[iDC] The Ethics of Participation

Fri Jan 5 23:25:31 EST 2007

Wow, what an interesting debate.

Just a few scattered responses.

The non-reciprocity that Malian mentions is part of the reciprocity game,
and different from the non-reciprocity in communal shareholding, where there
is no direct expectation for a return from a particular person, but where
the giving itself is the receiving ( = gratification!), as well as part of
the creation of a collective situation which can guarantee eventual further
returns. (your reputation gains in particular are not only dependent on your
own contribution in the project, but of the project's overall standing).

The kep of non-reciprocal peer production is that it does not, in its core,
create scarce productions that are marketable, but direct use value. Hence,
it operaties outside of the monetary economy, with only a portion being able
to be monetized.

This poses a fundamental problem. As we move towards more and more of such
peer production, and even though projects might be collectively sustainable
(those who leave are replaced), they are not on an individual basis, because
it operates in a context of scarce physical goods that still have to be
purchased. This creates some kind of crisis in the political economy and the
culture in the form of institutionalized precarity, with peer producers
having to go back periodically to alienating market structures to fund their
core pursuits.

So the ecology that Brian mentions is only a partial solution, ultimately, I
see no alternative than an institutionalization of some kind of non-work
related basic income. After all, if medieval and traditional societies were
able to subsidize one quarter of their population doing spiritual pursuits,
why can't our much richer societies do so?

Of course, we are not there yet. So both monetization and funding ecologies
are still the main mix in the short term.

