[p2p-research] IMPORTANT, seven pathways to social power

Sat Nov 7 18:38:36 CET 2009

I was really into Spiraldynamics in the past, but I have long ago left it
out of my own communications (usually) because people were finding my
references to it too obscure.

Never the less, I agree that it seems to be really similar to what Clare W
Graves, and later Cowan and Beck, described below.

It seems to make sense (more now than when I first heard of the idea 10
years ago) if one person is empowered to take on multiple roles in a system,
they can potentially adaptively act alone, and/or connect with others as
appropriate. This is *especially* possible when their systems afford both
optimally working with others, *and* what works best for each individual.

Phoebe Moore mentioned to me in a comment on facebook the following:

"(...) we need to talk about what is required at the level of labour (lives)
and work (action) that are going into this paradigm and structure.
Superstructure doesn't disappear when you paradigm-ise (give power to,
through the dominance of ideas) the base."

The abone comment from Phoebe is relevant here, I think. I assume Phoebe is
talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure_(Marxism)

I believe Phoebe is right that "Superstructure" doesn't disappear. Instead,
I  think that it transforms, and *combines* on different scales, in "p2p"
systems. "Many to many" systems provide a plurality of ways to connect for
each individual. They also provide a way for "inputs" in a system to be
transformed into "outputs", and for the same resource to act as
input/output.

I'd like to know more about what Phoebe is saying here. If you have time,
maybe you can jump into this, Phoebe?

