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-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Seattle
To: aut-op-sy <aut-op-sy@...>
Date: Sunday, June 01, 2003 10:13 AM
Subject: AUT: future gift economy will not based on exchange or
oppressive obligations (reply to Robin and Thiago)

Hi Robin and Thiago,

Robin--May 23:
> I was particualrly interested in the subject of
> the gift economy although it looks like the
> discussion on it has been concluded (or has it?).
> As I am in the process of writing a book which
> will touch on this subject I wonder if anyone
> here could possibly do me a big favour by
> dredging up previous exchanges on this subject?

Below (see appendix) is an excerpt from my post to this forum
describing a gift economy that is not based on money, exchange,
commodities or any kind of "quid pro quo" -- or oppressive
obligations. I believe it is very important to make this as
clear as possible because of discussion of "gift exchange
economies" and related concerns such as expressed by Thiago:

Thiago--May 19:
> The key conclusion of Mauss, Levi-Strauss and Gregory
> is that gift exchange economies are chiefly oriented towards
> producing social relations. They don't mobilise social
> relations to produce a profit. Instead of alienating labour
> from workers in the commodity-form, the opposite happens:
> things are anthropomorphised. The gift becomes like a person,
> and is in fact inalienable. It remains the giver's after it is
> given. The possessor of a gift is thus bonded to the giver.

> But what sorts of social relations do gift exchanges produce?
> Historically, sexist ones. Levi-Strauss called women
> 'the ultimate gift', a notion altered and expanded by
> M. Strathern; the idea here is that all the gift exchange
> cycles articulate towards the exchange of women,
> that is to say, they articulate the control of reproductive
> technology. And usually, it is the men who do the articulating.

> Exchanges create strong social bonds. As I said before,
> I rather like the idea of getting my groceries from some guy
> I have no personal relation to. Sure it would be nice if we
> could all get along, but do you really want to live in a
> society where *everyone is family*??? I rather like
> the old anarchist calls to overthrow the family together with
> the rest of the junk we drag around our necks.But for me,
> universal brotherhood sounds like a nightmare (as I said,
> the revolution would have to invent asylums for people
> like me.)

> I'd say that rather than going off to Mars on the USS
> Libertarian, it would be better to explain just how gift
> economies are going to be superior to, say, the junk
> we have now, the anarcho-syndicalist model or
> central planning. It would be very important to show
> how gift exchanges would not create conditions of
> dependency. How do you avoid establishing oppressive
> obligations? I also have a feeling that there is no way
> on earth you can build a Jumbo through exchanges.
> Though you can build very interesting social
> configurations, the whole social arrangement of gift
> economies is oriented towards very different concerns
> to the ones we now have, for better or worse.

Thiago asks good questions: how do you avoid oppressive
obligations? How could you build a 747 in a gift economy?

1) The main way to avoid oppressive obligations is that people
will refuse to put up with them. A militant, progressive culture
will provide powerful examples on a daily basis of healthy social
and economic relations. People will strive for healthy attitudes
just as they do today--except that society and the culture and
the economy will encourage healthy emotions and attitudes instead
of unhealthy ones

2) We must recognize that there will need to be mechanisms of
some kind to encourage wise consumption. Otherwise, for example,
things are produced that are wasted. Earlier, I gave the example
that if I grow a peach and give you the peach--and you accept
it--then it is because you have the intention of eating the
peach.

If you (or your group or organization of producers or consumers)
do not make "good use" of the goods and services that are given
to you--then your supply of these goods and services will begin
to dry up.

Who decides what constitutes "good use" in a world without a
central authority? Everybody. Some people will take more of an
interest in some events than others. But everyone will have many
ways, thru their actions as producers, consumers and their voice
in the popular mass culture--to impact every aspect of this
complex self-organizing ecosystem.

It will probably always be the case that some kind of permanent
tension is necessary to prevent things getting out of
equilibrium.

In my essay on "the Self-Organizing Moneyless Economy"
http://Leninism.org/some ) I gave the example of diamond drill
production and consumption. A machinist's cutting tool coated
with diamond dust contains a lot of human labor. Such
"expensive" tools should not be used for casual machining tasks
(such as cutting aluminum)--but only those tasks where the
hardness of the diamond is really needed--such as precision work
with tough alloys. Otherwise we have a situation where human
labor is wasted (ie: a net loss in a production operation where
diamond drills that take a thousand hours of human labor are
consumed in the production of aluminum parts that could be
created in four hours by ordinary drills). In the
"self-organizing moneyless economy" I describe a fanciful
scenario where the Congress of Diamond Drill Producers confronts
the Congress of Diamond Drill Consumers--and tells them that they
intend to decrease diamond drill production unless diamond drills
are used in a less wasteful way.

Even from this fanciful example it should be clear that a
self-organizing moneyless gift economy will require a very large
number of organizations (both competing with and cooperating with
one another) to manage and organize the necessary tension between
production and consumption decisions.

