Hello Brian, Mitchel and Vasilis, A very good exchange. I share your optimism. Now, as you say Brian, we can peer produce even many material goods with CNC machines and 3DPs, and even through a global cooperation. Actually, in automation software and design are main things, and they can be produced through a global cooperation and can be shared globally. So, Brian, you are right in this respect. Assume that we can also peer produce enough of solar energy. But We cannot peer produce land where we can grow food, build houses, though food and houses can be peer produced. We cannot either create raw materials. If people share knowledge, it means they share their labour, thus they must get free the sources of food, places for building, and raw materials too. This means that land with all its resources must be transformed into commons. I think making nature and land commons again is the ultimate frontier of peer production. But, land is already privatised, and the best parcels are owned by multi-nationals. How do we make land and nature commons? I see no other way than expropriating land owners. We need at least to expropriate the big land owners. Small landowners, I hope, may out of their own free wills transform their lands into commons.
Another big issue is the transnational infrastructure. Theoretically, we can peer produce our own railways, airlines, electronic communication infrastructure, trains, planes, ships, ... Then we will have two parallel infrastructure one of peer production and the other of capital. However, from the ecological point of view this is wrong, because, we will destroy further the nature. So the best alternative is to transform the existing infrastructure into commons? How do we do this without expropriating multi-nationals? Some people may think we that can transform the current state into a partner state and the partner state will the job. I doubt it very much. Look at Bolivia, Morales was a union organizer and came to power on shoulders of huge popular movement. His is a progressive government, but it still a hostage to capital. Now, lets hope that Syriza gets part of the state power in Greece. Despite, this wish, I think It will not be able to do much faced with Mafia of Greek capitalists and German Banks which are another sort of Mafia. If Syriza comes to power, perhaps, and I hope, it will offer Mitchel and Vasilis, an opportunity to test their idea of partner state. Overall, I am also optimist, but think the most practical way to establish a peer production society is a social revolution which expropriates capitalist and abolish the current state and replaces them with peer production of both economy and forms of polity. Peer production has its own form of governance, actually it is not only a new mode of production but also a new form of governance. I dare to say it is not anarchism but is far more democratic than the current liberal democracy. best Jakob >>> Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com> 12/30/14 7:10 PM >>> Michel, Vasilis, how encouraging to receive your answers. I will read the texts you suggest, and I will respond to some of your remarks here. For those who are interested in such things, I have surfed the long waves myself: https://brianholmes.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/crisis_theory.pdf It is because I have looked into these ideas that I find the pragmatic and grounded optimism of the p2p foundation and its many associated constellations so useful. Apart from the dubious and compromised Rifkin, <...> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
