[Commons-Law] A man, with his notes, in the city...

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

dear Joe,

Thanks for your cautionary remarks. I do understand (and appreciate your 
re-stating) that `commodity` economy works through a internal 
expansionary logic and it's valorisation is not with it's danger of 
slipping into some form of defense of small against big, or national and 
foreign or for some faction against some faction. Also, it can make us 
slip away from the corrosive and alienating forms that is associated 
with it.

My own question arises from another set of queries.

- When something is marked under the sign of `commodity`, 
`commodification`,  `illegality`, `criminality`, or `wage-work` we seem 
loose a sense of curiousity about the social worlds/realms that live, 
elaborates, innovates, contests, performs under these signs. I am now 
interested in how to talk about these social worlds and to develop 
conceptual and descriptive framework to do so.

- Commodity economy grew over the last 500 years rapidly and wage-based 
commodity production accelerated this process. We have now an adequate 
understanding of some of its working and how it expands and how it 
devours more and more areas of social life. But the logic of commodity 
production is also historically imbricated in many diverse social forms 
and practices. At times it produces Goebbels and at times circulates Bob 
Dylan. At times it punishes people into indentured labours and attimes 
it stops people to enter its borders. I would think looking at certain 
specific imbrication can make us ask interesting questions about nature 
of power, social practices and imaginations.

- What interest me today are specific networks of production and 
circulation of cultural goods that are continuously raided by property 
enforcers and deviously being marked by discourse of `theft` and 
`criminality`. I am interested in figuring out the social world that 
seems so threatening to huge global players. In this question, is also 
locked in the question of `imagination` of urban landscape and 
transformation. The specific urban design and plans that today are being 
enlarged has got to do with how social life is to be re-organised. I 
think that, what it stubbornly resisting this `re-design` is worthy to 
be looked at and understood. Maybe, through it we can ask other set of 
questions about our collective future and it's look.

- I agree that people have been singing and will be singing outside 
commodity forms. I would think the relation is not just one of  simple 
binary opposite. It is interlaced in a complicated way. The global 
popularity and circulation of many currents of music and it's continuous 
remixing is an interesting case in point. (popularity and circulation of 
Jazz is a good case)

I hope, i have been able to make some sense.

Looking forward to some opening up.

cheers
jeebesh



Joe Joe Harding wrote:

>Few Comments for consideration (and not as critique):
>
>What popularly goes as 'Piracy' or 'Copy culture' can
>also be defined as Commodity production units
>struggling to survive in an environment of varying
>hostility
>of the legal framework of the state.
>
>--- Jeebesh Bagchi <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>- A copy culture builds infrastructures and networks
>>(the infrastructure 
>>argument can be seen in Brain Larkin's work in
>>Nigeria around video 
>>cultures).
>>    
>>
>
>Like all commodity production it also has and build
>networks 
>and infrastructure. Limits are defined by the strength
>and density of state-legal grid.
>
>  
>
>>- These networks are dispersed, agile and dense.
>>They move into 
>>otherwise `technologically marooned spaces` (this
>>concept is being 
>>developed by Ravikant at Sarai) and create a lower
>>threshold level that 
>>allows for the entry of thousands of people.
>>    
>>
>
>Being dispersed and with low investment requirement it
>attracts greater and greater production. Limits are
>defined by social productivity, 
>demand and legal enforcement. 
>
>  
>
>>- Researching the proliferation of the `remix`
>>culture, he shows how 
>>these networks have developed internal `productive
>>capacities` to 
>>intervene, produce and circulate new cultural forms.
>>His collection of 
>>`Kaante Laga Ke` versions clearly gestured towards
>>an increasingly 
>>complicated matrix.
>>    
>>
>
>All commodity production does engengender 'productive
>capacities' for production of new forms and products.
>
>These are common to all commodity production. The only
>difference is the covert struggle against the existing
>legal framework. Celebration and valoristaion of
>commodity economy, in all its forms has its own
>implications.
>
>Milton Friedman could openly say that smugglers do 
>great good to society for they break the 
>artificial barriers to the free growth of commodity
>economy. He too followed the logic of commodity
>economy
>to its obvious conclusion.
>
>But does it make commodity production any more
>enticing?
>
>  
>
>>- Now with this new phase, he is opening up a new
>>realm (the realm that 
>>was opened up in Peter Manuel's Cassette Culture).
>>This is a world of  
>>so called `regional music`. Here, singers,
>>musicians, sound engineers, 
>>small time dealers, locality studios combine to
>>produce an extremely 
>>vibrant music culture for the `mobile-migrant` world
>>of labour and the 
>>mohalla (dense habitations outside of the planned
>>grids). You can listen 
>>to these songs on a public scale in Delhi during
>>holi, Chatt festival, etc.
>>    
>>
>
>A 'vibrant music culture for the 'mobile migrant'
>world
>of labour and the mohalla' has its own charm and
>energy 
>irrespective of its link with commodity eceonomy.
>
>  
>
>>We need to understand that this culture of music was
>>able to emerge and 
>>grow within the infrastructure and networks that
>>were built over a 
>>period of time around the `illegitimate` culture of
>>the copy.
>>    
>>
>
>This link is possibly an existential fact of the day,
>but has it got a necssary connection? I am sure
>culture 
>of music was historically vibrant before its
>commoditification and has also always shown great
>vibrancy 
>outside the grid of commodity production.
>
>J
>________________________
>  
>
>>commons-law mailing list
>>commons-law at sarai.net
>>https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
>http://mail.yahoo.com 
>_______________________________________________
>commons-law mailing list
>commons-law at sarai.net
>https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
>  
>