[p2p-research] further contribution by David Ronfeldt on p2p as successor system

[Michel Bauwens]

Interesting challenge:

(
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/david-ronfeldts-timn-and-the-four-forms-of-governance/2009/05/20
)

<a few additional points:

the TIMN forms (not to mention fiske’s forms as well) have existed, spread
throughout life, since ancient times. but they have arisen and matured at
different rates, in different eras (for reasons discussed elsewhere). and as
each form has arisen, a new realm or system of activity has take shape
around it: e.g., the rise of +I leads to development of the state and
associated politics as a major realm, even though hierarchical institutions
show up elsewhere in society too (like business companies).

these and other dynamics about the rise of earlier forms and their realms
have implications for projecting what +N will do, and i think also for P2P.
most important, its rise must end up defining a new realm, at least the core
of that realm. if it does not do so, it cannot gain its fullest
philosophical and doctrinal import. (maybe that’s the limitation of fiske’s
EM form; it’s about a set of fairness principles and behaviors that are so
widely distributed they cannot define a single realm, unlike his CS or AR.)

thus a challenge for me, and i believe you as well, as we try to look ahead,
is to figure out exactly what philosophical and doctrinal principles are so
embedded in +N, and/or P2P, that a new realm emerges, a realm that is
different from the prevailing ones. another way to ask is, what aren’t
advanced societies getting done using existing forms that they could get
done using a new form>


Michel's reply: That's a very good question David. I do believe that the
combination of the 3 paradigms, open and free, participation, and commons
orientation, are these values, augmented with the additional ones like
non-credentialism, and with equipotentiality  as its metaphysical core

Your very last question points to the importance of the mode of production,
and my intuition is that it has to do with the handling of complexity, which
hierarchy can handle, and with the survival of the biosphere, which the
market can't handle. For example, the dilemma of man-hours in software
projects (more staff slows down the project), does not seem to work in the
peer production mode, thus has been effectively solved


<asking that about +N or P2P when their rise is still new right now in the
21st century is a bit like asking, back in say the 16th or 17th century, how
+M (the rise of markets) would affect societies. who could foretell +M would
not only reshape their economies but also enable the spread of market
principles into politics, resulting in liberal democracies?!>


Michel's reply: yes that is true, but at the same time, patterns have been
emerging and have been  identified, not enough for a full picture, but
enough to give us already some clear ideas about certain aspects.

<even though it’s early and it’s dim, my thinking is that the answer will
take shape around some civil-society activity that will better address
social equity or public-goods matters. a new realm will emerge around that.
at the same time, +N will affect the other realms. it will give rise to what
i call the nexus state as a successor to the nation state, but it will still
have hierarchy at its core. there will also be some new modes of economic
production, but that won’t be the key, since +M markets will endure at the
core>


That's where we differ. I believe the core value production will be outside
the market, with the non-capitalist markets (they can't be capitalist since
that destroys the biosphere) a derivative mode for the production and
allocation of scarce goods. But open design is primary to the production
which occurs afterward, and every open design commons will have a multitude
of market players around it.

Also, I use the partner state rather than the nexus state, I have to reread
what you mean by that. But the partner state is a neutral arbiter between
the 3 modes (centralizing governance, decentralized markets, distributed
peer production by civil society based communities) and 'enables and
empowers the direct production of social value.

<if this line of thinking is on track, one possible implication here is,
don’t hang the future of P2P too much on new modes of production. look for
something else as a central emphasis>

well, I see it as a combination of things, but I think the hyperproductivity
of the mode of production is key as well: better mode of production, better
mode of governance, more inclusive form of property


I really think we should meet live and trash out some of these issues.




-- 
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