Political Turn of Peer Production Theory

Discussion

George Dafermos:

"In any case, the manner in which the concept of the Partner State has been theorized since the early 2010s signals a shift of emphasis in the digital commons literature towards the political. We should keep in mind that the Partner State strategy constitutes a rather recent addition to the arsenal of commoners and peer producers. Prior to the 2010s, there was hardly any mention of the role of political struggle in the analysis by which the theorists of the digital commons substantiated the argument that peer production has the potential to transcend capitalism. Presumably, commoners did not need to worry too much about politics, as, in the view of the theorists, the decisive terrain of struggle was that of the economy (see e.g. Bauwens 2009: 135-137). Of course, as one would expect, peer production theorists have been fiercely criticized for downplaying the role of political struggle in the process of social transformation. Indicatively, Kioupkiolis reproaches them for downplaying the importance of political struggles by putting forward a technocratic vision of social change in which technological, legal and entrepreneurial fixes are the main catalysts of historical transformation (see Report 2. The Common). For political theorists such as Kioupkiolis, the problem with the early work of peer production theorists rests on its affinity with that well-known axiom of Marxism, which, by holding that the ‘superstructure’ of political institutions is merely a reflection of the ‘economic base,’ has been construed as implying that political struggles are insignificant in comparison to economic struggles.

On their part, peer production theorists have tried to fend off that critique by arguing that ‘a critical mass of initiatives needs to be operating before political action can be summoned and relevant institutions can be designed’ (Bauwens et al. 2019: 64). Be that as it may, the experience of the first decade of the 21st century convinced them that it is not possible to ‘change society merely by producing open code and design’ (Bauwens & Kostakis 2015). Because obviously, if the economy was all that mattered, then the phenomenal success of the Linux operating system, which has been established for some time now as the undisputed market leader for operating systems, would have resulted in the demise of capitalism in the software industry. On top of that, the rise of new municipalist movements in the mid-2010s made them rethink their Partner State strategy. As a result of that re-conceptualization of their strategy on the basis of the experiences of Barcelona en Comú and the Bologna Regulation, the recent (post-2015) work of peer production theorists is characterized by a rejection of crudely deterministic theories of social change that downplay the centrality of political struggle in the transition process to a new social order.

Quite simply, as Pazaitis and Drechsler (forthcoming) clarify, ‘a change of production alone cannot really transform society...the relationship between economics and politics is not linear, i.e. a radical change in the former is not necessarily followed by corresponding ones in the latter.’ On the contrary, ‘things can go many ways’ (Pazaitis & Drechsler, forthcoming). In fact, as Bauwens et al. (2019: 29) point out in their last book, ‘there have been many historical opportunities for such a transition, but capitalism has demonstrated high resilience as an economic system, adaptability as a cultural framework, and brutal force as a political apparatus.’ Consequently, then, the struggle of peer producers against the capitalists in the digital economy does not suffice to bring out radical social change. In order to really transform society, there is no other way: commoners must also struggle politically. For that reason, therefore, commoners should not underestimate the potential role of ‘the state as the agent for social reform and change’ (Pazaitis & Drechsler, forthcoming). That is precisely what gives the edge to the Partner State strategy: it constitutes a form of struggle through which state power can be put at the service of the commoners (Bauwens et al. 2019).

The re-appropriation of the State as an instrument of ‘revolutionary reforms’ is not an easy task. It would be absurd to propose that commoners can achieve it by themselves. Anyway, they do not need to. The Partner State is a form of struggle that presupposes the formation of alliances and coalitions among different types of political actors. As we underlined in our discussion of Barcelona en Comú, commons-oriented citizen platforms have proven to be capable of integrating political actors as diverse as social movements and traditional political parties. Their inherently pluralistic character consequently implies that they could serve as mobilization strategies for ‘the emergence of majoritarian coalitions in which the commons would be a binding element’ (Bauwens et al. 2019: 66-67). As Bauwens et al. (2019: 66-67) believe, ‘the acceptance of a commons agenda could be the basis for new progressive coalitions with already existing political forces’ like the Pirates, the Greens and the contemporary New Left. In parallel, it could be the ‘substratum’ of commons-oriented municipal coalitions with social movements and civil society actors.

In this way, by establishing an alliance between all these political forces through a commons agenda, the commoners’ struggle takes on a pluralistic and mass character. Fueled by the momentum of such an alliance, their struggle becomes more diffuse and generalized, transcending thereby their hitherto particularistic interests. The escalation of the commoners’ struggle, therefore, hinges on the formation of alliances with other agents. At this point, the strength of the Partner State strategy becomes clearly visible: its emphasis on the construction of alliances as a fundamental principle makes it a hegemonic political strategy, which has the potential to unite a wide spectrum of social agents in support of the commons. At the same time, the Partner State approach does not simply establish an alliance between heterogeneous political actors but modifies the very identity of the participants in that alliance. Consequently, to the extent that the commonification of urban resources becomes a binding element in a municipal coalition, the various political actors engaging in it are effectively transformed into commoners. Even if they do not call themselves by that name, the fact that the commons have become a core part of their vision for the city speaks for itself. Of course, they are still Greens, municipalists or whatever they called themselves upon entering the alliance. But as the alliance itself is based on a commons agenda, the political identity of the actors engaged in it is infused with the values and principles of the commons. Hence, the social agents who participate in a commons-oriented municipal coalition, even if they do not identify themselves as commoners, effectively act as agents of a commons transition.

