Some of the basic concerns that I’ll need to demonstrate in my CCCC presentation:
- Writing, as information, is a non-rivalrous good: what I get from reading a paper doesn’t take away from what you get from reading a paper.
University pPlagiarism policies in higher education, in order to give students the motivation to write, impose an artificial scarcity upon student writing that helps to firmly anchor it as a commodity with economic exchange value. (This follows from Bruce Horner’s attention to the Marxian difference between the use value of student writing and the exchange value of student writing.)- Writing is produced by economically valuable student labor.
- Under the neoclassical economic model, students’ upward class mobility is predicated upon their becoming more productive writers/knowledge-workers. (Note that what neoclassical economists call “increased productivity,” Marxian economists call an increased rate of exploitation.)
- Just as there is more than one definition of “class,” there is more than one definition of “class mobility,” although both terms bear unavoidable economic implications.
- While some associated with the FLOSS movement offer the dictum “free as in speech, not free as in beer” to help others understand the goals of the movement, it should be noted that both senses of the term “free” — gratis and libre — bear economic implications, particularly when understood in relation to the concept of ownership.
So that’s what I’ve been working through lately — it’s also, in very condensed form, the groundwork for my dissertation’s Chapter 5. Which of those, to you, seem to demand the most proof; what have I left out — and what implications are you seeing that I’m missing?
CCCC Presentation Work
Congrats on the book and the chapter, Mike. Here’s my question about your 4C’s presentation–are you exclusively talking about university students or any college student at any institution? We’ve had this discussion before, I think. Just want you to be clear about who you are talking about.
And it’s back to my 4C’s presentation –right now a rambling narrative that needs pruning.
When are you giving your paper?
Sorry, Joanna — I’m talking about all students at all institutions. It’s a bad habit of mine conditioned into me by discourse like that of Sharon Crowley and David Bartholomae; I’ll go back and change it to “Higher education.”
I’m presenting on Thursday at 9:30, Session H.30. You?
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As usual, the depth of your thinking overwhelms me. Certainly with software, the libre aspect is the greater part of the economic implications of FOSS and the like. Although, it is also a compliment to the gift, not in the individual use, but the gift to the common space where it can become something else when other gifts accumulate.
It seems to me that the gifts of words that we exchange in blogging and other on-line communities is related to your second point above. I’m not sure I get that point completely, but I understand that students are not encouraged to exchange their writings in this way, to riff and parry off one another’s words and create something new in the mix. Write it, turn it in, and don’t share or collaborate with your classmates.
You’ve got a lot going on here already, and I’m wondering about this aspect. You list these terms:
class (more than one definition — how many are you going to deal with in your presentation?)
class mobility (more than one definition — how many are you going to deal with in your presentation?)
free (as in gratis)
free (as in libre)
And then you say that all these terms “bear economic implications.” Assuming you plan on fleshing out all these implications, I’m wondering if you’re trying to do too much here for a 15-minute presentation. Also, Charlie might be covering rivalrous/non-rivalrous, so you might not have to worry about that one.
Finally, in #3, are you going to explain how students’ labor is economically valuable to would-be skeptics and to those who might provisionally agree with you but not know exactly what you mean by “economically valuable”?
Good points all, Clancy, and much appreciated: I think you’re recognizing my consistent over-ambitiousness in terms of the stuff I want to take on, and many of these concerns may be better left for development in a dissertation chapter rather than in a brief presentation. I think #3 is essentially a footnote to #2, and the “bearing implications” thing is my way of saying, “Well, I’m still working on this.” With that said: as a reader/listener, what would any potential attendees most want/need to know more about? Gerry, I think you offer one possible answer, but the interesting thing is that (I think) you’re reading as somebody with more expertise in FOSS issues and economics than in concerns of literacy and pedagogy, so I might ask: what do you believe writing teachers most need to know about such topics?
In point 2, I wondered whether it was more true of writing, noun, or writing, verb.
Ah: the activity (verb) versus the product of that activity (noun). Nice, subtle catch, since I’m going to be spinning that stuff out in the presentation. Writing-as-activity is labor, which both neoclassical and Marxian economists construct as scarce: I mean, that’s the whole focus of the Marxian folks, and the neoclassicals will tell you all about opportunity costs and marginal rates of substitution. Obviously, the plagiarism policies (and copyright itself) are all about the product, but with the implication that by making the product valuable, they’re attempting to make the activity valuable — there’s some legal decision that pointedly remarks upon the intent of copyright not being the protection of property but the furthering of the useful arts.
I need to go back to Bruce Horner and sort this stuff out.