What Future for Informational Capitalism?
Yes, I mean capitalists vs pirates of the Web. The economics of free content and peer production is it sustainable in the Great Recession? Where are people gonna get the income now that finance and advertising, those twin motors of neoliberalism, have come to a screeching halt? For sure, as Geert Lovink and others argue, the amateur free labor of the blogosphere has made informational capitalists expect to pay next to nothing to content producers. And this ain’t good. On the other hand, who is not up for a freebie and who doesn’t feel more at home in a Bay of Pirates than in a Valley of Capitalists? So, since copyright belongs to the past if society is to evolve and be free and educated, there’s gotta be a way to pay people. The short answer is: basic income plus those differential skills that still command money on the market. A burgeoning free and open source economy, next to a productivity-based market economy. This would be postcapitalism, or something that feels like it.
free download, free upload, p2p democracy
basic income, peer production, ecosocialism