-evident as Albert puts it? Moreover, if the mismatch between “available output” and “available demands” was real, could Parecon avoid it? I doubt both points.

Regarding the latter point, it’s peculiar that Albert still talks about “income” when discussing a world where “people work as they choose” and “consume as they choose.” Clearly, when you aren’t paid for work and don’t have to pay to consume, the concepts of “income” and “money” lose all meaning. So there wouldn’t be “demands for income,” but “demands for goods” of many different kinds. The potential mismatch wouldn’t merely be quantitative (not enough income to satisfy demands), but qualitative: not enough goods of some kinds, too many goods of other kinds, goods with undesired properties or unsatisfactory quality of a third kind. Clearly, merely paying people for their work can’t resolve this qualitative mismatch. By continuing to think in the capitalist concept of “income” instead of in terms of social output or goods, the pareconish “solution” simply misses the essential point.

Parecon tries to address the qualitative mismatch by “participatory planning” where “workers and consumers councils present proposals and by continually refining them interactively cooperatively negotiate – self regulate – inputs and outputs.” While the sketched process seems quite formal and bureaucratic to me, I do agree that some such social processes for aligning production and consumption are necessary. But if they occur, while still keeping the additional crutch of money and payment? If negotiation processes about what should be produced in order to satisfy demands take place, they produces all kinds of specific signs about mismatches been production and consumption. They indicate not only whether more work is necessary, but also which kinds of work are lacking and of which there is already to much.

True, these signs alone don’t guarantee that people actually choose to engage in the requested kinds of tasks, but neither does a general “paid work” scheme, unless it is part of a fully fledged market for labor and goods, where those that produce unsalable goods or are unwilling or unable to engage in sought-after occupations are threatened by non-payment, social failure, and ultimately starvation. Albert rightly doesn’t want that, but if he doesn’t want a market he should be consistent and do away with the idea of payment as well. Neither concept makes sense without the other.

This becomes especially clear when we look at the other side of the pricing system, the prices of goods. Albert’s text doesn’t mention how they are determined. In capitalism, the prices charged for a good gravitate around its value, as analyzed by Karl Marx. The value of a good is the amount of labor necessary, on average and with the best generally available technology, to produce it. If a company uses outdated technology or employs workers that are slower or make more mistake, the value of the goods it produces still equals the value of the same goods produced elsewhere, hence it cannot expect to sell them for a higher price. If the workers are the problem, it can compensate by paying them less per hour or by firing them and recruiting others instead. Worker cooperatives in Parecon are not supposed to do that. Instead, “remuneration should reflect how long you work,” hence a slow worker still receives the same hourly payment as a fast one. But how would consumers react to that? Would they willingly pay a higher price to a cooperative that employs many slow workers instead of buying from another one that can offer the same goods cheaper because its workers are faster? I doubt it.

Without the averaging effect that results from the necessity for companies to compete with each other on the market (and likewise for laborers to compete on the labor market), the concept of “price” becomes meaningless. I don’t know if Albert hopes to do away with values and still keep prices, or if he hopes to do away with markets and still keep values, but neither reduction makes sense.

Generally Parecon seem to be designed to address effects caused by market forces, while at the same time claiming to overcome the market. But if the latter was true, then the former would no longer be an issue. This is most evident when Albert motivates “balanced job complexes.” He argues:

In coops and occupied workplaces, often, over time, initial excitement starts to dissipate. Most workers find themselves eventually skipping council meetings. Few people wind up deciding options. Income differentials enlarge. Alienation ensues…. To address this depressing situation, the third feature parecon offers is called balanced job complexes, wherein all jobs are “balanced” so they each have roughly the same overall empowerment effect.

People skip meetings and, therefore, income differences increase? In which way? Do some people get larger incomes because they no longer go to meetings and can therefore spend more time getting work done? Or do the other people that still go to meetings get larger incomes, maybe as a compensation for the ensuing boredom? Whichever way you turn it, the chain of causation seems at least implausible. Much more plausible is the simple reason that coops and occupied workplaces, like all market participants, exist in a situation of competition. They must compete against other producers in order to sell their products, and they must compete on the labor market in order to attract workers. This double competition makes it hard or impossible to keep up internal income equality.

If a coop’s general wage is high, its products will necessarily be more expensive than those of its competitors. If its general wage is low, it is unable to attract workers with special qualifications that can receive much higher salaries elsewhere. Either way, it’ll fail in the market as a result. The same catch applies to all factors where a coop tries to distinguish itself from its more traditionally structured competitors. If its behavior reduces cost, the competitors will copy it. But if (much more likely), it increases cost (e.g. a more relaxed working rhythm, more time spend in meetings, less overtime, fewer working hours in general, or longer paid vacations), it risks losing its competitiveness and going bankrupt. The unsurprising result is that, the longer a cooperative survives in the market, the harder it becomes to find significant differences to other companies.

Would it still make sense to force people into “balanced job complexes” if the leveling effect of the market did no longer exist? I don’t see why. Without a market and without a need for people to get and keep a job in order to “earn their living,” most people’s occupations would be much more varied than today anyway. To quote the famous, if a bit quaint, statement by Marx and Engels:

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. (The German Ideology, 1846)

But if I’m happy with hunting and criticizing, why force me to herd cattle as well? If all my passion goes to fishing, and society can use what I do, why shouldn’t people just let me do what I like most? Allowing and encouraging varied and multifarious occupations makes sense. Bureaucratizing this and forcing everybody to comply with it, doesn’t.

What, though, if nobody wants to fish and yet many people want to eat fish? Only in such cases, where there is a general mismatch between people’s summed productive preferences and their summed consumptive preferences, something has to give. Either those who want fish will have to do without, or they’ll have to find a solution that yields the fish. Such a solution would not even necessarily require anybody to fish. Maybe automated fish-raising and processing systems are feasible. That would still require people who construct and attend these systems. But now the task has already shifted a lot, and such a modified approach is likely to wake the interest of people who don’t care for traditional fishing.

For those generally unwanted tasks where neither automation nor re-organization is a realistic option, I have proposed collecting them in “task pools” and distributing them among all. This would mean that everybody who takes part in these pools (most likely, practically everybody) would spend some hours each week or month doing tasks they don’t really enjoy. However, since people’s preferences about what they like and what they don’t like doing are so varied, and because of the potentials of automation, re-organization, and just doing without certain things, I don’t think that would be a big or troublesome burden.

In general, I consider the “stigmergic” approach of people leaving hints about what they want to be done and others choosing to follow the hints they consider important, interesting, or fun, better than any existing or proposed alternative for bridging the gap between people’s productive and consumptive preferences. Most people enjoy doing things that are actually useful to others more than just working for the garbage can. And while most people enjoy leisure, few would feel entirely fulfilled by it. Most also enjoy being productive, doing things for others, at least from time to time.

Markets also bridge the gap, but only for those who can afford to pay, and at tremendous social costs. Mere payment for work, when not embedded in a real market mechanism, cannot bridge the gap. Bureaucratic approaches, as expressed by Parecon’s “balanced job complexes” and its iterative “participatory planning,” may bridge the gap to some degree, but the social costs, such as forcing everybody to engage in activities they don’t like (even if others would like them) and to spend a long time in planning meetings, seem unnecessarily high. Additionally there has never been a bureaucratic regime without the emergence of a specially privileged class of bureaucrats, and while Parecon tries to avoid that, it is far from clear that it would succeed.