Let us recapitulate the main points of the foregoing analysis. According to peer production theorists, the struggle of commoners is not confined to the sphere of the digital economy, but extends to the field of political institutions, both systemic and nonsystemic. More specifically, commoners build their own autonomous institutions of governance, such as the Chambers and the Assemblies of the Commons. In this case, they antagonize the status quo by developing alternatives to systemic institutions, which allow them to organize themselves collectively (Bauwens & Kostakis 2015, Bauwens et al. 2019, Kostakis & Bauwens 2014).

In addition to setting up their own autonomous institutions, commoners antagonize systemic institutions from within. They organize themselves into citizen platforms such as Barcelona en Comú, which run for public office with the aim of taking municipal power into their own hands. Most importantly, in those cases where citizen platforms do succeed in taking control of the administrative apparatus of the city, they proceed to implement ‘revolutionary reforms,’ such as the commonification of urban resources. In that way, therefore, we could say that commoners recuperate systemic institutions from below. This strategy of re-appropriation of the State by the commoners is what peer production theorists call the Partner State (Bauwens et al. 2019, Pazaitis & Drechsler forthcoming).

However, the significance of the Partner State strategy does not rest solely on repurposing the State into an instrument of commonification. What is actually at stake here is the shape of the future. As peer production theorists underline, there is absolutely no guarantee of radical social change (Bauwens et al. 2019, Benkler 2006: 17-18). Hence, even if peer production becomes the dominant mode of production in the digital economy, there is no certainty that it will trigger a commons transition across the whole of society. But if ‘things can go many ways,’ as Pazaitis and Drechsler (forthcoming) put it, political action is then obviously necessary. In order to transform society, commoners must act politically. And that is precisely what they are trying to do through their participation in commons-oriented citizen platforms like Barcelona en Comú (Bauwens et al. 2019).

From one point of view, the Partner State strategy looks like a continuation of the economic struggle of commoners with other means. But it is actually much more than that, for the reason that the expansion of the scope of commoners’ struggle beyond the economic field implies the opening-up of their struggle to the whole of civil society. To put it another way, to the extent that the struggle of commoners remains confined to the economic field, it is condemned to marginality. That much is certain, according to peer production theorists. Quite simply, it is not possible to scale up peer production from the ‘micro-level’ to a ‘full social form’ without taking up the struggle in the terrain of politics. At the end of the day, a commons transition rests on the possibility of taking control of state power. As Bauwens et al. (2019: 42) tell us, ‘it is an illusion that such a development of the commons forces can be done with a hostile state.’ In the context of this struggle, institutions of municipal governance are of paramount importance. As ‘the city context appears more mature for a commons transition’ (Bauwens et al. 2019: 65), the commoners organize themselves into citizen platforms like Barcelona en Comú with the purpose of taking control of municipal power.

In walking this path, commoners are not alone. The strength of citizen platforms lies in their capacity to mobilize a wide spectrum of actors in support of the commons. It is no coincidence that citizen platforms are invariably constituted by a coalition of forces: they do in fact constitute a strategy for organizing broad coalitions of social agents in the urban metropolises of the world today. By definition, therefore, citizen platforms are metropolitan alliances, which encompass actors as diverse as metropolitan movements and left-leaning political parties. The diversity and broadness of their social and political base constitute the real source of their strength. By virtue of uniting all these social agents, citizen platforms can accomplish more things than any of them, acting on their own, could. But aside from opening up the possibility of radical social change at the local level, the pluralism that lies at the base of citizen platforms makes them an ideal vehicle for a hegemonic strategy of the commoners’ movement. That is, above all, what confers upon citizen platforms their enormous strategic significance in the context of the commoners’ struggle: they are a prototype for the construction of a metropolitan alliance that is capable of uniting a large part of civil society around a commons agenda.

That is, in short, how the commoners antagonize the status quo in the realm of political institutions: they are engaged in setting up citizen platforms, which try to unite civil society in support of a commons agenda. These commons-oriented citizen platforms run for public office. Τheir plan is to take the apparatus of municipal governance into their hands and then put it to work in the service of their agenda. By means of that hegemonic strategy, as peer production theorists tell us, the ‘commoners could evolve to become the new ruling class’ (Bauwens et al. 2019: 53). That is to say, the commoners can become the leading and dominant class to the extent that they succeed in setting up a structure of alliances, which will allow them to mobilize a critical mass of metropolitan actors against the injustices of neoliberal capitalism and the hierarchies of the bourgeois State. In section 3.3, following up on our discussion in section 3.2 of how commoners antagonize capital in the economic field, we looked at the form of their struggle on the institutional level. At this point, therefore, we have a complete picture of how commoners antagonize the status quo, according to peer production theorists. As we can see, their economic and political struggles have a common denominator, which lies in their strategy. Clearly, the commoners’ struggles, both economic and political, are based on a strategy of alliances with other forces. In the context of their economic struggle, as we discussed in section 3.2, their strategy is based primarily on the construction of a strong alliance with the new cooperative movement and commons-friendly entrepreneurs. Similarly, the strategy of their struggle in the institutional field is centered on the development of an anti-capitalist alliance with new municipalist/metropolitan movements and left-leaning political parties. In both cases, therefore, the creation of a structure of alliances plays a decisive role. Ultimately, commoners’ struggle against capitalism is inseparable from the practical implementation of that strategy of alliances." (http://heteropolitics.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Digital-Commons.pdf)