Re: <nettime> P2P Foundation: A Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy (new book)

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 10/01/2012 02:55 AM, Felix Stalder wrote:

> For me, the political test for all these things is whether they are
> set as alternatives to commodity markets and private ownership, or
> as alternatives to public infrastructures. In the first case, one
> might get something interesting, in the second it's compassionate
> neo-liberalism.
I don't wanna nitpick, but the question is whether the share-tech 
rollout of the electronics corporations is USED as an alternative to the 
commodity markets and private ownership. All rhetoric aside, and Michel 
Bauwen's work notwithstanding, I would really be amazed if any 
corporation today is doing anything but grabbing for the ever-expanding 
markets of what were once public infrastructures and services (they're 
now disappearing as fast as manufacturing jobs here in the US). The 
strange thing about our moment, which both Michel and Keith Hart point 
to in their particular ways, is that we have at once massive and even 
savage commodification of the formerly public sphere (that's maybe 
what's meant when people talk about "the former West") and at the same 
time, the commodities being exchanged reveal as perhaps never before 
their other face, which is their use value, as both constructive and 
expressive tools.
All I can say is we better use 'em. The current crisis is mopping up the 
remains of the postwar welfare-state institutions. To the exact extent 
that new forms of social cooperation do NOT emerge, there will be 
increasing social violence as predatory capitalism is taken to its 
logical conclusions on the ground.
To the extent that they DO emerge, we have the chance to create 
something fabulous and new, the very figure of generosity, solidarity 
and beauty in the social realm. It's what Virno called "the non-state 
public sphere."
Yes, you live in interesting times, my friends.

Brian


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