[p2p-research] my reaction to your own article

[Michel Bauwens]

REPLY TO MICHAEL’S CONTRIBUTION ABOUT PARECON,
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21283



Dear Michael,



First of all, thanks for restating and actualizing your Parecon philosophy
and proposals in the context of this debate with peer to peer philosophy.



But though there is a lot to agree with in term of principles and
aspirations, before I start tackling any details, I want to explain how our
approaches are fundamentally different, and why I find yours problematical
to a certain extent.



My own approach is like yours, born out of a critical analysis of reality,
and of the failures of the alternatives, such as 20th century socialism.



My analysis of change dynamics is quite different. I do not think the human
mind can capture the full complexity of social life, and that any approach
that starts from ethical principles and then seeks a world that mirrors
them, can be successful. I’m not suggesting that we abandon our ethical
principles, but that we hold them, look at reality, and seek out all the
patterns that go in the direction of those ethics. By identifying these
patterns, seeking to combine and enrich them, we can eventually start to
discern the seeds of the new system in the old. We also need to see which
social forces can bring such a phase change forward. My reading is that all
deep and transformative social change, i.e. phase changes from one system of
life to another, have always been the result of both longstanding new social
practices, born out of a different structure of desire of new human groups,
and a congruent change both from the top and the bottom.  For example, for
slavery to change to feudalism, both slave owners needed to convert to
domain holders, and slaves to serfs; similarly, for the successful
transition from feudalism to capitalism, serfs needed to become workers, and
sections of the nobility needed to convert to capitalism. It is only after a
long process of mutual and congruent transformation, that the phase change
can occur. So for p2p theory, I have identified the patterns, am documenting
the multiple social practices exemplifying them, and trying to inter-relate
them through a common platform, so that partial patterns can converge to
form the seeds of an alternative system, while observing the change from
industrial working to peer producing, and and the congruent transformation
of sectors of capital into netarchical capitalist practices.

It seems to me that your approach proceeds from a very different premise,
i.e. an idealized utopia based on ethical principles, which it then seeks to
carry out in a recalcitrant reality. This is the bias from which I proceed,
when reading your contribution.



Let’s start with your four ethical principles, i.e. your aim.

First let’s note that there are many ethical principles in the world, most
religiously inspired, and that they differ in different degrees from your
own, many of them in very sharp and fundamental ways.  So, this already
means that either you offer them for the minority that is ready, so it
becomes a solution for intentional communities sharing your value set, or
you would have to coerce the world in following your solution.

Personally for example, I agree with your first principle, but disagree with
your second one. Applying your second principle for example, which is the
method of social exchange called socialism by Marx (the first phase of
post-capitalism that he described, communism or non-reciprocal exchange
being the second, the latter corresponding to the peer to peer exchanges of
already existing peer production), actually excludes the second, and would
for example make peer production, which is based on such non-reciprocal
exchange, impossible.

So, while I would favour a pluralist economy that enables both your choices
and mine, you seem to offer only a monological choice. Of course, if it is
freely chosen by intentional communities, I have no problem with it, since
these people would have voluntarily accepted your proposed rules.

I share your third value, but like Marx, I do not think the world is ready
to change into a classless society (which would not function  on your
conditional second principle, but on the principle of non-reciprocal
sharing) directly or any time soon, and in fact may never attain that ideal
state, but rather, will move through transitional stages (which may last
forever).

I then move to your sections with more concrete proposals. I note that you
say “Parecon delivers”, but does it really do that. Can you point to
substantial realizations, or are you rather just proposing, that if applied,
it may deliver these points. I indeed believe you mean the latter.



Let me note that I do support self-management, but do not necessarily favour
a monological system that runs the whole of society, but rather pluralist
forms of economic production and governance.

Next, I really appreciate your concept of the coordinator class, which makes
a lot of sense to me and indeed explains for example the situation that
developed in the Soviet Union.

But here is also where I see a problem. For example, how would you achieve
balanced job complexes? Most of us are loathe to do certain jobs, and would
not do them without coercion. Again, apart from intentional communities, how
would you achieve it. This means that it would those currently doing the
most abject work (I mean of course the work that most people consider
abject, as most of these tasks are actually necessary and dignified) would
have to take power, against the coordinator class itself. I find such a
class movement unlikely, because of the very organization of a
transformative social movement requires its own coordinating leadership. So
any social movement would for me entail a necessary alliance between  many
different layers, making a victory of the lowest rungs alone unlikely, and
therefore, a coercion of balanced job complexes unlikely.



Let me summarize the p2p approach as an alternative. We see today emerging a
new set of social practices, where people are self aggregating for the
creation of common value through highly complex social artefacts. They are
doing this in a way that is hyperproductive in economic terms, in political
terms (achieving self-governance in production), and in terms of universal
availability of the results (equality in output). These practices are moving
from knowledge production, via complex free software, to open designs for
physical products.

But the problem is, because these dynamics only work for non-rival
immaterial products, and material production needs cost-recovery mechanisms,
they are obliged to compose with capitalist production of the physical
products.

This however, is only a temporary historical necessity. As distributed
infrastructures emerge for energy, money, and machinery, self-aggregation
becomes increasingly possible in the physical field. In such a context, it
becomes possible for peer producers to create alternative governance
structures for physical production, one of them which could be parecon
“companies”. If Parecon proves a successful pattern in that context, it
could perhaps become more important, but I personally suspect it will be one
of the plural forms emerging in that field, along with cooperatives, open
capital partnerships, and many more possibilities.


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

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