Test

"Monetization is for me a sensitive issue from another angle, as some people can find schemes such as my "creative contribution" as inducing some additional monetization. I have adressed such critics in the chapter 11 Clarifications and counter-arguments http://www.sharing-thebook.com/comment/chapter-11-counter-arguments of Sharing.

I reproduce here my treatment of the counter-argument:

19. In the name of commons, you are monetizing the non-market.

No, we aren’t, but the difference is a subtle one. We are financing the conditions of existence of a specific form of cultural commons. In a world where access to conditions of living and resources for production are monetized, commons can exist only if those who maintain and enrich them have adequate financial resources.

The key differences between monetizing the non-market as described by Jeremy Rifkin in the Age of Access [Rifkin 2001] and our proposal lies in:

• the absence of transaction and control in the path of usage,

• the empowerment of users.

Social public goods and commons in modern societies are always financed by collective means. Publicly run schools are built by paid contractors, and teachers receive a salary. Elinor Ostrom, who received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her studies of commons governance, has stressed that the management of resources by user communities was a key approach to governing commons. The true question is “is our proposal the right approach to finance cultural commons in the Internet age?” We certainly did our best to define one of the ways of doing it.

However, some people would claim that since we have a redistribution of the financing towards individual works and creators, there is some monetization. That's one reason invoked by proponents of basic income as a better scheme (if it can exist). I believe that a universal flat mechanism is not fit for cultural works and activities, but the discussion is not going to end."