Venture Communism
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
- More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Don't Hate the Business, Become the Business!
Presentation Title:
- Venture Communism
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Panel: DON’T HATE THE BUSINESS: BECOME THE BUSINESS!
In the age of international telecommunications, global migration and the emergence of the information economy, how can class conflict and property be understood? Drawing from critiques of political economy and intellectual property, The Telekommunist Manifesto is a contribution to commons-based, collaborative and shared forms of cultural production and economic distribution. Proposing “venture communism” as a new model for workers’ self-organization, Kleiner spins Marx and Engels’ seminal Manifesto of the Communist Party into the age of the internet. As a peer-to-peer model, venture communism allocates capital that is critically needed to accomplish what capitalism cannot: the ongoing proliferation of free culture and free networks. In developing the concept of venture communism, Kleiner provides a critique of copyright regimes, and current liberal views of free software and free culture which seek to trap culture within capitalism. Kleiner proposes copyfarleft, and provides a usable model of a Peer Production License. Encouraging hackers and artists to embrace the revoluty potential of the internet for a truly free society, The Telekommunist Manifesto is a political-conceptual call to arms in the fight against capitalism.