New Commons 6/6: Capitalizing (on) the Common

Juhana
Venäläinen

Researcher,
PhD
Student

University
of
Eastern
Finland

School
of
Humanities

juhana.venalainen@uef.ﬁ

5516126
New
Commons
/
Juhana
Venäläinen
/
University
of
Eastern
Finland
/
Spring
2013

¡  1.
A
few
more
words
on
P2P

¡  2.
Immaterial
and
aﬀective
labor

¡  3.
Cognitive
capitalism

¡  4.
”Freedom”
in
a
commons?

¡  P2P
infrastructure:

§  1.
Technological
infra
(”ﬁxed
capital”)

§  2.
Autonomous
information
and
communication

systems

§  3.
Software
for
autonomous
global
cooperation

§  4.
Legal
infrastructure
for
aﬃrming
and

protecting
use-‐value

§  5.
Suitable
cultural
conditions
(new
ways
of
being,

knowing
and
valuing)

(Bauwens
2005)

¡  P2P
characteristics

§  1.
Distributed
networks

§  2.
Anti-‐credentialism
(=inclusive
communities)

§  3.
Holoptism
(*)
(contra
panoptism)
-‐>
horizontal

distribution
of
the
process
management

§  4.
Flexible
hierarchies

§  5.
Distributed
leadership

§  6.
Non-‐reciprocal
gift
economy

§  (*)
a
term
coined
by
Jean-‐François
Noubel

¡  Digitalism:
Modern

ideology
of
equality

and
a
cult
of

englightenment

§  Parallels
between
lingual

and
biological
domains

§  Illusion
of
”energy-‐free”

reproduction
of

information

§  Utopy
of
a
reciprocal
gift

economy

¡  1.
Ignoring
wetware

§  Hardware,
software
and
netware
are
not
suﬃcient
for

building
autonomous
commons

§  More
focus
should
be
put
on
the
reproduction
of
the

“peers”
as
“wetware”
(biological,
mental
beings)

¡  2.
Misfocusing
the
struggle
of
digital
freedom

§  Overemphasis
on
the
rights
to
singular
cultural

artefacts
(-‐>
copyright
regimes,
etc.)

§  Underemphasis
on
the
rights
to
the
infrastructure

§  -‐>
theory
of
“cognitive
rent”

(Pasquinelli
2008)

¡  The
preference
of
”direct”
social
engagement

over
money-‐mediated
market
engagement

¡  A
”humanist”
idea
of
the
immeasurability
of

the
value
of
persons
and
their
eﬀorts

¡  A
generalized
critique
of
the
money-‐form

(Virén
&
Vähämäki
2011)

¡  Work
done
on
the
networking
commons:

beyond
measure”
and
beyond
control?

¡  Or:
measured
and
controlled
diﬀerently?

§  Equality
matching
(eye-‐for-‐an-‐eye)

§  Informal
measurements
of
eﬀort

§  Communal
pressure

§  Meritocracy

§  Oligarchy

¡  What
is
it
“production”
of,
if
anything?

¡  What
are
the
“commons”
in
question?

¡  E.g.
sharing
copyrighted
music
via
BitTorrent
protocol

§  The
cultural
artefacts
are
produced
outside
this
networking

commons
and
expropriated
to
the
commons
(a
“counter-‐
enclosure”)

§  New
kind
of
“relational”
products
through
the
practices
of

sharing:

▪  New
consumption
patterns,
trends,
hypes

▪  New
market
information

▪  New
ways
of
advertising

§  -‐>
the
idea
of
consumer
as
a
producer
(“prosumption”,

“produsage”)

¡  “Culture
of
sharing”
as
a
double-‐edged
sword

¡  Sharing
as
“freedom”?

