[p2p-research] p2p and individuality

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Ryan,

A very important question, I posted it on the 22nd (if you don't mind), but
I invite you to also post it at Ning in the 'forum' section, to stir debate.

I have done some thinking about this, though I don't have much time to reply
now,

just a few bullet points:

- I do not think institutions, despite their lack of efficiency, are not
sustainable, on the contrary, they are more sustainable than individuals and
communities, and have a knack for perpetuating themselves, despite any lack
of efficiency, and as you say, abuse of the common good

- p2p will create its own institutions, though they may operate on vastly
different principles (defined as: bounded interactions following certain
rules, that keep an entity alive indepedently of its individual members);
p2p communities will tend to create institutional forms where
representational abuse and expropriation of the common cannot occur, though
Wikipedia shows us how this can fail

- only some of those that exist will disappear, most will adapt and continue
to operate, though in changed ways

- p2p communities, surrounded by institutions that they need for their own
sustainability (typically foundations and businesses so far, as we can see
in the commons model, or the proprietary platforms, as we can see in the
sharing model): will both adapt to, and exert pressure on, these
institutions

In the transitional phase, we need institutions that can help transform p2p
from seed form to increased parity level; in a society where p2p becomes the
core, institutions will become peer-informed in major ways (just as now many
have adapted to commodity logics)

Business institutions will become more participatory, and eventually no
longer rely on IP expropriation; the state should and will become a partner
state; the core p2p process will co-exist, in a pluralist economy, with
various institutions representing other modes such as the market, gift
economies, etc...

Michel

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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>
>


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