A well thought out critique of Christian Siefkes proposals and book, which are referenced and summarized here.

Stefan’s basic charge is that the peer economy model is just a disguise for the continuation of the present system. See for the full article here.

We publish it in two parts.

Stefan Merten:

Issue 1: Is Siefkes reinventing capitalism?

Coerced contributions: Abstract labor in disguise

“In the beginning of the book Christian correctly points out that peer production lives from contributions. That is indeed a common understanding and in itself not very astonishing: Every production process based on division of labor needs contributions.

However, there is a sharp distinction between the contributions which are done in the division of labor model of capitalism and in peer production projects. In peer production projects the doubly Free contributors contribute because it is Selbstentfaltung to them. They don’t need any compensation for this because they are not loosing anything – in the contrary. In capitalism on the other hand contributors are structurally coerced to contribute because they are payed for their contributions and money is what they need for a living. This is exactly the point where concrete work differs from abstract labor and abstract labor becomes subject of exchange. This is an important source of alienation in capitalism and as such the reason for a lot of problems.

Now Christian deals with the problem that there might be tasks in a peer production project which are for some reason not done out of Selbstentfaltung. The simple answer he finds is: Coerce others so they contribute by doing these tasks. Instead of paying them with money Christian suggests exchanging products of the project for the abstract labor done by a coerced contributor.

Unfortunately Christian doesn’t contribute an explanation why this should be better than the coercion mechanism of capitalism. He states that this way it is not possible to extract surplus value from the abstract labor. Indeed it is an interesting question where the surplus product – being the base of surplus value in capitalism – goes to in Christian’s model. For this we need to check out how surplus product emerges.

Surplus product is generated when a human works longer than needed for her own reproduction. In capitalist labor relationships the surplus product is owned by the capitalist who pays for the abstract labor done while keeping the surplus product. If the capitalist is able to sell the surplus product on the market she realizes the surplus value.

Throughout the book Christian emphasizes that it is important that the coerced contributions are payed for with the “just” amount of products. Of course in a highly sophisticated society with a high degree of division of labor it is hard to determine at which point some labor done turns into surplus labor. In capitalism this is determined by the market prices of the means of living of the worker. In practice the capitalist offers some price for the labor power they buy and competition for workers as well as power relationships between workers and capitalists set the price. Nonetheless capitalists are able to obtain surplus product.

-Christian: “Leaving aside the fact that there are no “coerced contributions” in my model (but of course, if you don’t want to contribute to a project, it’s up to the project whether they still want to–and are able to–produce something specifically for you–you aren’t forced to do anything, but neither are they), I have to point out that I never talk about “just” or “justice” in my book. These are abstract concepts which don’t make much sense to me–for example, if somebody suffers, it would be “just” if everybody else suffered too. The purpose of effort sharing and similar agreements is not to be “just”, but rather to try to make sure that everyone involved can live with the outcome and is, as far as possible, happy with the outcome. I also talk about “fairness”, but, while that concept is doubtlessly related to “justice”, I don’t think it’s the same.”

I can see no reason why this should be any different in Christian’s system. The peer production projects want the ugly tasks done and they offer a payment for it. Nothing in the world prevents them from offering a payment which allows for surplus product. And since surplus product means additional wealth these projects will benefit from extracting surplus product. So why should they not strive for it?

There may be one limitation for the generation of surplus product in Christian’s system. In the simple version of the system he explains the coerced contributor may receive only products from this particular project. In fact she should contribute only the amount of labor which is necessary to produce this particular product she strives for. In this instance it may be the case that it is not possible to extract surplus product. But that is nothing which in a sophisticated society is anything likely.

Distribution pools: Markets in disguise

This is something Christian also knows. Because of that he soon invents something he calls distribution pools. Distribution pools are facilities where projects and workers meet. The projects offer products in exchange for abstract labor while the workers are ready to do abstract labor in exchange for products. The direct connection between the labor done and the product exchanged for it is broken in with distribution pools.

