[p2p-research] Authority, Representation and Secession in a P2P Network

[Michel Bauwens]

it seems to me that the basic distinction between abundant and scarce
resources remain valid,

in the case of an abundant resource, abuse doesn't really matter, and
sharing is easy,

but in the case of a rival and scarce good, if someone who does not
contribute to its production of renewal, takes it all away, the rest of the
contributors are left with nothing,

this is why non-reciprocal exchange with a commons work better in the case 1
than in case 2, but of course, these are not absolute distinctions but
polarities, no or very few resources are absolutely abundant  or absolutely
scarce,

so a good start is to identify where that polaritiy is situated, and for me
the great social innovation of peer production is precisely that, i.e. it no
longer treats abundant resources as if they were scarce, and so can rely on
non-reciprocal contributions in the immaterial aspects

as we move towards conditionality, then the matter becomes also value
driven, i.e. conditioned on what,

shall we just give the power of absolute destruction (root power) to
everyone, or under what conditions would this happen,

in p2p context this is mostly dependent on merit/contributions as opposed to
prior hierarchy,

important is that the rules of the game are open and transparent, and
changeable (again under certain conditions and procedures that are known to
all),

root power can only be "constitutionally challenged", since it is expressive
of the basic value of the community

democratic procedures only need to intervene in areas of scarcity, not in
areas of abundance, since in the latter case, diversity is not an issue

Michel

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:36 PM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>wrote:

> Can the concepts of authority and representation be
> used within a network that claims to be Peer2Peer?
>
> Is it realistic to give *everyone* 'root' access to a shared resource?
>
> Is it realistic to give *everyone* the keys to our community center?
>
> There seems to be a need for gate-keeping - especially when
> protecting ourselves from 'outsiders' that are not yet trusted.
>
> But even within a trusted circle, is there a level of scale when
> representation *must* come into play?
>
> This seems a valid question considering the failure of
> current 'authorities' and 'representatives' to achieve the
> goals of those they supposedly serve.
>
> But it also seems difficult to answer given the chaos
> that might ensue if there were no 'levels' of access to ...
> I'm not sure yet what needs to be constrained...
>
> I wonder if part of it may be the need to "slow down" the
> deliberation of change so we can discover what all other
> co-owners want in each case.
>
> But does such deliberation require 'representation' and
> levels of 'authority', or could it be done in some other way?
>
> If giving everyone 'root' access is wrong, maybe giving
> any one person 'root' access is also wrong?
>
> Is that why we tend toward *groups* of representatives?
>
> But even in that case we fail to achieve freedom because
> those committees almost invariably make decisions and
> enact policy that suffers from the problem of "Tyranny
> of the Majority" because there is not an easy way for
> individuals and minority sub-groups to secede from the
> majority without loosing all of their investments.
>
> It is said these minorities have the "Right to Leave", but
> that is not sufficient because they then relinquish all the
> value they have added.
>
> I think part of the solution lies in discovering a way for
> these non-majority groups to 'split' or 'fork' those physical
> resources during such conflicts.  But that pre-supposes
> they had real ownership to begin with - which is usually
> not the case, so real co-ownership may be a pre-condition
> to sharing physical resources in a P2P manner.
>
> * Notice even things you may not think of as 'physical' -
> such as a wiki - really *are* because of the equipment
> needed to 'host' that activity.
>
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