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

Mon May 25 09:13:55 CEST 2009

Hi David,

I indeed think production is one of the core variables, because it concerns
the reproduction  of our species, but I see this 'integratively', as
proceeding from many different factors, including the dominant value sets.

As for the state, I think it has a triple function, which must co-exist,
i.e. it reflects the dominant power, it reflects the interests of its own
personnel, and because of the need for legitmacy, must also reflect the
balance of social power.

However, because social innovation (peer production, co-design, co-creation,
etc...) is now a absolute condition for competitivity and survival, it's
also in its own interest to 'enable and empower social participation', which
I think will be the basis of the new social contract,

Michel

On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 2:20 AM, David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com> wrote:

>
> apology for the delays in my getting back to you.  just to wrap this round
> up:
>
> first, i'm sorry to read about the issues you all have had.  it's not my
> personal concern, but from a forms-analysis viewpoint (and since that kept
> coming up), i'd say that it looks as though three of fiske's forms are
> involved, not just AR but also CS and EM, if only in negative senses.  a bit
> unclear, analytically, in my view.  as for TIMN, it looks like a straight
> recurrence of T-type (tribal/clan) dynamics, without much involvement from
> the other forms.
>
> second, ok michel, let's not move discussion back to the blog.  besides,
> i've little to add right now, and there will undoubtedly be future moments
> for re-expressing our views.  the point i would most like to come back to,
> in closing, is about "production."  i know that remains a major conceptual
> focus among many social theorists, esp. on the left (after all, marxism was
> about the mode of production).  i also gather that you are using production
> in a broader sense than i am, or would.  my sense remains that +N (not to
> mention P2P) will be primarily about something else, though i'm still
> groping for exactly what.  meanwhile, yes, there appears to be overlap
> between the nexus-state and partner-state concepts.  but i don't see any
> kind of state acting as a "neutral arbiter" except episodically under some
> ircumstances
>
> bye for now, all.  many thanks for including me.  i  appreciate it.
>  onward.  later.
>
> ===
>
>
> On May 22, 2009, at 10:24 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
>  David,
>>
>> Indeed sorry for the confusion of multiple venues. It is my fault, as I
>> had noticed that lower blog comments often get more reaction in this mailing
>> list.
>>
>> I'm not sure which original mailing list you are referring to, so here's
>> what I found.
>>
>> I've read your contribution here below, since I agree with it, no further
>> reaction from me at this very moment:
>>
>> ORIGINAL LETTER 1
>>
>> David,
>>
>> A big thanks for this cogent response.
>>
>> Some reactions:
>>
>> 1) first, you and Fiske are not talking about the same thing; yours is a
>> governance typology, his a relational model. In my view, different
>> relational models can co-exist in societies dominated with a particular
>> governance model
>>
>> 2) second, I associate P2P indeed with CS, i..e communal shareholding,
>> because it is contributions to undifferentiated wholes, without expectation
>> of a direct return from a particular individual
>>
>> 3) I do find the evolutionary implication of CS coming first, problematic,
>> because of my association of P2P with CS, and of the tribal economy with the
>> gift economy.
>>
>> In my view of the literature, I’ve seen a lot of people describing tribal
>> economies as gift economies and therefore Equality Matching … Perhaps he is
>> talking about the very early, more undifferentiated tribal forms, where
>> there was little exchange with the outside? And I’m looking at the more
>> complex forms, using sophisticated gifting circles?
>>
>> 4) To remind you of the essential P2P challenge to TIMN: we are focusing
>> on distributed networks in particular, and of a particular governance forms
>> that emerges with self-aggregation in peer production; while for me, TIMN
>> generalizes different network forms into one model
>>
>> 5) Otherwise, I agree that P2P will emerge and operate within continuing
>> state and market forms for a long time to come
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/23/09, David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com> wrote:
>> MARC:  it's been noted before that i may refer to effects on groups yet
>> neglect to mention individuals too.  so, point well taken.  besides, i'm
>> more of a loner-anomaly than a group guy anyway and thus empathize with your
>> point.
>>
>> that said, i'm not sure which of the forms -- whether from timn's or
>> fiske's set -- offers the most options for the individual.  indeed, they all
>> presume relationships, and that individuals are not cutting out.  it's
>> clearly not hierarchy.  but while tribes (or CS situations) can be very
>> tolerant of individualism, they can be harsh and limiting too, esp. if
>> someone doesn't go along when votes have been cast (tribes often don't
>> tolerate minority rights).  markets (or MP situations) offer a lot of
>> freedom for individual expression, but you are supposed to be in the game,
>> not laying back out of it.  network systems, including P2P, would seem to me
>> to offer the most opportunities for opting in or out.
>>
>> but the answer to your question -- a good question -- may have less to do
>> with each forms by itself than with how the forms get related to each other.
>>  this is an aspect of timn that i have only hinted at so far.  for example,
>> in a previous post at my blog, i characterized castro's cuba as having a
>> fused t+i regime.  i  didn't bother to explain much there, but i'd add here
>> that such a fusion may thoroughly constrain what individuals are allowed or
>> enabled to do.  perhaps it can by hypothesized that the more the tribal and
>> the hierarchical forms are fused, and the more they are injected into the
>> other forms, then the less freedom the individual is likely to have (unless
>> one comes from just the right family, tribe, clan, club, or gang).
>>
>>
>> MICHEL:  i will turn next to replying to your earlier reply.  but first, a
>> question:  how about putting your initial email here back into the p2p blog
>> post?  and then i'll reply there again (with a cc to your list).  i think
>> that would be better for outsiders who might eventually be interested but
>> not be on this email list.  this side discussion with marc can be left here,
>> tho i could incorporate some points into my next reply.
>>
>> in any case, whether you want my reply here alone, there, or in both
>> places, i've got some other matters to attend to first today.  onward.
>>
>> by the way, albert's parecon looks to me like another iteration of trying
>> to revert economics to tribal principles about egalitarianism, reciprocity,
>> and classlessness -- by emphasizing only the bright side of tribal values,
>> along with only the dark side of hierarchical and market designs.  from what
>> i can see his proposal would not energize innovation.
>>
>>
>> ===
>>
>>
>> On May 21, 2009, at 8:40 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
>>
>> Yes, but, let me challenge you and everyone else in my freely contributing
>> way:
>>
>> What if the individual does not want to join the community but is
>> otherwise a well meaning, good doing individual...?  What if I see myself
>> not belonging to this community but just acting in the same virtual space
>> it's in as well as in other spaces, and making my own rules, changing them,
>> evolving my own morality and rationality based on my own experiences.
>>
>> What if I don't accept the meta? What if I do not subscribe to the common
>> agreements of this community?
>>
>> I am freely contributing but what kind of relationship do I have to the
>> community? CS would sound right, but it's CS without acceptance of any rules
>> by the community, i.e. Unconditional CS or UCS since CS tends to involve
>> conditions/rules (such as the message length that was enforced today despite
>> that it is inconvenient for me.. and in this case prevents me from
>> participating because it is an enforced rule that I cannot bypass)
>>
>> Is Unconditional CS covered by David's model?
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> It is the freely contributing individual which aggregates into peer
>> producing communities, I don't think there is a need to repeat this,
>> especially in this community which is well aware of the context of our
>> debates,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 9:55 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> <<
>> 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.
>> >>
>>
>> I don't see a mention of the individual.
>>
>> The individual in the model above has been replaced with a faceless 'peer'
>> as a new word for cog in the wheel (of a civil society based community)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Marc Fawzi
>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Marc Fawzi
>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>
>

-- 
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

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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