As you acknowledged in an article subtitled “The Ubiquity of Mixed Systems”, when we try to superimpose theories, doctrines, and ideologies on actual human behavior we nearly always end up needing to think in terms of mixed or hybrid systems.

As you importantly noted in that same piece, an “arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.” It is vital that in developing p2p theory we work from actual examples, cases, and histories, as you have done in this post with the example of the free software commons.

The present post also takes important steps in describing the relation between the staus quo at any given time and emergent relations and phase transitions. This reminds me of the “include and transcend” trope of Ken Wilber.

Terminology can be inclusive or divisive. The same system, relation, algorithm, etc. can be expressed in many different kinds of terminology. Often a particular terminology is chosen precisely to signify affinity with one group and/or distinction from another, as in the case of “capitalist” terminology and “anti-capitalist” terminology.

My own preference is for terminology that is familiar and comfortable to people in the center in mainstream culture, especially when I am discussing ideas that may be culturally unfamiliar or uncomfortable to many. By choosing “business” terminology that is native to the mainstream, and even native to my political opponents, I sometimes alienate my own friends on the left. But my intent is a kind of rhetorical “Jujutsu” (a Japanese martial art for defeating an armed and armored opponent in which one uses no weapon).

Wikipedia says: “‘J?’ can be translated to mean gentle, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding. “Jutsu” can be translated to mean “art” or “technique” and represents manipulating the opponent’s force against him rather than confronting it with one’s own force.”

Or maybe I just take a perverse pleasure in being provocative towards my own philosophical and political community. Or both. (whatever)

Regardless of what terminology we use to discuss P2P and commons, we should not forget that we are discussing actual relations. In our lives we have one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to many relations–relations between people and people, people and groups, people and objects, groups and objects, groups and the environment, etc. You can find many of the same, identical relations across many cultures, past and present, spoken of via many different metaphors and ritualized/institutionalized in many different ways.

Our choice of terminology and metaphor should be audience-appropriate, but analytically we need to focus on functional relations, values and criteria. We can call something public, private, civic, social, or common. We can call something a group, a partnership, an association, a corporation, a collective, or a community. But people can differ wildly about what any of those terms mean. Any distinctions we attribute to those terms really arise from a more basic and fundamental class of issues: consent, transparency, accountability, democracy, inclusion, sustainability, reciprocity, justice, fairness, dignity, & etc., etc., etc. Too often we argue at the level of public vs private or common vs corporate and fail to ever connect with those underlying assumptions, values, and relations.

Michel, in the present post I think you have taken valuable steps towards a non-ideological, doctrine-neutral analysis and I really dig it.

PR

very important point you are making, I will return to it when I return home on April 5!

Thank you! This is an excellent explanation of the problems with doctrinaire anti-capitalist critiques of free software/free culture.

That doesn’t mean that commoners should not want more and better modalities. For example, they could create enterprises that are not profit-maximisers, but cooperatives,

Yes there are some examples of software co-operatives:

https://identi.ca/conversation/64125940

And there are legal hacks using more modern organizational forms as well.

I am suspicious of the promotion of mutuality by the current right-wing government in the UK, though.

or they could use the peer production license, which allows free usage of the commons only to other commoners and thereby creates a counter-economy.

I would say that the peer production licence is an example of the kind of oppositional thinking that is critiqued elsewhere in the post. I admire it as a hack and I understand its motivation. But I think that it observes and defends the modalities of capital in the name of opposing them, denying the nascent commons movement access to “vital” developments just as other anti-capitalist rather than pro-commons positions do.