What is Generative Justice?

It is the ethical right those who generate value to directly participate in its benefits, create their own conditions of production, and nurture sustainable paths for its circulation.

Why assume that we already have our politics settled,

and only need to bring science and technology “into compliance”?

It is the ethical right those who generate value to directly participate in its benefits, create their own conditions of production, and nurture sustainable paths for its circulation.

“Hey that’s great, I’m rich and I don’t want taxes or labor unions or environmental regulations.”

How do we distinguish generative justice from free market capitalism?

Marx’s theory of valueIn a barter economy, we know from experience the “use value” of objects.

So the exchange of goods – the flow of value-- embodies a sense of justice.

It takes about day, and one deer hide, to make 5 moccasins.

It takes about day, and a sack of corn, to make 50 tortillas .

Vu = Vu

Maximizing visibility of laborIn a barter economy, gift exchanges are about maintaining relationships, so they are

deliberately unequal—but again are maximizing the visibility of labor to have ethical flows of value: “thank you for the time you put into making this beautiful gift”

Vu made visible

Marx’s critique: the market economy makes the true source of value invisible

Marx’s critique: the market economy makes the true source of value invisible

The profits from marketing (“surplus value”) are far more than the use value. The difference is the value extracted from laborers, since they are not paid the true value.

Marx’s critique: unjust extraction of value made invisible by capitalism

Capitalism extracts the self-generated value of labor, creating injustice and alienation

We can extend Marx’s critique to the agency of nature, another generator of

value 1) Capitalism extracts self-generated value, creating injustice and alienation

2) Capitalism raises profits by "externalizing" costs, damaging health and environment

Marx’s solution: state ownership will return value to labor and nature

Labor disasters in the USSR

White Sea Canal Almost all workers were prisoners; 200,000 died during construction. Canal would be frozen half the year, and water too low in dry summers.

Magnitogorsk ("Steel City") lack of water transportation, no coal nearby, no labor force nearby, no studies of extent of iron ore. Worker's promised "garden city" away from industry; got barracks with open sewers, directly in the path of blast furnace fumes, instead. 30,000 prisoners used, 10% died the first winter.

Ecological disasters in the USSR

Above: Scarred landscape caused by overgrazing in USSR

Below: lush grazing land under indigenous Mongolian community control

Confusion over social justicein the case of Open Source Software

Kevin Kelly is wrong: Open source software does not fit the category of “socialism”

Yet it is relevant to “social justice” – how do we resolve this contradiction?

Open Source is a case of generative social justice

Generative justice reconfigures the flow of value: from labor back to labor

Previously the software developers labor value can be privatized (extracted) But Open Source ensures that value is available to its source of generation via the public commons

Generative justice reconfigures the flow of value: from nature back to nature

Previously nature’s value can be privatized (extracted). But Critical Growing (Lyles) ensures it is available to its via the natureculture commons.

Why should small scale waste recycling be better than large scale industrial

waste systems?

Because the small-scale case offers greater opportunity for Generative justice

Generative justice can be anything that helps return value to those who

generate it

Social entrepreneurship: capital at the service of social justiceGenerative public spaces: Community gardens, muralsGenerative technologies: DIY, Maker-faire, Arduino, fan fiction, citizen journalismGenerative educative practices: Recovering heritage, history, futures

Conceptual Challenges for Generative justice

1) How might generative justice help us differentiate between the kinds of social entrepreneurship that can liberate us, and capitalist practices that are simply "green-washing" their appearance while carrying out the same old exploitative practices?

2) Creative commons meshed the top-down system of federal adjudication with bottom-up freedom of source code sharing. How might this serve as a model for other ways of allowing generative justice and distributive justice to seek mutual collaboration?

1) Open source is a powerful strategy for public sharing of grass-roots generated code, artwork, processes and other things of value. But many indigenous groups -- the traditional, small-scales societies of native Americans, pacific islanders, rural Africans, etc.-- have certain kinds of restriction. How might a concept of generative justice shed light on that contradiction?

For more:

"Distinguishing Generative Justice and Distributive Justice" (ppt for talk at the Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace Conference,Troy, New York, 14-‐16 August 2013).

"Generative Justice in Africa: From Fractals to the Rise of Maker Movements." Ellen Foster and Ron Eglash, Think Africa Press, March 27, 2014

Eglash, R and Garvey, C. “Basins of Attraction for Generative Justice” In Santo Banerjee, Sefika Sule Erçetin, and Ali Tekin (eds)Chaos Theory in Politics. Berlin: Springer, 2014.

http://generativejustice.wikispaces.com