¡  Capitalizing
on
the
sharing

¡  Creates
a
global
market
of
“audience

commodities”

¡  Technological
&
economic
infrastructures
of

sharing:
highly
concentrated

New Commons 6/6: Capitalizing (on) the Common

¡  The
changing
role
of
affects
in
capitalist

economy

¡  Affects
as
directly
productive
of
capital

¡  Affective
labor
as
one
of
the
highest
value-‐
producing
forms
of
labor
(from
the
point
of

view
of
capital)

¡  Global
economy
is
(=was)
taking
a
step
towards

“postmodernization”

§  Shift
from
industrial
production
to
informational

economy

§  Does
not
imply
the
disappearance
of
the
previous

forms
of
labor
(industrial,
agricultural)

§  Rather
the
introduction
of
communicative
techniques

in
all
sectors
of
production
(“treat
manufacturing
as
a

service”)

¡  The
old
conception
of
the
global
division
of
labor

(I
=
informational,
II
=
industrial,
III
=
agricultural)

does
not
apply

§  “All
forms
of
production
exist
[…]
under
the

domination
of
the
informational
production
of

services”

¡  Fordism

§  “Mute”
relation
b/w
production
and
consumption

§  Producer
can
expect
100
%
demand
of
everything
produced

§  -‐>
delayed
and
restricted
“feedback
circuit”
from
consumption
to
production

¡  Toyotism

§  Production
planning
communicates
rapidly
with
the
market
changes
(-‐>
fast

“feedback
circuit”)

§  Just
in
time
production

¡  Service
economy
model

§  Communication
as
productive
–
and
as
a
product
–
in
itself

§  Based
on
continual
exchange
of
information
and
knowledges

§  “The
model
of
a
computer”
as
a
paradigm
of
production

§  -‐>
immaterial
labor

¡  The
“other
face”
of
immaterial
labor

¡  Involves
human
contact
and
interaction

¡  Plays
a
vital
role
in
service
industries
from
fast-‐
food
restaurants
to
stock
trading

¡  Produces
“immaterial
goods”:
feelings,

excitement,
passion,
a
sense
of
connectedness

¡  -‐>
creation
and
manipulation
of
aﬀects

¡  Main
theses:

§  1.
The
focus
of
the
wealth
creation
has
been
relocated
from
material

production
to
the
production
of
knowledge,
affects
and
“life
in
itself”

§  2.
The
affective/cognitive
component
of
value
creation
is
not
only

“mental”
or
“immaterial”
but
diffused
in
different
“materialities”

§  3.
The
extraction
of
surplus
value
is
not
based
on
concrete

organization
of
work
within
a
firm
but
on
the
exploitation
of
the

voluntary,
independent
and
non-‐paid
cooperation
of
workers
through

“cognitive
rent”

¡  Notable
theorists

§  Carlo
Vercellone
(2005;
2007;
2008),
Yann
Moulier
Boutang
(2007),

Enzo
Rullani
(2000;
2004a;
2004b);
Andrea
Fumagalli
(2007)

¡  A
new
mode
of
capital
accumulation

§  Based
on
knowledge
and
creativity

§  Knowledge
as
the
prominent
factor
of
production
and
the

site
of
value
creation

§  Stresses
investments
on
the
immaterial
(education,
R&D,

communications
infra,
“human
capital”
in
general)

¡  Key
parameters
of
the
accumulation
system:

§  Property
rights
arrangements

§  Networks
and
alliances

§  Projects
management

§  Geographical,
institutional
and
organizational
conditions

for
extracting
proﬁt
from
knowledge
and
innovation

¡  Virtualization
of
the
economy

¡  Digitization
of
knowledge

¡  ICT
as
socio-‐technological
resource

¡  Collapse
of
the
division
of
labor

¡  Real-‐time
production

¡  Tendency
of
open
access

¡  Crises
in
IP
rights

¡  “Biopolitical”
mode
of
production

¡  “Information
technology,
personal
computers

and
Internet
will
rise
to
a
similar
position
as

metaphors
as
the
coal
mine,
steam
engine,

weaving
machine
and
railway
were
for

industrial
capitalism.”
(Moulier
Boutang
2007)

¡  -‐>
a
new
historical
phase
and
regime
of

organizing
production
and
the
social
life
in

general

¡  Scope
of
Google

§  Over
1
trillion
indexed
pages
(2008)

§  Total
revenue
ca.
50
bn$
(2012)

§  Market
share
of
84
%
in
desktop
search
(2011)

¡  McKinsey
&
Company
(2011):

§  The
global
added
value
of
search
in
2009:
780
bn$

▪  -‐>
0,50
$
/
search

§  Only
4
%
of
the
added
value
is
capitalized
within
the
“search
engine

industry”

