See www.juhanavenalainen.net/teaching/new-commons/

1. 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

2. ¡ 1.
A
few
more
words
on
P2P
¡ 2.
Immaterial
and
affective
labor
¡ 3.
Cognitive
capitalism
¡ 4.
”Freedom”
in
a
commons?

3. ¡ 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)

4. ¡ 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

5. ¡ 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

6. ¡ 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)

7. ¡ 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)

8. ¡ 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

9. ¡ 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”)

10. ¡ “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

12. ¡ 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)

13. ¡ 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”

14. ¡ 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

15. ¡ 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

18. ¡ 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)

19. ¡ 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

20. ¡ 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

21. ¡ “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

23. ¡ 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

24. ¡ 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

25. ¡ “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

26. ¡ 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

27. ¡ 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?

28. ¡ "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

29. “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)

30. ¡ 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.