If you feel reminded of a capitalist labor market then you share this feeling with me. In fact in a capitalist labor market the very same happens: The producers offer products for labor and the workers offer labor power for products. Neither in Christian’s system nor in capitalism there is anything which prevents the producers to extract surplus product.

Weighted hours: Money in disguise

In capitalism there is an additional grease to make the handling of (dead) abstract labor easier: money. Indeed money does not appear in Christian’s system. However, that doesn’t mean there is no equivalent entity. In fact each system doing an equivalence exchange of labor for products must be based on some scaling system which makes the labor comparable to the product. It should probably be emphasized that labor and products are indeed incommensurable and you can not do an equivalent exchange of incommensurable things.

The approach taken in capitalism as well as in Christian’s system is to take the amount of labor needed for a product as the basic equivalence measure. In capitalism money is nothing else than a crystallized form of dead labor. The weighted hours in Christian’s system play the same role. In fact Christian starts out with the plain amount of hours needed to produce something. Later he multiplies them by a factor which he wants to base on the preferences of people. The result he calls weighted hours. The weight will come from the societal average preferences of potential workers and is computed by some algorithm.

Unfortunately Christian oversimplifies a lot here. Of course people have preferences for what they want to do and what they don’t like. But having preferences is one thing and having skills is another thing. In capitalism the skills of a worker play a major role for determining the price of her labor power. In Christian’s system this won’t be any different. Tasks which need highly skilled labor will have a high weight because there are only a few persons who can do them. Christian addresses this problem by saying that everyone can become skilled over time. This if of course as much as true as in capitalism – including the fact that not everybody can reach an arbitrary skill level.

Also one of the main accomplishments of peer production is lost here. In peer production the individual preferences do count. This is no longer the case if the preferences of an individual vanish in the societal average of preferences. As in capitalism you are better off if you have personal preferences different from the average.

Also it is funny that Christian assumes that each contribution is simply accepted. Why should a project accept labor which did more harm than good? If you destroy the means of productions in your attempt to contribute is this still a contribution? But even if you take it less extreme: Not everyone works as efficient as everyone else. In practice the speed of labor differs widely between different persons even if they have a similar degree of education. Christian does not even mention this problem but those living in his system will find ways. The easiest would be to not accept labor as a contribution and thus do not pay. In capitalism this is the sort of conflicts which keeps labor courts in business.

As a result the weighted labor in Christian’s system does not differ from the respective function of money in capitalism. As a next step it is also easy to agree to use a single type of product as the general means of equivalence – let’s say gold – and voila: we have the early forms of money.

Meta-projects: Governments in disguise

Christian suggests something which he calls meta-projects. He describes ways how these meta-projects can nest and build a hierarchy. Meta-projects are responsible for infrastructure questions and can somehow coerce projects to obey their decisions.

If you think about it you’ll notice that meta-projects are simply governments. They play exactly the same role as governments in capitalism play, they nest as in capitalism and they have power over their subjects. I’m not saying governments are not needed in a peer production society. In my opinion this is something which is hard to say with the perspective of today. In any case I see no need to rename governments to meta-projects.

Conclusion

These disguises show where you end up if you don’t think ideas through and push them to the limits. Christian reinvents all the fundaments of capitalism. Giving them funny names like distribution pool changes nothing in the effects they have. It is clear that if you reinvent the instruments and mechanisms of capitalism you end up with capitalism – no matter how much you don’t want that.

It is indeed the tragedy of capitalism that there are these mechanisms which do their work behind the back of the people. To stop these mechanisms from being effective you need to remove their fundaments. And the most important fundament is abstract labor and exchange. It starts when you map concrete labor to an abstract number. The abstract numbers are which immediately live a life of their own. I learned that you must prevent this mapping by all means.

Now you might argue that in every society there are tasks which are not done out of Selbstentfaltung. Even if this is true – if you employ the means of capitalism to solve this then you will end up with capitalism. Each society dealt with that problem and generally there were some explicit governance systems which dealt with that problem. And since any explicit governance system is the result of a political process it is of course better than to let the blind mechanisms of abstract labor rule.”