▪  The
bulk
of
proﬁt
is
gained
by
other
industries
and
individual
households

¡  Beckström’s
Law

§  The
value
of
a
network
equals
the
net
value
added
to
each
user’s

transactions
conducted
through
that
network,
summed
over
all
users

¡  1.
Not
in
the
production
of
new
knowledge,
but
in

processing
pre-‐existing
information

§  Exhibition

§  Filtering

§  Production
of
the
context

¡  2.
Not
in
individually
genuine
ideas,
but
in
attention

and
relation
between
diﬀerent
contents

¡  3.
Not
in
direct
control
of
the
users’
behaviour,
but
in

providing
a
technological
and
social
platform
of
free

communication

¡  “Political
entrepreneur”
(Moulier
Boutang)

§  Does
not
invest
in
actual
production
processes
or

launch
them

§  -‐>
tries
to
arrange
and
control
the
already
existing

processes
and
extract
value
from
them

¡  Fuchs
(2011):
The
extraction
of
value
in
Google
is

based
on
the
non-‐paid
work
done
by
the
users

§  Users
provide
the
actual
content

§  Users
provide
the
relational
information
(metadata)

on
the
content

▪  What
is
“interesting”

▪  What
is
trending

▪  Which
contents
are
related
and
how

¡  Google
extracts
surplus
value
from
audience

commodities
sold
in
targeted
advertising

¡  Hardin:
“Freedom
in
a
commons
brings
ruin

to
all”

¡  Now:
Freedom
in
a
commons
brings
proﬁt
to

all?

¡  -‐>
But
what
freedom,
what
proﬁt,
to
who
all,

and
how?

¡  "The
development
of
each
human
fate
can
be

represented
as
an
uninterrupted
alternation

between
bondage
and
release,
obligation
and

freedom.
This
initial
appraisal,
however,

presents
us
with
a
distinction
whose
abruptness

is
tempered
by
closer
investigation.
For
what
we

regard
as
freedom
is
often
in
fact
only
a
change

of
obligations
[...]
The
process
of
liberation
now

starts
again
with
this
new
duty,
just
as
it
had

ended
at
this
very
point.”

–
Simmel,
"The
Philosophy
of
Money",
4.I

“Power
is
exercised

only
over
free

subjects,
and
only

insofar
as
they
are

free.
[…]
At
the
very

heart
of
the
power

relationship,
and

constantly
provoking

it,
are
the

recalcitrance
[disobedience]

of
the
will

and
the

intransigence
[stubbornness]

of
freedom.”

(Michel
Foucault,
“The
Subject
and
Power”,
cited
in
Hardt
&
Negri
2009,
p.
59)

¡  Bauwens,
Michel.
2005.
“The
Political
Economy
of
Peer
Production”.
CTHEORY.

http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499

¡  Bughin,
Jacques
ym.
2011.
The
impact
of
Internet
technologies:
Search.
McKinsey
&
Company.

¡  Fumagalli,
Andrea.
2007.
Bioeconomia
e
capitalismo
cognitivo.
Verso
un
nuovo
paradigma
di

accumulazione.
Roma:
Carocci.

¡  Hardt,
Michael.
1999.
“Affective
Labor”.
boundary
2
26(2):
89-‐100.

¡  Hardt,
Michael
&
Antonio
Negri.
2009.
Commonwealth.
Cambridge,
Mass.:
Belknap
Press
of

Harvard
University
Press.

¡  Moulier
Boutang,
Yann.
2007.
Le
capitalisme
cognitif:
la
nouvelle
grande
transformation.
Paris:
Éd.

Amsterdam.

¡  Negri,
Antonio.
1999.
“Value
and
Affect”.
boundary
2
26(2):
77–88.

¡  Pasquinelli,
Matteo.
2008.
Animal
Spirits:
A
Bestiary
of
the
Commons.
Rotterdam:
NAi

Publishers
/
Institute
of
Network
Cultures.

¡  Simmel,
Georg.
2004[1900].
The
philosophy
of
money.
Psychology
Press.

¡  Vercellone,
Carlo.
2005.
“The
hypothesis
of
cognitive
capitalism”.

¡  Vercellone,
Carlo.
2008.
“The
new
articulation
of
wages,
rent
and
profit
in
cognitive
capitalism”.

Queen
Mary
University
School
of
Business
and
Management,
London.

¡  Viren,
Eetu,
ja
Jussi
Vähämäki.
2011.
Perinnöttömien
perinne:
Marx
ilman
marxismia.
Helsinki:

Tutkijaliitto.

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