[p2p-research] Concerning wikiworld and its use of socialist terminology

[Daniel Araya]

"Stigmergy". Love it. thanks

D

> Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:52:32 -0500
> From: free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com
> To: p2presearch at listcultures.org
> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Concerning wikiworld and its use of socialist	terminology
> 
> On 4/28/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Daniel Araya April 29 at 12:12am
> >
> > I'm talking about confusing p2p with communism. One is an emergent form (growing out of the real capacities of networks--- collective intelligence). The other is a romantic vision for a secular paradise of worker coops. They may be parallel but in my mind they're not the same.
> >
> > Don't be offended. Just reacting to the liberal use of the word 'communism' in that wikiworld book.
> >
> 
> It seems to me that a lot of the juxtapositions of "individual
> authorial voice" and the "collective," in critiques of "Digital
> communism/Maoism" like those of Lanier, Helprin, etc., miss the point.
> 
> The Web is not "collective" in the traditional sense of the
> term--i.e., as it was understood in the days before networked
> organization, when "collective" action could be taken only through
> large institutions representing some collective of human beings and
> coordinated by a hierarchy, in which each individual's freedom of
> initiative was limited by the coordination of a central authority.
> 
> It is stigmergic, which synthesizes the highest development of  both
> the collective and individualism.  It maximizes the efficiency of
> collective action by removing the transaction costs of voluntary
> cooperation.  But at the same time, it is entirely a sum total of free
> individual actions, taken by individuals on their own initiative and
> without anyone else's permission.  The sum total effect is created by
> individuals coordinating their own unconstrained actions with the
> common goal as they understand it.
> 
> Under stigmergic organization, any individual can formulate any
> individual innovation he sees fit, and make it universally available,
> and any other individual or group of individuals can adopt it as they
> see fit.  If there is disagreement within a group as to whether or not
> to adopt it, they can fork and replicate two different versions of the
> same project.  Every single "collective" is the product of the
> unanimous agreement of the individuals making it up.  And every single
> contribution is modular, to be adopted or not adopted by unanimous
> consent in every discrete grouping out there.
> 
> So stigmergy is the highest realization of both individualism and
> collectivism, without either diminishing or qualifying the other in
> any way.
> -- 
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
> http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
> 
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