[VBbuilders] Co-Owning the Physical Layer

[Mark Petz]

So does a tree own its own fruit or branches?

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> I've been asked privately if I could not clarify my own position regarding
> owners vs. users/consumers forms of ownership,
>
> so here is attempt,
>
> as I tried to indicate, the issue is primarily ethical and concerns the
> sovereignity of the producers of value,
>
> so without even necessarily having to be a believer in the labour theory of
> value, I think it is pretty clear that humans are the primary creators of
> value when they 'rework' what is given to us by nature,
>
> if this is true, then it follows that the producers of value, the workers,
> should be the primary 'owners', 'possesors' or beneficiaries of that value,
>
> now, does this necessarily mean that they should be the 'sole' owners?
>
> not at all, first of all, because it may be difficult to identify 'single'
> value creators, as we inherit so much from nature, from previous
> generations, and form the complex present society that we belong to, i.e.
> value creation is increasingly socialized
>
> this means that a wider variety of forms that marry individual and
> collective ownership must be possible,
>
> my second belief in in pluralism, freedom of choice, experimental freedom
> and the like, which is a strong argument for plural forms of property, but
> within limits, i.e. no property forms that destroy the environment,
> create/increate injustices to intolerable levels etc .. so I'm strongly
> opposed to leaving the current form of profit maximising forms of property
> 'as is'; if it is to survive, it has to be strongly reformed to recognize
> positive and negative social and environmental externalities, stripped of
> its personhood, etc ...
>
> Finally, there is the important issue of stakeholders and people afffected
> by any activity, this is an argument for extend ownership and at least
> stakeholder ship to user communities and all others that are affected,
> including eventually the wider citizen community ...
>
> sepp poses the important issue of governance vs. ownership, there it seems
> to me, and this is the great weakness of peer production until now, is that
> governance without ownership is weak, and therefore it is worth posing the
> issue of ownership, and not leaving it on the side
>
> this is by the way also a strong argument to keep forms of individual
> ownership along with collective forms, as an ultimate guarantee of personal
> sovereignty in a socialized world
>
> distribituted, plural forms of ownership and governance, with freedom of
> choice, is the key; the producers should not be separated from the means of
> production, so that the wage relationship does not become another name for
> slavery
>
> Michel
>
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 5:32 AM, Sepp Hasslberger <sepp at lastrega.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> Patrick Anderson wrote:
>>
>> > Are you saying the only agents allowed to
>> > work on a network must be within that
>> > specific subnet?
>> >
>> > If not, and if groups are allowed to hire
>> > anyone to work on the equipment, then should
>> > we require those workers buy ownership in
>> > that subnet before beginning work to protect
>> > them from exploitation?
>>
>> No, nothing of the sort. All I was saying is that the network is owned by
>> the users and it is maintained by them, in the sense that the users are
>> responsible for its maintenance. Of course they could hire anyone to do that
>> work, or one of the users could be compensated by other users to take care
>> of maintenance of a larger part of the network.
>>
>> I do not think that outsiders (like a technician who is not a user of the
>> particular network he maintains) should be required to be owners. A clean
>> professional relationship would be just fine. That is not to say that the
>> technician could not also become a user and part owner of the network, if he
>> so desired.
>>
>> Sepp
>
>
>
>
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