[p2p-research] The three exodus and the transition towards the p2p society

Wed Apr 28 18:26:31 CEST 2010

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 9:23 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michel:
>
> A few thoughts on what you write:
>
> 1. The world is urbanizing in a hurry.  That isn't slowing.  So exodus
> seems some time away.
>

urbanization is exodus, and most of it goes into the informal economy; but I
agree that this type of exodus is not necessarily system-transforming; and
for a short while, at least in Asia, may be system-confirming,

>
> 2. I don't think the biosphere is the imminent issue of capitalism...maybe
> in 100 years...but the issue will, IMO, be long solved by then.
>

I don't share that optimism, because an infinitite growth system is
logically and physically incompatible with the survival of the biosphere;
but I do agree that in 100 years, we have a chance to reach an equilibrium,
but it will be a different system

>
> 3. Instead, the imminent issue is labour...as is was in the rise of
> feudalism and the rise of capitalism...in short, the issue was productivity
> changes through organization (e.g. guilds and trading networks) and then
> through technology (the steam engine, etc.).  The same is true now.  The
> death of capitalism is occuring because labour productivity cannot keep pace
> with the changes in automation.  In other words, humans are becoming
> obsolete.  This either means that population falls sharply (what many
> capitalists like Buffett believe) or we find a new system of Hans Moravec
> like robo-socialism.  I tend to see a blending of both outcomes especially
> with a lot more transhumanism (which I think touches on your Negri Hardt
> body...discussion).
>

I don't agree witht he conclusion. Of course, there is rising productivity
of labour, and as a process, eventually this contradiction will be reached.
But I don't think the current ecological and financial crisis are directly
related to that. I don't think the sudden spike in unemployment and
sovereign defaults is directly cause by a sudden and miraculous jump in
labour productivity

>
> The future is close...not more than 30 years off.  By future, I mean a
> major systematic transition.  To my mind, that transition is driven almost
> exclusively by technology.  Today is YouTube's fifth birthday.  Imagine.  I
> had a recent discussion with a biologist who said "hold on to your ankles"
> the world is about to start turning very fast.  Aubrey de Grey...no dummy,
> is saying very similar things.  Cambridge England is all abuzz now in
> general about post-humanism as is the campus of MIT.  It isn't carbon that's
> going to be the driver...it is technology.  Thus, the systemic crisis you
> await will be much more internalized...as it was in the others.  Rome fell
> from within, not from without.  Feudalism arose from structural
> instabilities of production in urban places and the need for distributed
> labour systems that made sense absent a strong state.
>

We agree on more and more things <g>, like the system transition in about 30
years, the question of course is, what kind of transition

my take: a core of knowledge/science/technical commons; and pluralist
economic forms dealing with the distribution and production of rival
material resources.

Do you disagree?

Michel

>
> Ryan
>
>   On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 4:01 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-week-escape-routes-control-and-subversion-in-the-21st-century/2010/04/26
>>
>> Dear friends, on may 2, I publishing the following, which I think is quite
>> important as a hypothesis,
>>
>> (the above link is to a related approach on escape routes: dimitri, I
>> published it earlier than planned because of a mistake in post-dating)
>>
>>
>>
>> Three Times  Exodus, Three Phase Transitions
>>
>>
>>
>> In my lectures, based on my reading of history books during 2003-2004, I
>> use a genealogy of social change and phase transitions from one system to
>> another, that starts with the crisis of a dominant system, creating an
>> exodus, which in turns leads to a mutual reconfiguration of both managerial
>> and producing classes.
>>
>>
>>
>> Here is the story, and I’m interested in your thoughts, and challenges,
>> especially based on the historical record.
>>
>> The narrative is of course simplified, but the aim is to get the main
>> points of the process, and my hypothesis, across.
>>
>>
>>
>> The first transition: Rome to feudalism
>>
>>
>>
>> At some point in  its evolution (3rd century onwards?), the Roman empire
>> ceases to expand (the cost of of maintaining empire and expansion exceeds
>> its benefits). No conquests means a drying up of the most important raw
>> material of a slave economy, i.e. the slaves, which therefore become more
>> ‘expensive’. At the same time, the tax base dries up, making it more and
>> more difficult to maintain both internal coercion and external defenses. It
>> is in this context that Perry Anderson mentions for example that when
>> Germanic tribes were about to lay siege to a Roman city, they would offer to
>> free the slaves, leading to an exodus of the city population. This exodus
>> and the set of difficulties just described, set of a reorientation of some
>> slave owners, who shift to the system of coloni, i.e. serfs. I.e. slaves are
>> partially freed, can have families, can produce from themselves and have
>> villages, giving the surplus to the new domain holders.
>>
>> Hence, the phase transition goes something like this: 1) systemic crisis ;
>> 2) exodus 3) mutual reconfiguration of the classes.
>>
>> This whole process would of course take five centuries. In the First
>> European Revolution, historian xxx claims that the feudal system would only
>> consolidate around 975, the date of the political revolution confirming the
>> previous phase transition, and setting up a consolidated growth phase for
>> the new system (doubling of the population between 10 and 13th century).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The second transition: feudalism to capitalism
>>
>>
>>
>> Something very similar starts occurring as of the 16th century. The
>> feudal system enters in crisis, and serfs start fleeing the countryside,
>> installing themselves in the cities, where they are rejected by the feudal
>> guild system, but embraced by a new type of proto-capitalist entrepreneurs.
>> In other words, a section of the feudal class (as well as some upstarts from
>> the lower classes) re-orient themselves by investing in the new mode of
>> production (and those that don’t gradually impoverish themselves), while
>> serfs become workers.
>>
>> In short,  we have the same scheme:
>>
>> 1)      Systemic crisis
>>
>> 2)      Exodus
>>
>> 3)      Mutual reconfiguration of classes
>>
>> 4)      After a long period of re-orientation and phase transitions: the
>> political revolutions that configure the new capitalist system as dominant
>>
>> Again, the process of reconfiguration takes several centuries, and the
>> political revolutions come at the end of it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hypothesis of a third transition: capitalism to peer to peer
>>
>> Again, we have a system faced with a crisis of extensive globalization,
>> where nature itself has become the ultimate limit. It’s way out, cognitive
>> capitalism, shows itself to be a mirage.
>>
>> What we have then is an exodus, which takes multiple forms: precarity and
>> flight from the salaried conditions; disenchantement with the salaried
>> condition and turn towards passionate production. The formation of
>> communities and commons are shared knowledge, code and design which show
>> themselves to be a superior mode of social and economic organization.
>>
>> The exodus into peer production creates a mutual reconfiguration of the
>> classes. A section of capital becomes netarchical and ‘empowers and enables
>> peer production’, while attempting to extract value from it, but thereby
>> also building the new infrastructures of cooperation.
>>
>> This process will take time but there is one crucial difference: the
>> biosphere will not allow centuries of transition. So the maturation of the
>> new configuration will have to consolidate faster and the political
>> revolutions come earlier.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
>> thank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
> P.O. Box 633
> Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
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> (345) 916-1712
>
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-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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