Yes, 747's (or their future equivalent) will be created in the
future self-organizing moneyless gift economy. Workers will show
up for work (on time) and suppliers will compete to provide parts
and supplies. And all this will take place without the use of
money or exchange. The work will be voluntary. Work discipline
will still be enforced. If you are habitually late to a job
where being on-time is important--then you will lose your
position (ie: get voted off the team). You will not, as a
result, lose your wages (because there will be no such thing as
wages in a world where all work is voluntary) or the goods or
services that you need to live--but you will lose the opportunity
to create aircraft side-by-side with some pretty cool people.
Similarly, if you are an aluminum supplier and create your
aluminum in a way that wastes resources--then your resources will
tend to dry up and the aircraft factory will choose to get
aluminum from a competing supplier that is less wasteful of
social resources.

I hope it is clear that discipline of many kinds will always be
necessary in production, distribution and consumption and the
cycles that flow between them. The distinguishing feature of the
self-organizing moneyless gift economy is that this discipline
(and authority) ultimately flows from _within_ each worker and
consumer (who acts on the basis of internally recognized
principles) rather than carrots or sticks which are external.

Thiago notes that, historically, gift economies were sexist. But
these economies involved exchange and, furthermore, were
patriarchal societies (ie: where men ruled, etc). The most
well-known example of the kind of gift economy that will exist in
the future is probably the volunteer effort that has produced the
Linux computer operating system (not to be confused with the
commercial, proprietary companies and products on the periphery
of the Linux movement--like Red Hat and IBM). To the extent that
any kind of sexism exists within the community of Linux
volunteers--I would guess that it is quite minor and would tend
to evaporate as more women coders and testers join the effort.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 1.Jun.2003
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)

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========================================
Appendix -- gift economy without exchange
========================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Seattle <left-transparency@...>
To: aut-op-sy <aut-op-sy@...>
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 10:35 PM
Subject: AUT: What is socialist ownership? Who will deliver
China's future? (reply to Miyachi)

[...snip...]

------------------------------------------------------------
What is "socialist ownership" ?
------------------------------------------------------------

[...snip...]

Collective ownership represents a step forward from individual
ownership and (if run well--as opposed to run incompetently) may
result in a higher productivity of labor than individual
ownership. However, as Wu Lien notes, we must not confuse
collective ownership with ownership by the entire people.

However this fails to explain what "ownership by the entire
people" means. What _is_ it exactly? _How_ will it be
implemented?

I have seen no good answers to that question.

An extremely common (and extremely wrong) view is that "ownership
by the entire people" equals ownership by the state.

But ownership by the state has proven, in practice, to be equal
to ownership by a small number of bureaucrats. This has been the
case in the revisionist Soviet Union and China--where the state
owned enterprises were often poorly run.

And even in a future modern society ruled by the working
class--state ownership would not be equivalent to ownership by
the people.

I have developed my own views of what ownership by the entire
people will be--and that is the content of my work on the
self-organizing moneyless economy. Many people are profoundly
uncomfortable with my sketch of the self-organizing moneyless
economy--because "ownership" within it has no precise legal
definition--but rather is "fuzzy". The answer to any simple
question (such as who "owns" this factory?) has no crisp,
black-and-white legal definition that can be used to resolve the
disputes that will be inevitable. Who controls what the factory
produces? Who controls where the factory's products are
distributed? In the self-organizing moneyless economy the answer
to such questions will often depend on struggle--sometimes
ceaseless struggle--and sometimes struggles that will convulse
all of society.

> Wu Lien cites three examples of " the birth-marks of
> the old society" in socialist society and calls them
> "bourgeois rights". The first one is the incentive wage
> system in national corporations distributing their profits.
> The second one is holdings of land or lack of common
> property in the collective ownership economy. The third
> one is distribution according labor.

I agree.

The self-organizing moneyless economy will not make use of
distribution according to labor. Distribution will be according
to need.

If an apartment building needs a new roof--it will get a new
roof.

If a roof-materials factory needs raw material in order to make
supplies for a roof--it will get the materials.

There is no payment or exchange for any of this. No money. No
tit for tat. No quid pro quo.

Nor is there any central authority that makes decisions that are
binding on groups of roof-makers--who, by the way, receive
_nothing_ (other than a feeling of accomplishment, the friendly
companionship of their fellow workers and maybe a certain amount
of recognition within their circles) for their work--which is on
a completely voluntary basis. (Remember--distribution is
according to need--not labor)

But--what happens when there is not enough to go around? That's
really the key question isn't it? There will be conflicts and
disagreements. Should we put a roof on apartment building A or
apartment building B? And if we want to do both--we might need
to use timber obtained by cutting down some trees in an area that
some people believe should be left untouched because it is
important to a local ecosystem.

So disagreements will exist--and some questions will stir up
quite a lot of interest.

Anyone interested is encouraged to read my essay on "the
Self-Organizing Moneyless Economy" at http://Leninism.org/some

[...snip...]