[p2p-research] p2p and individuality

[Ryan Lanham]

James Poulos's article here got me thinking...



http://theamericanscene.com/2009/04/06/the-anxiety-of-optimism



That's not least of which because I was lucky to have a course with J.G.A.
Pocock and read his *Machiavellian Moment* closely at least twice in my
life, once while in his seminar.  I recommend it for those looking to find
out something about the rise of American styled republics and their
institutions.



More to the point, I wonder, along with James Poulos to some extent, if p2p
is inherently anti-institutional.  I know that it is decentralized and
anti-hierarchical--or wirearchical as Jon Husband says, but can
decentralized *and* institutional stand side by side?  And what, if so,
would that look like?  Can we pre-describe the social landscape of a mature
p2p society?



Increasingly I find that institutions are unsustainable because they are
either plundered by leaders or captured as agents by principals with no
principles.  It's hard to put together a dynasty of moral leadership.  One
sees this as much in corporations as in governments.  Perhaps it will come
to pass in NGOs and civil society organizations as well.  If this difficulty
of normative sustainability is pervasive and increasing, and p2p is the main
flavor of the future, then we must envision some form of
chaotic-to-self-ordering linkage that can easily replace the role larger
organizations play.  Will we be able to see such order in real time, and
couldn't we then manipulate it?  I wonder how we defend against successive
regimes of rapidly developing tyrannies of the quick and aggressive.  You've
got to really trust that something inherent to p2p is protective.  I'm not
sure I see what that is.



All this evolution away from the institutional norms of old wouldn't happen
at once, either.  It would unfold.  It might be characterized by severely
punctuated equilibriums where the punctuations are quite violent.  Is the
current financial crisis one such punctuation?  If it is, we should
be looking for what sorts of trends replace shattering institutions of old.


R.


Ryan Lanham
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