Peer Production as Neoliberalism
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Peer Production as Neoliberalism
Mike (Mr. Teacup?) in Peer Production as an Illusion:
"The de-commodification of intellectual labor that we see with the rise of peer production does not represent a countervailing trend to the neoliberalism, it is very much a part of it. Neoliberalism privatizes profits and socializes costs, and peer production is an even more radical implementation of that idea, but taking it one step further. Normally, socializing of costs means government pays for something – for example, bailing out failed banks. Since this money comes out of a tax system that is at least moderately progressive, we can regard it as an attempt by the rich to recover wealth lost to taxation.
As a method for socializing costs on to civil society, peer production is far more radical, a way of appropriating from the people what little remaining resources they have after being exploited in the workplace. It requires a transformation in the ideology of civil society, which is normally used as form welfare provision of the people, particularly the poor, to justify lowering taxes and shrinking the size of the state. P2P ideology takes a radical step by not just being content to relieve the rich of their tax burden, but squeezing civil society even more by turning into a source of corporate profits as free labor.
If the empirical evidence shows that a large role for civil society is associated with greater freedoms for capitalism, the Beachhead Hypothesis is not only false, it points in the opposite direction, to a further rolling back of the social democratic welfare state and intensification of neoliberal exploitation. In Commons-based Peer Production and Virtue Yochai Benkler and Helen Nissenbaum suggest that the use of peer production systems may encourage pro-social and public-spirited virtues – the same virtues that motivate charitable volunteering and giving – but express this tentatively because they can’t find a causal mechanism. But perhaps it may be found in the old-fashioned Marxian observation that morality and social norms are influenced by the prevailing economic system.
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Rather than mitigating the problems of neoliberalism, the new charitable ethic makes it function more smoothly by obscuring the true cause of the problem. Similarly, the altruism of individuals participating in P2P gift economies obscures their role as free labor for capitalism.
In 2002, Benkler wrote Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm, a heavily-cited paper that argues that the rise of peer production represents the “emergence of a new, third mode of production in the digitally networked environment.” In fact, this third mode is not new, it is simply the expansion of the so-called Third Sector of civil society after being turned to an even more profitable direction." (http://www.mrteacup.org/post/peer-production-illusion-part-2.html)
Discussion
From the comment area of the same article.
Duff_McDuffee:
"As far as your Marxist analysis of peer production, I think that sometimes peer production most obviously functions as worker exploitation, but not always, and the "not always" forms the basis for genuine optimism about P2P and open source movements. In fact I'd go further and say that even when P2P involves some exploitation it can still be a source of genuine optimism, for to participate cooperatively in the creation of structures for society in itself is a good thing and we feel good when contributing to something larger than ourselves...even when our contributions are difficult and others sometimes benefit disproportionately from them. In addition we should also recognize these inequalities and exploitative structures and seek to remediate them whenever possible, but we needn't wait until the world is perfectly equitable before enjoying our labors and contributions. We can for instance genuinely enjoy volunteering while working towards a world in which what we are volunteering for is more adequately provided for through a better social structure.
In this sense, I disagree that an outpouring of volunteerism in the Haitian earthquake necessarily obscures the structural causes of Haitian poverty. In the case where we have caused structural violence, the context is such that the violence is already done. We cannot act ethically based on what should have been, only on what is now, which involves both ethical duties to provide care in the immediate, but also long-term duties to fix broken and violent structures. I think the solution is not to condemn volunteerism but to encourage deeper participation. When people go deeper into helping they frequently confront the problems in providing aid and begin to see the structural forces that prevent effective solutions. If they persist even deeper they can start to work on the deeper elements of the problems.
I do very much agree with your notion that P2P is far from some revolutionary and radical new mode of production, an idea I find terribly naïve and worthy of critique. My own experience of volunteering and participating in P2P projects is not kindergarten-like and infantile however, but life-enriching and deeply heartwarming, connecting the experience of caring for family into wider circles of care. "