diff --git a/2012-11-18-tesis_sobre_el_trabajo_digital.markdown b/2012-11-18-tesis_sobre_el_trabajo_digital.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..a3f561fd135dbcf9b3ad712bd942132cc2587b6e --- /dev/null +++ b/2012-11-18-tesis_sobre_el_trabajo_digital.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,172 @@ +**Thesis on Digital Labor, by Michel Bauwens:** + +"Peer to peer is the ideology of the new cognitive working class. The +majority of workers in Western countries are no longer involved in +factory work, but are either cognitive or service workers. There are +strong connections between peer-to-peer values such as openness, +participation, as well as commons-orientation and the structural +conditions of this new working class. + +First, peer-to-peer responds to the ideal conditions for cognitive work. +For cognitive work to progress, it needs participation of all those who +can contribute, the knowledge needs to be freely shared, and available +to all who will need the same material in the future. It is no accident +that peer production was born amongst the developers of software code, +who are uniquely dependent on access to shareable code in order to +progress in their work. + +Under structural conditions of exploitative and Intellectual +Property-constrained wage-based knowledge work, peer production is the +modality of life and work that cognitive workers aspire too, and engage +in whenever they can either escape voluntarily from waged labor, or are +obliged to engage in because of a precarious exodus outside of wage +labor in the context of conditions of temporary or permanent economic +crisis. + +Peer-to-peer corresponds to the objective needs of the new craft +structure of cognitive labor. Cognitive workers are no longer primarily +engaged in long-term factory work, but have very flexible career paths, +by choice or necessity, which require them to change from being wage +laborers, to independent free lance consultants, to being entrepreneurs, +and back again. Under conditions of chosen or forced flexibility, +workers have an objective interested in being networked, in order to +gain practical experience, and social and reputational capital, as well +as access to networks of exchange and solidarity. Networked peer +production is the best avenue to obtain these advantages. + +Peer to peer, and engagement with peer production, is the objective +condition of participation into networks, and therefore affects and +engages all network users, to the degree that they are engaged in online +collaboration and knowledge exchange, and the eventual creation of +common value through such free aggregation of effort. All work however, +has cognitive aspects, and so today, all workers are exposed to networks +and the peer-to-peer value system. The peer-to-peer value system and +peer production as a social dynamic are therefore NOT constrained to +full-time knowledge workers, but to the totality of the working class +and working people. + +Because of the hyperproductive nature of peer production, which allows +for broader participation and input, passionate engagement, and +universal distribution of its benefits (conditioned by network access), +it attracts the participation and engagement of capital, through the +activities of netarchical capitalists. + +Netarchical capital is that sector of capital, which understands the +hyper-productive nature of peer production and therefore enables and +empowers social production to occur, but conditioned by the possibility +of value extraction to the benefit of the holders of capital. + +Peer production is both immanent and transcendent vis a vis capitalism +because it has features which strongly decommodifies both labor and +immaterial value and institutes a field of action based on peer-to-peer +dynamics and a peer-to-peer value system. Peer production functions +within the cycle of accumulation of capital, but also within the new +cycle of the creation and accumulation of the commons. Netarchical +capital uses peer production for its own accumulation of capital; peer +producers naturally strive for the continued existence and protection of +their commons. + +The creation of commons under the rule of capital is NOT a zero sum +game. This means that the fact or objective relation between the commons +and capital does not automatically constitute a hard and fast +distinction between capitalist and anti-capitalist commons. Workers +associated with peer production have a natural interest to maintain and +expand the commons of knowledge, code and design, and under conditions +of capital, the role of wage labor and capitalist investment contributes +to the sustainability of both the commons and the commoners. + +However, under conditions of capitalist crisis, commoners have an +objective interest in maintaining commons and conditions of +participation that create maximum independence from capital, and aim for +its eventual replacement as dominant system. We propose that this can +happen through the creation of non-capitalist, community-supportive, +benefit-driven entities that participate in market exchange without +participating in capital accumulation. Benefit-driven