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:59 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Sam,
>
> your remark is remarkably consistent with the shift from yellow to
> turqouise as described below:
>
>  « How the internet reshapes healthcare and e-patients<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-the-internet-reshapes-healthcare-and-e-patients/2009/11/07>
>
> Robin Wood on Shifts in Value Exchange as related to phases in Human
> Development<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/robin-wood-on-shifts-in-value-exchange-as-related-to-phases-in-human-development/2009/11/11>
> [image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
> Michel Bauwens
> 11th November 2009
>
>  A contribution by Robin Wood<http://r2meshwork.ning.com/group/complementarycurrency>,
> applying the Spiral Dynamics theory of human developmental phases to value
> exchange.
>
> *Robin Wood:*
>
> *“I believe it is helpful to context how value is created, appropriated
> and exchanged at different levels of development. We need to answer the
> first question posed by this group: What are all the different types of
> value in our civilisation?*
>
> *Today we are living in a modernist world where financial capital created
> by banks is the dominant means of exchange and unit of value. Complementary
> currencies enable us to create, allocate and exchange value outside of this
> global financial system when classic money limits what is possible. Yet we
> need to be clear about what we are creating, allocating and exchanging, and
> why, otherwise even the cleverest system will not work.*
>
> *Below is an overview of what I believe are the dominant sources of
> “capital” (or “value”) on each of the levels of human development. (I’ve
> mapped these onto the Spiral Dynamics and integral models for convenience):
> *
>
> *• Beige - food, clothing, housing= physical survival of the hunter
> gatherer clan. Primary exchanges are with nature and within the clan.*
>
> *• Purple - land, territory, tribal power= ethnocentric wellbeing. Engages
> in barter and trade between tribes, including arranged marriages.*
>
> *• Red – physical dominance, means of coercion incl weaponry= exchanging
> means of physical power and symbols of power. Engages in trade and wages
> war/uses threats for what it cannot get by peaceful means.*
>
> *• Blue - being right, domination through rules and “the truth”= moral
> capital. Start of the first banking systems in the first Renaissance in
> Florence. Conservative with money and failure to repay debts carries a heavy
> social price.*
>
> *• Orange – progress and accumulation of symbolic wealth = financial
> capital. Money now equals information and becomes the primary scorecard.
> Business failure is now acceptable provided the entrepreneur/borrower “did
> their best”. Risk becomes a statistical property and is depersonalised.
> Cause of our global economic crisis.*
>
> *• Green- authentic human bonding, social justice and healing of
> pathologies in first tier = social capital. Green is egalitarian; driven by
> feelings; authentic; sharing and caring; focused on being part of and
> creating community. Where green gets stuck is in trying to create consensus
> where this is impossible, falling back into passive desiderata such as
> “peace” and “dialog”.*
>
> *• At the Entering green/YELLOW range, other people’s opinions still weigh
> heavily. Their input can sway decisions emotionally. But tempered
> individualism is also rising from the collective without confinement to
> ORANGE islands of independence or tough RED exploitiveness. This
> interdependence releases one to be as he or she chooses on personal terms,
> sometimes seeking inclusion and cooperating. If challenged or threatened,
> the same person becomes cold and ruthless as necessary.”*
>
> *• Yellow – knowledge power = intellectual capital. YELLOW engages a
> number of unique problem- resolution and decision-making processes that are
> both highly complex in design and remarkably simple in execution . People
> who are centered elsewhere along the Spiral are befuddled by YELLOW. To
> PURPLE they are virtually invisible. To RED they are strange, but sometimes
> fun to hang out with. To BLUE they appear inconsistent, disrespectful, and
> out-of-focus. To ORANGE they seem unwilling to commit themselves fully to
> achieving objectives. From the GREEN standpoint, they seem cool and
> reserved, intellectualizing emotions without joining wholeheartedly into the
> group experience.*
>
> *• Turquoise – Yet, as the Spiral zig zags once again between a focus on
> ‘me’ and ‘us,’ a new sense of community begins to replace individualism.
> TURQUOISE, the global collective of individuals, rises to enfold YELLOW, the
> information elites. It turns out that the great YELLOW questions cannot be
> answered - indeed, cannot even be adequately addressed - by lone human
> beings, no matter how much they know or how often they link up in
> cyberspace. *
>
> *Other shifts occur and trend lines begin to form at this transition: *
>
> *o The search for universal causality and the means necessary to reorder
> the chaos of the world are revived. *
>
> *o A sense of communitarian experiences resurfaces, but without the heavy
> emotional loadings of the GREEN group’s grope. *
>
> *o Knowledge develops a life of its own, suggesting that a focus on
> particles and entities will be replaced by an understanding of groups,
> fields and waves *
>
> *o We develop collective social and spiritual capital, and collective
> intelligence.” *
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Dear friends in cc, I have a particular request for you to engage in
>> > discussion, and to describe the 8th way to social power, the p2p way,
>> which
>> > may be missing from this list
>> >
>> > It concerns an excellent conceptual article on political strategies for
>> > emancipation, by Eric Olin Wright, see
>> > http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22074
>> >
>>
>> I will dig in deeper, but some initial thoughts
>>
>> One thing that strikes me about "p2p" oriented "social power"  is that
>> while it makes potentially all power mechanisms available to the
>> individual, the individual tends to discover that there is a limit to
>> their individual expression. The individual discovers that there are
>> cases where expression is enhanced by working in
>> cooperation/coordination with others. "P2P" affords the individual the
>> flexibility to adaptively act as an individual, and with others with
>> little cost to the overall system. Social learning, memory/prediction,
>> self-selected coordination, and the empowerment of any individual to
>> connect existing networks, makes this possible.
>>
>> "P2P" is the first system that can embed exponential potential for
>> adaptive expression in any given participant. (a metaphor is) that
>> genes can exponentially adaptively express based on their neighbors.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> Sam Rose
>> Social Synergy
>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>> skype: samuelrose
>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>> http://socialsynergyweb.com
>> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
>> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>> http://localfoodsystems.org
>> http://notanemployee.net
>> http://communitywiki.org
>>
>> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
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>
>
>
>
>

-- 
-- 
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com
http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
http://localfoodsystems.org
http://notanemployee.net
http://communitywiki.org

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
- Carl Sagan
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