[iDC] The Ethics of Participation

[Brian Holmes]

Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
> The call for revenue-sharing, as mechanism for reciprocity, can 
> therefore be misguided. Better solution is to keep the non-reciprocal 
> logic of peer production, and to reserve the revenue-sharing aspects 
> for the derivate scarce services, and to use part of that revenue, to 
> create an ecology of support for the non-reciprocal sharing, as is done 
> by the free software community.

This point made by Michel is the quintessence of a lot of collective 
thought, and could be the foundation of a whole new form of 
redistribution, which tries to support the infrastructure of value 
production rather than just give away money so that people can buy 
products made in the competitive-authoritarian market fashion. The 
subtle point lies in the notion of ecology; how to foster and not hamper 
or twist or destroy all the interrelations and degrees of autonomy that 
help bring into existence "participation" or "reciprocity" or 
"emulation" or "commons-based peer production"? When John says that 
YouTube or MySpace provides a distribution mechanism that doesn't 
expropriate one's creations, I think he is right, for now. Which is 
already important and interesting. However, one can be almost sure on 
the basis of past experience (Fox News anyone? The Sun? The Weekly 
Standard?) that the likes of Rupert Murdoch will not only want to make 
money off us (in which case I would agree: so what?) but also to 
institute forms of social relationships that tend more and more toward 
the traditionally commodified ones, with the submission and violence 
they ultimately entail. The structure of the platforms, the advertising 
and the for-pay opportunities offered, the kinds of fashions promoted, 
will tend not to encourage a productive, critical and generous quest for 
the shared development of personal and collective autonomy. In other 
words, the ecological conditions will not be respected, this is the way 
it goes with commodity culture. The question of how to foster both the 
infrastructure and the relational patterns that are already moving 
people out of the commodity straitjacket is a question worth asking 
imho. It is the question of how to move towards a more cooperation-based 
society.

best, Brian