12-12-29
12-12-29
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.
From: keimform.deComments
12-12-28
Non-market Land Trust
Austrian Andreas Exner — in the Demonetise It discussion list — asked us to promote a call for contributions to a a land trust (Bodenfreikauf) with non-market aims. He writes the following.We have set up now our weblog to gather three more contributions of 8.000 EUR each to buy arable land of about 1 ha in Styria with the following aims:We wish them the best of luck and look forward to providing updates of their progress.
1. to permanently decouple it from the market
2. to increase crisis resilience of participants through subsistence agriculture
3. to foster commons instead of the market
4. to contribute free food to society
The project is part of a larger range of initiatives, with the common aim to build a pool of surfaces dedicated to collective and egalitarian production.
This call for contributions explains our motivations and the current state of the project:
https://bodenfreikauf.wordpress.com/
Please distribute widely!
12-12-19
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.
From: keimform.deComments
12-12-18
Keimform is Going Mainstream
Federico Pistono at TEDxVienna: »Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That’s OK«
Ok, no critique of capitalism in its very notion, but on the right track. Quote:
Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your live.
– Confucius
From: keimform.deComments
12-12-16
Wellbeing versus wealth
Kirk Huffman was interviewed by Sean Dorney recently on ABC Radio National about the Alternative Indicators of Wellbeing in Melanesia Report, which attempts to convince 'economists that wellbeing, contentment, security of traditional land tenure, community relations are actually more important than money'.Dorney asked Huffman about some of the findings and impact of the report that came out a few months ago — when we had a post announcing the publication. Here are some more key quotes from the audio-interview and transcript available from the link above:
Traditional lifestyles or modified traditional lifestyles actually give an awful lot of security and contentment. They are not poor! This is the mistake that economists make. They think, 'Oh, they've got no money so they're poor.' That's wrong. The province in Vanuatu that's got the highest levels of contentment and satisfaction and everything is Torba Province right up in the far north which is the area of Vanuatu that receives the least of various glitterati things or the bling things from the modern world. And that's where the levels of contentment and happiness are actually the highest. It turns out that some of the most important things of course is land. Something like 92 per cent of people surveyed have access, traditional access to land in Vanuatu ...This news item, with its singular message about the weaknesses of a monetary framing of our future, can be contrasted with one from the Guardian (1 December), 'Gross national happiness in Bhutan: The big idea from a tiny state that could change the world', by Annie Kelly Thimphu, which reveals the contradictory and undermining forces of upholding 'happiness' without withdrawing support for production for trade and money, and monetary evaluations:
... The Alternative Indicators of Wellbeing in Melanesia Report is already available online in the French speaking world. The French economists - it's very interesting - French economists and French philosophers and thinkers picked up on it immediately. Absolutely immediately. And even though the report at the moment is only out in English it's available on French websites that deal with important philosophical questions. The French speaking world is living in the Age of Enlightenment sort of period where there's intense debate on philosophical questions of great importance. The English speaking world has lost that! The English speaking world is, sort of, unfortunately, become more concerned with just business, jobs and, you know, bling and various things like that.
Despite its focus on national wellbeing, Bhutan faces huge challenges. It remains one of the poorest nations on the planet. A quarter of its 800,000 people survive on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% live without electricity. It is struggling with a rise in violent crime, a growing gang culture and the pressures of rises in both population and global food prices.
It also faces an increasingly uncertain future. Bhutan's representatives at the Doha climate talks are warning that its gross national happiness model could crumble in the face of increasing environmental and social pressures and climatic change.
'The aim of staying below a global two-degree temperature increase being discussed here this week is not sufficient for us. We are a small nation, we have big challenges and we are trying our best, but we can't save our environment on our own,' says Thinley Namgyel, who heads Bhutan's climate change division. 'Bhutan is a mountainous country, highly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. We have a population that is highly dependent on the agricultural sector. We are banking on hydropower as the engine that will finance our development.'
12-12-15
Swapping and sharing
The Faulconbridge Crop and Swap in the lower Blue Mountains of NSW runs every second Saturday in the local community hall. Everyone arrives at 10 am and sets up what they have to swap. At 10.30 am exchanging starts and ends around noon. People take all kinds of things to swap, including:- vegetables, fruits and nuts that they've grown
- foods that they've cooked, such as baked goods and jam
- foods they've made, such as cheese
- fresh eggs from local chooks.
Sometimes similar events are held on an ad hoc basis in community gardens, our fruit and nut tree network promotes swaps theough an e-list and you can always leave garden produce to sell or give away at our 10/7 food coop in the upper mountains.
If you want to replicate the idea, may be start here. Or leave a comment about similar opportunities to swap.
In the upper Blue Mountains you will find book swaps in cafes and one at a local railway station, Leura (see photos).
A much larger version of the 'book club' exists in a central mall of Victoria's capital, Melbourne Central Station, amongst the glare of icons of over-consumption and the boppy music market researchers can prove make people buy more are massive old bookshelves where people leave and take books.
Also check out this inspiring video:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151279562307432
12-12-05
Postwachstum braucht Innovation
Am 18. November erschien ein Blogpost mit dem Titel “Postwachstums braucht Innovation” auf dem vom Wuppertal Institut betriebenen Blog “Postwachstum”. Thema war die Frage, wie sich die Gesellschaft vom Wirtschaftswachstum lösen kann. Die Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts “Save our Surface”, das … Continue reading
12-11-25
Das Geschenk als weibliches Prinzip – sein Gegensatz zum patriarchalen Kapitalismus
Genevieve Vaughan, 2000, überarbeitet 2012[1] Dieser Artikel versucht unsere Perspektive zum weiblichen Prinzip als der menschlichen Norm schlechthin zu verschieben. Dieser Perspektivenwechsel ergibt eine vom heutigen Blickwinkel sehr verschiedene Sicht auf Eckpfeiler vieler wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen, von der Ökonomie zur Linguistik, … Continue reading
12-11-22
News items
Three items of news follow.Vivir Bien has been developed to map resources for solidarity economies worldwide. 'Solidarity economies' include a wide range of non-monetary and monetary non-profit activities. The site seeks to map all kinds of commons, radical and change-directed initiatives — from experimental non-monetary activities through to sharing ideas — and threats to these kinds of resources. The idea is to inform the development of links and so contribute to achieve non-capitalist modes of living and producing.
A new video advocating a world without money — in French — can be seen here.
A transcription (also in French) is available here.
Mark Boyle — author of The Moneyless Man — has just put out The Moneyless Manifesto selling in a print edition and free online. The approach taken by Mark is very much individualistic voluntary simplicity, which non-market socialists regard as a secondary — insufficient — strategy for achieving a money-free world. Non-market socialists stress collective action and change stretching deep into the productive forces and dynamics of the ways we all live, i.e. both necessary and sufficient ways to achieve sustainable and fair economies where environmental and social values are the operating principles of production and exchange in society. At the same time there is much that Boyle advocates that we agree or sympathise with. See more details about both versions of The Moneyless Manifesto here.