This study is about voluntary productive activities in digital networks and on digital platforms that often are described as pleasurable. The aim of the study is to relate the peer producers’ perceptions of their activities on a micro level in terms of play, game, work and labour, to their views on Wikipedia’s relation to capitalism on a macro level, to compare the identified ideological formations on both levels and how they relate to each other, and finally compare the identified ideological formations with contemporary Marxist theory on cognitive capitalism. The intention is to perform a critical evaluation of the economic role of peer production in society.Qualitative and semi-structured interviews with eight Wikipedians active within the Swedish language version of Wikipedia constitute the empirical base of the study together with one public lecture by a Wikipedian on the encyclopaedia and a selection of pages in the encyclopaedia that are text analysed. The transcribed interviews have been analysed using a version of ideological analysis as it has been developed by the Gothenburg School. The views on the peer producing activities on the micro level has been analysed in a dialectical way but is also grounded in a specific field model.Six ideological formations are identified in the empirical material. On the micro level: the peripheral, bottom-up- and top-down-formation, on the macro level: the Californian alikeness ideology, communism of capital and capitalism of communism. Communism of capital has two sides to it: one stresses the synergies and the other the conflicts between the two phenomena. The formations on the macro level conform broadly to contemporary Marxist theory, but there are important differences as well. The study results in a hypothesis that the critical side of communism of capital and the peripheral and bottom-up-formation could help to further a more sustainable capitalism of communism, and counteract a deeper integration of the top-down-formation with Californian alikeness ideology. The latter is the main risk of capitalist co-optation of the peer production that is underway as the manifestly dominant formations on the macro level are Californian alikeness ideology and communism of capital.
The aim of this article is to define the concepts of playing, working, gaming, and labouring, through a literature study, and to construct a typology. This typology will be used to create a field model that is structured by the horizontal parameters of qualitative-quantitative (characteristics) and the vertical parameters of activity-result (in focus). It is shown how this model can be used to visualise different theoretical positions in empirical material, which connects to the concepts and their relations. Working and labouring are distinguished into a trans-historical and a historical, capitalist, category, and likewise playing and gaming, where the former is the trans-historical category and the latter the historical one. The main focus of the article, since working and labouring is well covered within the critical Marxist tradition, is on playing and its relation to working, with the aim of understanding and criticising the concept of playbour.
The peer production of free and open software and Wikipedia has produced use value that competes with commercial exchange value and shown that people are not only motivated by economic self-interest. The peer production of Wikipedia differs from other open cooperative communities in ways that inform this study of how the Wikipedians perceive peer production’s place, influence and potential within society’s economy. Unlike free software, Wikipedia is largely based on amateurs and non-professional participants.
The broad number of participants, largely comprising of amateurs, who create an encyclopaedia, has turned a number of ingrained opinions about job sharing and specialisation upside-down. Marx's idea that no one in the communist society has an exclusive occupation but instead can realise themselves in whatever sector they wish, appears to be slightly more achievable bearing Wikipedia in mind.
Peer production explores the possibility of creating a public economy based on these mechanisms and on an autonomous internet, but not necessarily antagonistic in relation to capital. According to some social scientists the idea of evolution is key for the P2P principles, which are often set against an antagonistic interpretation of social production in Marxism. Peer production has thus the potential of introducing new political thoughts in Marxism.
This study is about voluntary productive activities in digital networks and on digital platforms that often are described as pleasurable. The aim of the study is to relate the peer producers’ perceptions of their activities on a micro level in terms of play, game, work and labour, to their views on Wikipedia’s relation to capitalism on a macro level, to compare the identified ideological formations on both levels and how they relate to each other, and finally compare the identified ideological formations with contemporary Marxist theory on cognitive capitalism. The intention is to perform a critical evaluation of the economic role of peer production in society.Qualitative and semi-structured interviews with eight Wikipedians active within the Swedish language version of Wikipedia constitute the empirical base of the study together with one public lecture by a Wikipedian on the encyclopaedia and a selection of pages in the encyclopaedia that are text analysed. The transcribed interviews have been analysed using a version of ideological analysis as it has been developed by the Gothenburg School. The views on the peer producing activities on the micro level has been analysed in a dialectical way but is also grounded in a specific field model.Six ideological formations are identified in the empirical material. On the micro level: the peripheral, bottom-up- and top-down-formation, on the macro level: the Californian alikeness ideology, communism of capital and capitalism of communism. Communism of capital has two sides to it: one stresses the synergies and the other the conflicts between the two phenomena. The formations on the macro level conform broadly to contemporary Marxist theory, but there are important differences as well. The study results in a hypothesis that the critical side of communism of capital and the peripheral and bottom-up-formation could help to further a more sustainable capitalism of communism, and counteract a deeper integration of the top-down-formation with Californian alikeness ideology. The latter is the main risk of capitalist co-optation of the peer production that is underway as the manifestly dominant formations on the macro level are Californian alikeness ideology and communism of capital
This article contributes to the debate on the possibilities and limits of expanding the sphere of peer production within and beyond capitalism. As a case in point, it discusses the explicit and tacit monetary dependencies of Wikipedia, which are not only due to the need to sustain the technological structures that render the collaboration possible, but also about the sustenance of the peer producers themselves. In Wikipedia, the “bright line” principle for avoiding a conflict of interest has been that no one should be paid for directly editing an article. By examining the case of Wiki-PR, a consultant firm allegedly involved in helping more than 12,000 clients to edit Wikipedia articles until 2014, the goal of the analysis is to shed light on the paradoxical situation where the institution for supporting the peer production (Wikimedia Foundation) found itself taking a more strict perspective against commercial alliances than the unpaid community editors.