The Political Economy of the Commons

Seminar at the University of Helsinki on Saturday 25 May 2013 Department of Political and Economic Studies, Main Building, Room 3 (Fabianinkatu 33: http://www.helsinki.fi/teknos/opetustilat/keskusta/f33/ls3.htm)

Program:
09:3009:45 The Political Economy of the Commons Opening of the Seminar Tero Toivanen & Taavi Sundell 09:4510:00 Common Greetings from Peru (via Skype) Prof. Teivo Teivainen with Peruvian colleagues 10:0010:45 Keynote: The Political Economy and Political Phenomenology of Living with Fossil Fuels Prof. Tere Vadn (http://nuvatsia.terevaden.net/) 10:4511:15 Beyond the Commons to Enclosure Beyond Enclosure to the Heart of the Commons Anthony McCann (http://wwww.anthonymccann.com) 11:1511:45 Understanding Cultural Commons Sanna Marttila 11:4512:15 Marxs Theory on Value and Cognitive Capitalism Paula Rauhala 12:15-13:00 Lunch 13:0013:30 OSS 2.0 as a Microenclosure of Commons Juho Lindman 13:30-14:00 Production, Decentralization and the Commons Elina Turunen 14:0014:30 Occupy life! Precarity, Basic Income and the Commons Jukka Peltokoski

14:3015:00 The Precarity of the Commons Commons and Basic Income in the Age of Precarity Mikko Jakonen 15:00- Ending Words for Fellow Commoners Tero Toivanen 15:30 Get-together at Maailma kylss festival in Kaisaniemi The Seminar will be broadcasted live via Bambuser: http://bambuser.com/channel/commons.fi For more info please contact: Tero Toivanen, tero.toivanen@helsinki.fi, p. +358 44 5331750 For the Call for Papers of the Seminar see: http://www .commons.fi/cfp-political-economycommons-helsinki-25th-may-2013

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Abstracts:
Anthony McCann Email: info@anthonymccann.com Beyond the Commons to Enclosure - Beyond Enclosure to the Heart of the Commons In recent years, the abstract metaphor of the commons has become a key fulcrum of public debate on intellectual property, information, and public welfare. Discourse about the commons has become a source of communitarian imaginaries and political aspiration. However, understandings of the commons generally depend on understandings of enclosure, and analysis of enclosure remains strangely neglected. This paper outlines a systematic theoretical model of enclosure. By focusing on the processes of enclosure two distinct histories of the commons come to light: the commons understood as a form of resource management, and the commons understood as an uncommodifying, localised quality of relationship. The former has historically been the perspective of proponents of enclosure and privatization. The latter has historically been the perspective of resisters of enclosure. Interestingly, the resource-management approach to the

commons is today dominant in discourses of the commons, even among people who claim to resist enclosure. I suggest that most current understandings of the commons continue to undermine the advocacy that people undertake on behalf of the commons. This paper renews a focus on the generation and sustenance of what I call the Heart of the Commons an uncommodifying quality of relationship in the cause of hope, resilience, and a more helpful humanity. Biographical note: Anthony McCann is a personal and business coach and consultant and a specialist in the dynamics, discourses, and practices of enclosure and the commons. An experienced educationalist, ethnomusicologist, folklorist, and social theorist, Anthony has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of California, the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of Ulster. Anthony holds the positions of Research Associate with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Visiting Fellow with the University of Bristol's Graduate School of Education, and Associate of the Center for Emergent Diplomacy in Santa Fe. Anthony lives with his wife Emma and their son Aodan in Holywood, Co. Down, Northern Ireland. Twitter: @anthonymccann Email: info@anthonymccann.com Skype: anthonymccann.com Tel: 028 90425620 Mob: 07913 736 897 http://www.anthonymccann.com http://www.craftinggentleness.org http://www.scholarcoach.co.uk __________________________________________________________________________

Sanna Marttila Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture sanna.marttila@aalto.fi Understanding Cultural Commons Since the commons scholars began to study the information commons and the knowledge commons in the digital age, instead on the more traditional focus on natural resource management systems, there has been increasing interest to understand what commons could mean in the cultural environment (cf. Hess 2008; Madison et. al 2010; Bertacchini et. al 2012). Building upon both theory and practice, this paper conceptualizes and critically explores the concept of Cultural Commons, and further developsthe concept by adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws on the cultural studies, social sciences, and design research. I introduce a framework in which a cultural commons arise from creative conversation (Lvy 2011) through practice and production by cultures of participation (Fischer 2011). This conversation takes place in the cultural field (Bourdieu 1993;Bourdieu, 1996/1992) where various positioned groups negotiate the value, use and governance of the cultural goods. Cultural Commons is understood as an evolving knowledge commons, cumulative in nature and organized by creative conversationsthat shape our shared cultural heritage and memory. Through design work with memory institutions seeking to make digital resources available to the public, the paper highlights how design principles for cultural commons are negotiated, and how they shape the possible creative conversations in the commons. References: Bertacchini, E.; Bravo, G., Marrelli M. and Santaga, W. (2012): Cultural Commons: A New Perspective on the Production and Evolution of Cultures. Cheltenham, UK. Benkler, Y., 2006. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yale University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, Pierre (1996/1992) The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fischer, G., (2011): Understanding, fostering, and supporting cultures of participation. interactions, 18(3), pp.4253. Hess, Charlotte (2008) Mapping the New Commons (July 1, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1356835 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1356835

