[liberationtech] Commercialization makes your online rights irrelevant, more thoughts from my talk with @ioerror at #rp12

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On 22.05.2012 00:59, Douglas Lucas wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Heather Marsh, former editor of WikiLeaks Central and one of the
> people whos working on The Global Square project -- she tweets as
> @GeorgieBC -- has been writing about governance through stigmergy,
> concentric user groups, and epistemic communities. Applying the model
> of contributions to Net projects such as Wikipedia to governance. I
> dont have time to summarize her thoughts accurately, and to be 
> honest,
> Im still thinking them over. Maybe Ill invite her to join the list 
> and
> talk about them. But here are the main links if you want to look
> yourself:

Not sure if she's still hanging around Berlin, but if she there's a 
good chance she'll join me for drinks this evening, if she does I'll 
mention this list.


> One thing that strikes me as missing from these conversations (both 
> on
> this list and elsewhere) is the lack of discussion about real-world
> transitioning to whatever proposed abstract system.

Indeed. Especially lacking are conversations about overcoming the 
"Political Aspects" as Kalecki put it. The stark fact that the current 
systems of exploitation and inequality give tremendous power and wealth 
to certain beneficiaries, and thus any transitioning will first to been 
to overcome conflict.


> The lofty and
> perhaps implausible (in my opinion) goal of removing coercion and
> still maintaining social insurance and minority rights, or any other
> abstract system we discuss,  [...]

Well said.

This article by Peter Cooper on compulsion and taxation is well worth 
reading:

http://heteconomist.com/?p=646

Here is an excerpt:

"It is possible to conceive of economic systems without taxation. For 
instance, a future socialist society could, in principle, operate 
without taxation. However, in the absence of taxation, there would need 
to be a high degree of spontaneous, voluntary cooperation for there not 
to emerge some other form of state compulsion (perhaps Stalinist 
police-state measures, state brutality, etc). Under capitalism, taxation 
creates space for public-sector activity – i.e. it enables a form of 
collective, social activity. It does this by restricting private-sector 
spending power, thereby freeing up resources for public-sector use. 
[...] In other words, taxation makes a limited form of social 
cooperation and public-sector production possible without, under normal 
circumstances, requiring more brutal forms of state compulsion."



-- 
Dmytri Kleiner
Venture Communist