Yesterday's panel "Out-Cooperating the Empire" with Christoph Spehr, Andrej  Grubaic, Brooke Lehman , and Jim Fleming at The Left Forum at Cooper Union was productive, relaxed and in good spirit. Our discussion picked up more and more energy throughout the almost 2 hours of exchange. The title of the panel was inspired by what I called "out-collaboration" in relation to contributions to the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. Some hundred thousand volunteers added one million entries to Wikipedia (as of last week) while Britannica's pay service contains some 250.000 articles. We are well aware and can live with (and jointly fix) the problems with Wikipedia. Christoph asked what an offline community based on the experiences of Wikipedia would look like. People care about it. They care for the project and want it to succeed. In a similar way you cannot organize your block without caring for your neighbor. (The politics of care.) Take online sociability as inspiration for offline group formation.  

Christoph gave a brief introduction before showing a part of his video "On Rules and Monsters." Andrej linked the idea of cooperation back to Kropotkin's notion of mutual aid and suggested a look back in American history to find moments of free cooperation. Jim talked about the book  "The Art of Free Cooperation" that Geert Lovink and I will publish with Autonomedia soon. He also looked at the idea of applying models inspired by open source software development to government and the cultural sector. 

Listen to the first hour of the debate (mp3)

Listen to Christoph Spehr's brief introduction (mp3)

Is there cooperation outside of the Empire? Are there new structures in the old society? Where is the "unseen monster of cooperation"? Where are the networked counter-institutions: institutions of people's own making, mutual aid networks, and help networks? The panel agreed that working together is by no means an exclusively subversive behavior. The corporate battle cry is "Cooperate or Die!" Brooke emphasized that even "alternative" sharing is nothing all that special : "Sharing is what we do." Many pertinent questions came up in the conversation that followed.

What are seeds of alternative economies in the societal underwood? How can the online many identify their cooperative endeavors as revolutionary? A professor in the audience and I recounted our experiences with students who were laying on the floor laughing when we talked about "anti-piracy" campaigns by the music industry. Paying for music just seemed outright ridiculous to most students. However, they certainly don't think of their actions as "revolutionary" or even "subversive." They know that it is illegalbut they also know that they get away with it. (Can 57 million people downloading music illegally be all criminals?) Christoph pointed to a conference in Frankfurt with the title "If you are downloading mp3s, you are downloading communism." But students who are largely not even left-identified, would certainly find this idea absurd. They share with personal rather than collective gain in mind. Sharing is really a by-product here. The question of anonymity was raised in the audience. How can we be accountable, and thus foster trust within online groups while at the same time defending online anonymity as a value. (Internet2 with its IPv6.0 refers to this as "access management.")

In the United States, more and more people live in the socially isolating context of American suburbia. Can sociable web media help here? Or, do they merely lead to online connectedness while the much needed face-to-face meetings don't take place? Dara Greenwald who co-facilitated the panel described interactions in the computer labs of RPI where students are busy interacting in online games but have no time for a good old face-to-face dinner. She also pointed to Tad Hirsch's project "SpeakEasy."

How does race and gender impact the efficacy of these cooperation-enhancing web tools? To what extent does a lack of media literacy and media authorship skills as well as missing access to the Internet prevent people from contributing t participatory online environments? Is online sociability a playground only for white, middle class males? How can we discuss the potentials of social networked tools without getting romantic or cynical. Christoph pointed out that no one tool should be associated with revolution. He also emphasized the importance of conflict and negotiation of rules for cooperation. I pointed to Warschauer's findings about technology and social inclusion as well as Coyne's reflections on the web-based gift economy. I also discussed Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and the fact that civic participation in the US is on the decline while online self-help forum blossom. Christoph was critical of the so called gift economy in the commons and referred to it as "gift industry." I commented on the hilarity with which the term "gift" is used in American culture (think: free gift). We discussed problems with "free culture" such as hierarchies of exchange that open up within the gift economy. I emphasize the issue of property as central to the discussion of the commons. Each file contributed to archive.org, for example, turns its property value by falling under a GNU or CC license. The commons is split between the fenced-in, gated communities and the unregulated terrains in which peer production (Benkler) does take place. Perhaps an approach that looks at parallel economies rather than revolution is more realistic in the US.  

How can social online tools become locations of any kind of resistance if any potentially interesting tool turns corporate the moment it gets vaguely successful? Temptations that are brought forth are often bandwwidth, ease of use, convenience, and the offer ofa fairly wide range of free services. But these "free" offers come with a price. GoogleVideo is less used than YouTube because it only allows you to watch uploaded in the google window. YouTube gives you the option of seeing your video in a neutral frame. But a few days ago YouTube was bought by MTV. MySpace is now in Rupert Murdoch's hands. Google acquired Writely as part of their online vision. Blogger is of course in Google's pocket for a long time. Del.icio.us and Flickr are now owned by Yahoo. Perhaps our alternative economies and actions have to stick like hybrid parasites on the chest of the corporate media landscape?