We continue the presentation and critique by Stefan Merten of Christian Siefkes proposals and book on the Peer Economy.

See for the full article here.

Stefan Merten:

Issue 2: What is Missing

Means of production: Missing

After the first two chapters there is one thing missing: means of production. Ok, that is not completely true. Many times Christian states that to start a project it is sufficient to find a few like-minded people and you are done. However, even if you like to count minds as means of production they are only one part you need as a precondition of production – though bright minds become more important every day. In fact you need usually more before you can produce: machines and preliminary products.

This may be the case when the means of production are common place, easily affordable or part of the general infrastructure. For many existing peer production projects this is the case – as Christian describes it in the first chapters. For instance Free Software today is written on hardware which is part of every day’s life of a lot of people and so is the Internet. Free Music is done on the instruments musicians have bought anyway and computers make lots of expensive music equipment superfluous.

While I’m at it I’d also like to make clear that indeed the question about the means of production is probably the most interesting one in this whole discussion. Christian states that the problem is that peer production of physical goods is the challenge. However, peer production of information goods for which you need lots and lots of means of production – think of fundamental research in physics for instance – has the same problem as peer production of physical goods.

In a conversation Christian said that he explicitly ignores the problem of means of production. This can be accepted as a general premise but then most of what Christian talks about is rather useless. In particular producing physical things doesn’t work without at least a minimum set of physical means of production.

– Christian: That’s not true, I said that I ignored (in my book) the question of how to start physical peer production within the context of capitalism, where money is needed to buy means of productions that are still only produced externally, in the capitalistic way. In my book (but not in my Hiddinghausen talks) I ignored such problems of transformation, including this question of how to get the money that’s still necessary. In the model I describe, natural resources are commons and everything else is the result of human effort, which can be distributed among the users of the produced goods according to the ways I describe in my book. Of course, if the upfront efforts necessary for starting a project are very large (a big specialized factory or something), the project organizers may have to find sufficiently many interested users who confirm in advance that they’re interested in the results of the project and will use them (contributing back the required effort) if the project manages to produce them–that’s one of the ways in which the separation between (supposedly active) producers and (supposedly passive) consumers blurs in peer production. Other ways of dealing with such huge efforts (which, I think, will become rarer and less huge over time, due to the trends of decentralization and more and more powerful small-scale production facilities which we are already experiencing) are addressed in Section 8.2.1 of the book.”

But let’s imagine for a moment what would happen in Christian’s system when expensive means of production are taken into account. Then a non-existing project has two options. The first option is that the volunteers gather the needed means of productions step by step by doing more abstract labor. In a way the project saves weighted hours this way until the point where they have all the machinery and a certain set of preliminary products at hand. Then the project can start producing. Given the enormous amount of abstract labor contained in contemporary means of production – especially if they should allow Selbstentfaltung – this phase may be well longer than a life time. In other words: for many interesting projects this won’t happen. But even when it happens the members of the project probably want to have back at least some of the additional abstract labor they spent in advance.

The second option is that the project lends weighted hours somehow. Then the project needs to pay back the weighted hours. For the first option it might be that the project simply covers the advance labor without wanting it back because of love for the project. For the second option this is no longer possible. The project needs to charge additional weighted hours from their customers to pay back the lended amount. This introduces the need to sell products into the whole system because these are the only way to obtain weighted hours. This introduces the need to charge additional weighted hours from customers. This introduces the option to become ruined if the products are not accepted by customers – may be because some competitor sells cheaper. But why should this be any different than in capitalism?

Selbstentfaltung and external openness: Missing

Peer production is characterized by two things: Selbstentfaltung and openness. Selbstentfaltung is key because it leads to improved products making this mode of production stronger than capitalism. But for the emancipatory mind Selbstentfaltung is key, too, because Selbstentfaltung is the best the individual and the society can have. However, in Christian’s system Selbstentfaltung can not be expected for the coerced contributors since they need to contribute to get the product.

The other key concept of peer production is openness. One part of it is the external openness which includes that everyone who needs a peer production product can simply take it. In Christian’s concept this external openness is also missing because you may get products only under the condition that you pay an amount of weighted hours.

What probably stays in Christian’s concept is internal openness meaning that everyone may contribute to a project. However, in peer production internal openness is largely possible because of the external openness which enables other to contribute at all.

So in Christian’s concept the most important characteristics of peer production are missing. They are replaced by the functional categories well known from capitalism. It is hard to imagine how this system can be thought of as a transitory system then.

Conclusion: Fill the voids!

In a way the voids in Christian’s system are the most interesting thing. They raise the question how they can be filled. Particularly the missing considerations about the means of productions seem to me like the central question to be solved.

Issue 3: Redundancies

New mode of production vs. crisis of the old

Throughout the book Christian reiterates the wish list of any contemporary social democrat / anarchist / green / leftist. Everything which goes wrong in capitalism is mentioned in the book and Christian’s system is declared the final resolution to all these problems. Unfortunately rarely there are reasons given why this should be the case. Usually Christian just states that he doesn’t find it likely that this or that will go wrong in his system.

This is probably useful if you want to sell the content of the book to those who share Christian’s position. But it has nothing to do with the new mode of production Christian says he is describing a transitory model for. Though these problems of contemporary capitalism are of course important – and some are even pressing – a new mode of production does not appear to solve these problems in the first place. A comparison may illustrate what I mean: When capitalism started its expansion step around 1800 it was not it’s goal to sort out the problems of the Christian church or the European upper nobility of that time. This new mode of production rather replaced these things – with concepts like the nation state. Though we may find these concepts problematic today at this time they were key for the development of capitalism and most of them were also emancipation steps compared to the feudal mode of production.

Indeed with a new mode of production some problems will probably vanish in a puff of smoke, others will stay and new problems will arise. However, to be useful a reasoning would be needed why the contemporary problems will be resolved. A lot of problems in capitalism arguably result from the effects of alienation leading to a political economy where the economy dictates the political relationships of people. In a peer production based society lots of these problems will vanish in a puff of smoke – simply because the reasons for them are no longer present. But to be serious this needs careful reasoning and not simply wishful thinking.

Abstract labor and it’s political correct application

A large part of the book considers how abstract labor in the form of weighted hours may be used to overcome the problems of the crisis of capitalism. This part of course warms the heart of every social democrat / anarchist / green / leftist. And it’s easy to understand – because often it is a simple copy of what we know from capitalism and the dreams of those mentioned.

Let’s take the health care Christian’s considers as one example. He suggests that this is organized by requiring a flat amount from everyone. In capitalism this principle is known as insurance. One more place where I wonder why it is necessary to give simple things complicated names.

Conclusion: Save effort!

The case of a society based on peer production makes only sense if peer production is understood as a mode of production. Capitalism shows how a mode of production in its restructuring step restructures all of society according to its logic. The result of this restructuring is very hard to foresee looking from the previous mode of production. This is not by chance but because a new mode of production changes a society so fundamentally that the new can not be thought at all.

However, peer production has some basic principles. If you harm these principles too much – as Christian’s system does – you end up in describing this with lots and lots of effort. But you don’t make much sense by it. It would make more sense to research these basic principles more and check how they can be supported and where the limitations are. The more peer production becomes dominant the limitations will vanish.”