institutions are +responsible for the financial sustainability and social reproduction of +the commoners, as well as for the protection and strengthening of the +commons. + +Through the use of a new type of peer production license, commoners can +freely share the commons with commons-friendly entities, while charging +for-profit entities who do not reciprocate to the commons, thereby +creating a positive feedback loop which creates a commons-centered +counter-economy. Crucial for phase transition under conditions of +capitalist crisis is to combine the emergent counter-economy, and its +working solutions to issues of social reproduction, to the broad social +movements that emerge to protect the life conditions of working people. + +Traditional labor and their organizations has an objective interest, +under conditions of declining capitalism, to adopt the idea of global +and shared innovation commons, and thereby ally themselves with the +emergence and deepening of peer production. In conditions of social +strife, capitalist corporations can be transformed into workers-owned, +self-managed entities that create their own commons of shared knowledge, +code, and design. + +Farmers and agricultural workers have a similar interest in the creation +of shared innovation commons in order to transform soil-depleting +industrial agriculture into smart eco-agriculture based on shared +innovation commons uniting farmers and agricultural knowledge workers. + +Commons-oriented peer production can both strengthen netarchical capital +and hence the system of capital accumulation, and the reproduction of +the commons. Peer producers can both benefit for corporate platforms, +while struggling for their own rights as the real value creators, and in +conditions of social strength, could potentially take over such +platforms as common or publicly owned utilities. + +Participants in commoner-owned for-benefit entities can significantly +transcend purely competitive market dynamics, while avoiding +authoritarian central planning, through the adoption of open book +management, adaptation to the publicly available signaling, as well as +through negotiated coordination of production and distribution. This +does not obviate possible need for democratic planning through citizen +participation, whenever this is needed and wished for. However, it +creates broad areas for mutual alignment of productive capacities. + +The traditional ideologies and movements of the industrial labor +movement became largely associated with collective property. Peer +production opens the avenue for more distributed property, whereby +individuals can freely aggregate, not only their immaterial productive +resources, but their material productive resources. Under those +conditions, possible abuse of collective property is balanced by the +individual freedom of forking productive resources. + +Peer production is vital for sustainability and biosphere-friendly +production methods, as open design communities design naturally for +sustainability, but also transform the production process itself, for +example to insure participation and more distributed access to +productive resources. Combined with the development of more distributed +machinery, as well as more distributed capital allocation, peer +production can lead to a new system that combines smart material +re-localization, with global cooperative innovation, and the existence +of global phyles uniting peer production entities on a global 'material' +scale. Phyles are transnational, community-supportive entities, which +create a new layer of post-capitalist material cooperation. + +Free labor is only problematic under conditions of precarity and +non-reciprocal value capture by (netarchical) capital. Under conditions +of social solidarity, the freely given participation to common value +projects is a highly emancipatory activity. + +Because of its hyper-productive nature, and inherent ecological +sustainability, peer production becomes the condition for transcending +capitalism. Its own logic, i.e. free contributions to a commons, managed +by for-benefit associations and made sustainable through for-benefit +entrepreneurship of the commoners themselves, create a seed form for a +new social and economic form, centered around the core value creation of +the commons, managed and contributed to by both for-benefit associations +and entrepreneurial coalitions, and sustained by participatory +collective services, which form the basis of a new model of the Partner +State, which enables and empowers social production as the core reason +of its existence. + +The hyper-productivity of peer production, makes it conform to the dual +conditions for phase transitions, i.e. the crisis of the old model of +production, and the availability of a working alternative which can +perform better while solving a number of systemic problems plaguing the +current dominant form of production. The task of the movements of +cognitive and other forms of labor, is to create a new hegemony and a +new commons- based alliance for social change, which challenges the +domination of capital, the commodity form, and the biospheric +destruction that is inherent to it."