Lvy, P. (2011) The Semantic Sphere 1. Computation, Cognition and the Information Economy, ISTE / Wiley, London and NY, 2011. Madison, Michael J. Frischmann, Brett M. & Strandburg, Katherine J. (2010) Constructing Commons in the Cultural Environment, 95 CORNELL L. REV. 657. _________________________________________________________________________

Juho Lindman Assistant Professor of Information Systems Hanken School of Economics, Department of Management and Organization juho.lindman@hanken.fi OSS 2.0 as a microenclosure of commons OSS 2.0 means commercial usage of open source practices in traditional organizations. But what actually happens in a moment when firms software production is opened imitating the successful open source communities of the internet? This study reports the results of a three year industrial case study on how open practices change software production in commercial organizations. During the uptake, the local meaning of the term open source was renegotiated and followed by structural transformation of the software production function. Rhetorical renegotiation of was needed to create a collective cognitive view of what it means for an organization to leverage open development. Furthermore, the creation of this shared understanding is a stepping stone for both the legitimization and mobilization required to change the production. Findings indicate drastic transitions in the local meaning of the term open source that result from renegotiations, as well as describe the different paths available for organizational software production. Theoretically, the more nuanced picture of these micro-level processes, which constitute an enclosure of sorts, helps in understanding how commercial organizations may capture value produced by the commons. __________________________________________________________________________

Paula Rauhala University of Tampere paulamrauhal@mappi.helsinki.fi Marx's theory of value and cognitive capitalism Autonomous Marxists commonly reject Marxs theory of value and apply Marxs other ideas alongside the mainstream economic theory in their analysis of the so called cognitive capitalism. So do Eetu Viren and Jussi Vhmki in their book Perinnttmien perinne (2011). The book provides interesting insights on new forms of labour and subjectivity in the era of cognitive capitalism, but it too hastily abandons the labour theory of value as outdated. As Guido Starosta (2012) shows the special ontological features of cognitive commodities, such as their costless reproducibility and non-excludability, challenge neither value theoretical explanation nor the capitalist mode of production, based on exploitation of the surplus-labour of the working class. I will discuss the book from the perspective of Marxs value theory and I suggest that it would serve authors aims better than the conventional Marginalist arguments concerning knowledge economy. __________________________________________________________________________

Elina Turunen University of Helsinki elina.turunen@helsinki.fi Production, decentralization and the commons Environmental organizations have stated that a highly decentralized energy production is required if we are to have more than 25 % of the energy produced by renewable energy sources. More renewables would not fit same markets with centralized production, because the production rate of renewables varies and it would be difficult to regulate the production of the bigger plants efficiently. Also organic small scale farming has had problems in Finland to enter the markets dominated by a few big actors. On the other hand, natural resources might become more crucial to reproduction of labor when the contest for resources intensifies. The dispersal of production could combine environmental sustainability and networked production, which could lead the way to a more commons-based production in the future. __________________________________________________________________________

Jukka Peltokoski Educational producer KSL Civic Association for the Adult Learning, Finland jukka.peltokoski@ksl.fi Occupy life! Precarity, Basic Income and the Commons In our article we discuss the value of basic income for the precariat, the new labor force in the age of networked information economy. There are already many concrete models how the basic income could be realized from negative income tax and value added tax to money created by central bank. Our article, however, does not concern these more technical issues. We focus instead on the idea of basic income as a form of guaranteed income and as a liberating constitution for the new precarious laboring classes. By precariat we refer to unsecured labor force like temporary workers, self-employed and selfentrepreneurial workers, unemployed people and paperless immigrants. Furthermore, precarious life refers to the socially and economically unrecognised occupations of social production like home work, third sector volunteer work and new peer to peer network production that take place outside of the official labor markets and traditional ways to measure the value of labor. We argue that emerging peer producers identify themselves largely to the precariat. The precariat, however, remains largely without political trajectory and organization. We define the precariat from two overlapping perspectives. First, it derives from the rupture of the welfare state system that was founded on the basis of Fordist mode of production and industrial model of permanent wage work. Different statistics, political programs and institutional changes in the European economy are alarming signs about this. Second, the precariat is emerging as an autonomous force in the new productive networks and the new model of work intensifying especially in the knowledge and services sectors of the new economy. In the first case the basic income would mean social security 2.0 by making the life under precariousness more tolerable. In the second case the basic income would mean the liberation of the new productive forces from the old model of work by making it possible to work and create in new ways for the new social well being. For the peer producers and commoners the basic income would mean a huge leap forward by constituting a new economic basis for the developmental projects. However, perhaps most of all it serves as a common political demand for the precariat to become a self-empowered and transformative social power. The basic income in this sense is a demand for the new common institution that would constitute new productive forces like peer to peer production. __________________________________________________________________________

Mikko Jakonen Researcher in Political Science University of Jyvskyl E-mail: mikko.p.jakonen@jyu.fi The Precarity of Commons - Commons and Basic Income in the Age of Precarity During the last decades the question of commons has returned to the centre of radical debates concerning politics, economy and political economy. In this paper I consider the concept of commons in relation to the concepts of precarity and basic income. It is through these three concepts that it is possible, first of all, open an analysis of the contemporary capitalism, production and work and secondly, to offer new ways of acting and organizing politically in contemporary situation. Contents: 1. Commons as the basis of contemporary capitalism 2. Struggles of over the commons 3. Precarization and the question of commons 4. Basic income and the future of European welfare societies