Quote from StpehanMz, Oekonux:

the difference between personal or abstract types of domination – and the free society without domination including a type of societal organisation, is that the latter is based on personal relationships. This does not necessarily mean, that “you know each other” (which is impossible), but the cooperation is driven by humans and their goals instead of an abstract impersonal mechanism (what we have in capitalism).”Â

This is a reprint of a discussion in P2P 95. Whether P2P is a personal or impersonal type of relationship is an issue I struggled with and which I can summarize as follows: In premodern times, relations were always ‘personal’: authority and economic exchange were based on tributary relations and personal loyalty (and in the tribal gift economy on the obligations created by the personal gift, in a society based on kinship). This changes with capitalism, as the market is a place for neutral exchange, and you’re hired for your competence. But what about peer production? There seems to me a clearer element of personalization in its free cooperation model, but it retains the impersonal aspects of working together on a common project, and knowing each other is not a necessity. On the other hand, as the dependence inherent in the wage relationship is overcome, this is clearly a re-personalisation of the economy, which again becomes the subject of personal choices and desire, and less the play of impersonal market forces.

Here excerpts from a dialogue on this issue:

From Oekonux:
1. Personal relations in peer production

“As far as mutual support on a personal level is concerned I’d understand this as the kind of cooperation typical for the pre-capitalist age (StefanMz would probably say “personal concrete”).This, however, is something which needs to be overcome then. (StefanMz would probably say “personal abstract”.) However, I think it is important to not loose the perspective of capitalism as organizing mutual support. A GPL society needs to overcome this abstract form of mutual support by another abstract scheme with no alienation build in. May be that is the most difficult thing to imagine at all. Fortunately Free Software presents a model where this works 🙂 .

> The beauty of the market is that it unbinds humans from cooperation constraints, that there is permanent negociation and renegociation on terms of cooperation.The downside of the market is that it rewards the successful and creates a self-destructive feedback cycle of inequality, where negociations end up as formal cover of absolutely determined difference in means.The germ form (of free software, i.e. peer production) basically limits the need for negociations in providing more means for everyone, by multiplying them to the point that competition becomes useless and cooperation is the only choice. But it is still and increasingly “voluntary cooperation”, and society is giving its “passive agreement” on the actions of voluntary cooperators. Society still relies on a system of checks and balance, but in a form that if a need arises it will most likely be expressed by an active individual or group that fills what society is missing.”

2. Personal relations in LETS vs. capitalist exchange

“If you receive a product in an alternative exchange system thereis nothing which stops you from selling it for universal money[1].Thus you can convert “time dollars” into universal dollars easily.

This is not so easy with personal services where the servicer needs to be present in the moment the service is traded. However, this is only part of the point.In the following my point of departure is what actual LETS (IIRC: Local Exchange Trade Systems) projects do at present. I understood that this is the fundament on which a lot of the alternative money scene relies so it makes sense to analyze what happens here.As far as I can see existing LETS projects basically exchange personal services like those mentioned above. In the reports I know about it is always emphasized that there is also a personal relationship between the serviced person and the servicer. In particular I understood that
the person being serviced directly pays the person servicing. I.e. the servicer receives time dollars the serviced person has acquiredbefore. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Anyway this is what mislead me to think that it is the personal service which is the point. If I think longer about it I think rather it is the direct relationship without any intermediating persons which is the point and in particular the direct payment. Meanwhile I think these are the points which together with the personal character of the service reduce the potential for big scale alienation.

Capitalism as the most advanced exchange system we know of is grounded in selling and buying labor time. Labor time / work force must be sold by those who need to survive because in developed capitalism they are separated from other means to survive (like rural subsistence). LETS schemes change nothing here (which is good because any type of subsistence can only be thought of as a big scale societal crash).They are also separated from the means of production when we think of big machinery – workers are simply not owning the big machinery they are using for production. This is where it starts that some people buy work force (to operate the big machinery they own somehow) while other people sell it. This is the point where alienation reaches a new level: You are not only working to get money for it (instead of producing a certain use value) but also work for someone else.

This also is where personal services (and Free Software for that matter) come into play. Often they need little machinery, litte means of production beyond those found in every household like a scissor for hair cutting. The entry barriers are low here and thus there is a chance to reduce alienation by dropping the capitalists – called self-employment (Selbständigkeit). In a second step there is also the potential to drop the exchange thing altogether: If you have the means of production anyway you are Free to use them for whatever you want and do not need to look for any exchange in return for your activity or to pay the machinery. However, services can and are organized in a capitalist way. There are capitalists who buy work force from people and use it to earn money which then is partly payed back to the workers. This means that there is no general limit in integrating services in the capitalist mode of production. The question for alternative money systems now to me is how they are going to prevent such a development. Actually I see no way if you are not going to forbid the role of capitalists (i.e. the role buying work force). In personal services like those typically traded in LETS this is easier because there are the personal relationships based on moral grounds (which means that the communities must be relatively small) and because they can be done without much means of productions.

But what about services which need more means of productions? As long as you are operating in an exchange based mode: What can prevent things into turning into the classical capitalist mode with capitalists and workers *and* at the same time be more successful than this capitalist mode? Actually I think this is not possible and that is why I still think: think this is why for personal services LETS may workbut if you try to scale it up you either fail or end up with the standard money system.”