Re: [OPE] Linux and the Nature of the Firm.

I completely share your impression. In addition you know that I am cautious about the feasibility of these productive arrangements if we make them mandatory.   I don’t know if there is any parallel to Linux outside the software market.   Regards,A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: GERALD LEVY <gerald_a_levy@msn.com> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: viernes, 21 de noviembre, 2008 15:56:38 Asunto: RE: [OPE] Linux and the Nature of the Firm. Hi Alejandro:   OK, I'll take a small bite.   There are inherent limits to the size of the peer  groups working in this area so long as capitalism persists. The  limit is given by the lack of leisure time and the necessity for the overwhelming amount of people - including professionals - to work for capital or the state for a wage.  This area also assumes a certain level of expertise and the peer groups would then be composed of a skilled and technically knowledgeable elite. In other words, most working people  don't have the (non-working, 'free') time or, at present, the skills, to participate meaningfully in the creation and reproduction of this 'commons based peer production'. This is not to say that it won't grow in importance over time, but that there are limits to that growth cased by existing social relations of production.   Certainly,  this is a concern for capitalist firms in the computer software market but how exactly will this trend affect firms in other markets?   In solidarity, Jerry       Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm Yochai Benkler http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html%c2  **I suggest that we are seeing is the broad and deep emergence of a new, third mode of production in the digitally networked environment. I call this mode "commons-based peer-production," to distinguish it from the property- and contract-based models of firms and markets. Its central characteristic is that groups of individuals successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals, rather than either market prices or managerial commands.** (Yochai Benkler).

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Received on Fri Nov 21 16:23:50 2008