PEER PRODUCTION ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: SPECIAL FSCONS EDITION SOCIALLY USEFUL PRODUCTION THE CUNNING OF INSTRUMENTAL REASON AUTHORITY IN PEER PRODUCTION BECOMING MAKERS HACKLABS AND HACKERSPACES BOOK OF PEER PRODUCTION EditorS Johan SödErbErg & MaXigaS Special edition of Journal of Peer Production – peerproduction.net In collaboration with Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit – fscons.org INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 2 TECHNOLOGY NETWORKS FOR SOCIALLY USEFUL PRODUCTION ...................... 4 THE CUNNING OF INSTRUMENTAL REASON ................................................... 12 AUTHORITY IN PEER PRODUCTION ................................................................ 23 BECOMING MAKERS .................................................................................... 36 HACKLABS AND HACKERSPACES .................................................................. 46 Publisher: NSU Press Cofinancer: LETStudio Graphic design: Karin Sjöberg All the content in this book is in the public domain ISBN 978-87-87564-83-0 Distributor: Aarhus Universitetsförlag A/S Langelandsgade 177 80 Aarhus N Denmark 2014 Göteborg, Sverige INTRODUCTION TO BOOK OF PEER PRODUCTION Johan SödErbErg & MathiEu o'nEil The Book of Peer Production is an off-spring of the Journal of counter-offensive. Under the current circumstances, its ideas Peer Production, an open access, peer reviewed journal dedi- and tactics are a roadplan for continued failures. Second, it is cated to investigating the emergence of peer production as clarifying to compare leading critical intellectuals of the early a new mode of production. Characteristic of peer production 20th century with their contemporary counterparts. Rosa is that the output is orientated towards the further expan- Luxemburg, Trotski, Lenin, Lukàcs, Korsch and Gramsci com- sion of the commons; while the commons, recursively, is the bined incisive political analysis with the leadership of political chief resource in this mode of production. In fact, the com- organisations. There are still a handful of intellectuals closely mons and peer production are two names for describing the associated with far-left micro-parties; in present-day Europe same thing: a particular kind of labour relation. This labour we have the late Daniel Bensaïd in France and Alex Callinicos relation is predicated on voluntary participation and the self- in the United Kingdom; in Latin America, one may think of selection of tasks. Participants may be driven by a variety of Álvaro García Linera, vice-president of Bolivia since 2006, and motivations, for instance, self-fulfilment, peer recognition, of Subcomandante Marcos of the Mexican Zapatista Army of developing new skills, or something else again. We may call National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional such motivations intrinsic. The high degree of intrinsic moti- or EZLN). But the overwhelming majority of present-day intel- vation in commons-based peer production is proportionate lectuals with a critical bent (the writers of this introduction to a relatively low degree of extrinsic motivation. That is to included), are state employees in the service of the university say, monetary compensation for labour expenditure. This is system. From this observation Keucheyan concludes: testified in the willingness among participants to relinquish exclusive proprietary rights over the results of their labour in this does not mean that contemporary critical intellec- favour of public ownership licenses. Starting from this ideal tuals are not engaged, or that they are less radical than type, we set out to scrutinise the inconsistencies and contra- classical marxists. but, aside from their engagement, dictions of peer production, placing emphasis on its hybrid they are academics, which cannot fail to influence the co-existence with dominant forms of (wage) labour and prop- kind of theories they produce.2 erty relations. A key area of investigation are cases where the output of the community is appropriated by a private rights The claims about an ascendant mode of peer production holder. Commons-based peer production is thus turned into seems to point in the opposite direction. As a counterpoint to a model for exploiting free labour.1 We invite contributions the academisation of debates and politics, alternative forums from as many perspectives as possible in this discussion. The and meeting places flourish where practitioners and activists overriding goal is to conceptualise what peer production is reflect over their practice and its wider, societal implications. and could become, as a step towards building a more just and No-one personifies this stance better than Richard Stallman. sustainable future. His ideals of autonomy, creativity, sharing, and cooperation have been advanced through the creation of GNU software, In keeping with the topic of the journal and the book, we the General Public Licence (or “copyleft”) and the Free seek to position ourselves in-between the grassroots initia- Software Foundation. Those achievements have been cou- tives and discussions taking place on the Internet, driven by pled with an independent production of ideas, manifestos, practitioners and activists of various kinds, and the theory forecasts and strategic plans. Recall the promise for the future and critiques coming out of academia. We are thus obliged that concludes the GNU Manifesto: to say some words about the match, and mismatch, be- tween the concept of peer production and the academic in the long run, making programs free is a step toward the world. This leads on to a much larger and thorny question: post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very the state of the contemporary intellectual landscape. This hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote has been brilliantly mapped by a French sociologist, Razmig themselves to activities that are fun, such as program- Keucheyan, in his book Hémisphère gauche. Une cartographie ming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week des nouvelles pensées critiques. Leaning on Perry Anderson's on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, diagnosis, Keucheyan makes two key points: first, it must be robot repair and asteroid prospecting. there will be no recognised that the New Left was defeated by the neo-liberal need to be able to make a living from programming.3 2 Keucheyan, R. (2010) Hémisphère gauche. Une cartographie des nouvelles 1 For a more on peer production, see: Vasilis Kostakis and Michel Bauwens pensées critiques. Paris: La Découverte. (2014) Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy. London: Palgrave. On the risk of exploitation of free labour, see: (ed.) Trebor 3 Stallman, R. (1985) The GNU Manifesto. Available: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/ Scholz (2012) The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge. manifesto.html/ 2 Trained social scientists are bound to react with a wry smile proponents of the Peer-to-Peer Foundation share many of the when reading the references to asteroids and robots. Most same concerns and analysis without being as closely tied to likely, they will proceed to formulate a critique of the logocen- the Marxist tradition. The initiative to start the Journal of Peer tric, techno-deterministic, Western and/or patriarchal hacker Production came out of discussions at the Fourth Oekonux culture.4 We invite such critiques as part of our collective conference in Manchester in 2009; our ambition was to create undertaking to reflect over peer production. Having said that, a forum that accommodates these different perspectives. a critique is not complete unless the critic includes himself/ herself in his/her analysis. As we saw, the position of the critic It is fitting that the book has been produced in connection with largely overlaps with that of the professional academic. One the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS). bias of this profession is a generalised anxiety not to be per- Since its beginning in 2007, FSCONS has been a rallying point ceived as naive, against which the critical stance serves as an for everyone interested in bottom-up technology develop- antidote. What is problematic here is that this attitude accords ment and its wider, societal implications. Equally fitting is it to so well with the ironic, post-ideological hegemonic order of have the book published on Nordic Summer University Press, the day. In contrast, the convictions expressed by Richard a forum for independent thinking and self-organisation for Stallman and like-minded people have been rewarded with more than 60 years. The same aspiration is expressed by the striking successes on the ground. The creation of peer produc- authors of this volume. In the opening chapter, Adrian Smith tion projects such as Project Gutenberg, Wikipedia and the documents the story about The Lucas Plan. When workers in many offshoots of GNU/Linux are some cases in point. Those the U.K. arms industry faced layoffs in 1970s, they proposed accomplishments stand out all the more as the traditional left to take over the factory and repurpose it for 'socially useful is struggling to come up with an adequate response to the production.' In the next chapter, Johan Söderberg investigates mounting crisis of the capitalist system. Post-1989, the space an open source 3D printing project that set out to