Читать книгу The Handbook of Peer Production - Группа авторов - Страница 78

This chapter has provided an overview of the political economy of peer production. I began with an examination of the structural changes within capitalism that enabled the rise of peer production, and I also focused on some of the emergent cultural practices of peer production that subvert prevailing tendencies of capitalism. As such, there is a tension between capital and the commons that is constantly at play in the political economy of peer production. In this sense, it is useful to understand peer production as dialectically situated between capital and the commons, as it can account for the contradictory power of peer production, highlighting the ways that peer production intersects with circuits of capital accumulation but also the ways in which value is created and circulates within peer production communities according to a different logic. On the one hand, the extraction of value from data and information provided gratis to corporations has been a boon to capital accumulation schemes – certainly as it pertains to rapid growth and the attraction of speculative financial capital, if not proven formulas for profitability. On the other hand, peer production enables the creation of digital commons that can be shared with an increasingly large online community. The production, maintenance, and reproduction of the commons over time also carries the possibility of ushering in an era where mutual aid, care, trust, conviviality, and the commonwealth are valued more than competition, exploitation, and the maximization of individual or corporate profit.