Michel Bauwens

On 1/6/07, mlahey at artic.edu <mlahey at artic.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear Folks,
>
> Keith: hey, if being hijacked by the anthropological classics provides
> some
> insight, they why they heck not?
>
> But, I feel that some of the extremely technical anthro language in this
> thread
> is obscuring a subliminal conflict in the way we discuss culture and
> reciprocity.
>
> Often, when we introduce a social gesture, it is ignored or rejected as
> opposed
> to returned (as we would like).  On the web or in real life, it doesn't
> matter.
>
>
> Imagine a different world in time not far away: America in the
> 1960's.  Fool's
> Crow, the last of the truly great Native American holy people, who knew a
> time
> before Europeans, who did not read or write.  Fool's crow gave his
> belongings
> away on a constant basis.  When a reporter admired his elaborate, cast
> silver
> and turquoise squash blossom necklace, he took it off and gave it to
> her.  When
> jobless relatives were eating him out of house and home he simply
> continued to
> divide up his things and portion them out according to how many people
> were
> sleeping on his floor at the time.
>
> Some have posited that this strategy aided survival in the time (ice ages)
> when
> the first Native Americans crossed the Bering strait.  They had such small
> groups that if someone died, they actually survived *worse* than if that
> person
> survived.  hence, dividing your pie to keep everyone going was the
> appropriate
> way to not die.
>
> some Native Americans used to have a tradition of once a year, giving all
> of
> their belongings away and starting from scratch.  Also, those who killed
> more
> buffalo than they could "process" (meaning, skin, tan hides, dry meat,
> store
> and carry) were punished by having all of their belongings thrown away and
> scattered on the prarie.
>
> there are more cultures around the world that exhibit similar behaviors,
> but on
> to the point.  In these cultures, when someone indicated that they liked
> one of
> your posessions, you just gave it to them.  Of course, *RECIPROCITY*
> dictated
> that if they asked you to give it back, you would.  This of course gave
> rise to
> a complicated system of ettiquite in which you did not casually ogle other
> people's belongings, or you did not casually invoke friendship or some
> other
> social gesture.
>
> In Kieth Basso's book "Portraits of the Whiteman" his breif (and
> hilarious)
> ethnographic study of Indians imitating annoying white people, one can
> clearly
> see the Indians' contempt for the too-frequent, too-early, too-casual and
> too-sloppy social gestures offered by whites.
>
> So what's the conflict that I mentioned before?  Unfortunately, almost
> everything published (especially in the anthropological classics) is being
> told
> to you through European-colored glasses.
>
> Then all of this analysis (which sort of means, putting what actually
> happened
> through the filter of a Westernized mind, and then publishing what's left)
> gets
> sort of mishmashed with what we actually experience, and we've got a fine
> stew
> of big words and concepts with 100-page bibliographies attached, but not
> necessarily any more clarity on how culture works or why things happen,
> and
> ESPECIALLY not on our relationship to the whole thing.
>
> In my experience, starting from the epicenters of WASP culture and working
> outwards to affected (infected?) regions, non-reciprocity is practiced as
> a
> dominance strategy.  You offer a handshake, and someone denies it.  They
> see
> you as "beneath" them.  You're speaking to someone, and they cut you off
> and
> turn away.  Gestures of contempt.  Of course, there are much more subtle
> ways
> to practice it.  It is most subtle when a large number of reciprocities
> are
> punctuated by a small percentage of non-reciprocities.  The direction of
> non-reciprocity determines the direction of dominance.
>
> Dominance is an extremely hot issue in Euro culture.  My theory is that
> after
> feudalism was toppled by a series of revolutions before the nation-state
> era,
> "freed" serfs did not create an entirely different culture to the one they
> always knew.  Instead, they simply duplicated it on a smaller
> basis.  Everyone
> was still trying to scramble to the top of the dog pile, to wear red and
> velvet
> and ermine.  In fact, that's what drives our materialistic, heirarchical
> society
> today.  Let's see: having lots and lots of children who can work or be
> sent to
> war for you.  Having a cool iPod that other guys can't afford.  Building
> Empires.  Suburbs.  Enclosing the commons.  Yeah, all of those things
> could
> definitely result from the delusionary pursuit of the social position of a
> mideval feudal lord.
>
> Also, not returning reciprocity (of attention, approval, anything) is such
> a
> common method for gaining dominance that even on the web, it pushes our
> buttons.  Yet there is another side to this game.  When everyone demands
> reciprocity (in order that they not end up dominated), reciprocity becomes
> a
> prison, our social life becomes a prison.  We learn to give in order to
> force
> others also to give.  We learn to withhold in order to punish and subdue.
>
> We have to even *invent* things to elevate, in order to have things to
> negate
> about others.  I would take personal hygiene as one example.  I can't
> count the
> times when I've heard people groan about "smelly" "oily-haired"
> "oily-skinned"
> or "hairy" Indians, or Italians, or Blacks.  Why is it that having
> manicured
> nails lacquered with toxic polish, straightening or removing one's body
> hair,
> and chemically deodorizing oneself, is such a desirable activity?  Because
> it
> allows us to look askance at those who have not mastered this technique.
>
> One could view the entire category of technique as susceptible to similar
> use.
> it has played a huge role in the history of racism.  Can't
> yodel?  Weeeell,
> we're into yodel here, so you can just mosey on.
>
> If we ever want to solve these problems, we would have to thoroughly,
> deeply,
> radically think up an entirely new social structure from scratch.  To be
> successful, it would probably have to be "crazy" by current norms.   Ready
> set
> go?  Sigh.
>
> Malian.
>
>
>
> Quoting "keith at thememorybank.co.uk" <keith at thememorybank.co.uk>:
>
> > Michel,
> >
> > Thanks for this. (Thanks too to Brian for his intriguing post). I think,
> > from what have been able to say briefly here, that there would be
> > substantial agreement between us on several matters. These would include
> > the importance of considering reciprocity as part of a set of what
> Polanyi
> > called principles of integration. I am currently editing a book of a
> > workshop on Polanyi, the crisis of neoliberalism and economic
> > anthropology,.  Market and Society: The Great Transformation today. The
> > issues you raise here engage the participants alos. Jean-Michel Servet
> > makes a powerful case for updating reciprocity, redistribution and
> market
> > in ways that evoke your comments about revenue-sharing.
> >
> > I have a particular beef about the idea of a gift economy which is a
> > travesty of Marcel Mauss's intention when writing the 'essai sur le
> don'.
> > His aim there was to expose the contrast between self-interested
> commerce
> > and the free gift as bourgeois ideology, insisting rather that the
> archaic
> > gift and modern markets, like economic institutions everywhere, combine
> > individual freedom and social obligation, self-interest and concern for
> > others in what is in effect the universal human condition. He also
> > preferred to deal with the social facts as given rather than with
> > analytical abstractions.
> >
> > I would not wish to hijack Trebor's stimulating post into a discussion
> of
> > the anthropological classics. And I am grateful to you and Brian for
> > reminding me of more recent writers. But it does raise the question of
> > whether the ethics of participation can be usefully discussed
> independently
> > of social context or without explicit reference to some of the main
> > categories that have usefully organize thinking about the topic.
> >
> > Keith
> >
> >
> > From: Michel Bauwens michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> > Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:01:00 +0700
> >
> > Keith,
> >
> > I completely agree with this. In my own work, and following the
> relational
> > grammar of Alan Page Fiske, I distinguish between the reciprocity-based
> gift
> > economy (Equality Matching), the tributary economies based on hierarchy
> > (Authority Ranking), Market Pricing exchange, and finally,
> non-reciprocal
> > Communal Shareholding, of which contemporaty peer production is an
> > expression.
> >
> > Viewing peer production as such is much more productive than what is in
> my
> > opinion the misguided equation of it with the gift economy. There is no
> > direct reciprocity in Linux or Wikipedia, only an indirect exchange of
> > different value streams (use value, expression, reputation, sharing
> > pleasure, etc...)
> >
> > But that doesn't mean that it has to be monopolistic or totalitarian
> either,
> > rather, the 3 other modes will co-exist. However, it can be argued that
> > non-reciprocal sharing is in many senses ethically superior. Instead of
> tit
> > for tat neutral exchange of the market, and the obligation-creating
> gift,
> > both of which involve direct calculations of mutual benefit, there is
> the
> > natural tendency to share, and an open return on that sharing, where
> > calculation of direct benefit is secondary. Instead of the win-loose
> context
> > of tributary economies, or the win-win (theoretically neutral) context
> of
> > market exchange, you have a context, where the very act of
> giving/sharing,
> > implies already the return, where the needs of the individual and the
> > community are not seen as different or opposed, but as co-existing in
> the
> > same act.
> >
> > The call for revenue-sharing, as mechanism for reciprocity, can
> therefore be
> > misguided. Better solution is to keep the non-reciprocal logicl 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.
> >
> > Michel
> >
> >
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
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> > http://mail2web.com/ .
> >
> >
> >
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