[p2p-research] The P2P Foundation Ecology for the next five years

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Karl,

thanks for the write up, I hope you don't mind sharing this with the list,
otherwise tell me and further iterations can be private, but I think your
points here are not private and useful questions for all of us,

my responses are inline below,

Michel

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 7:00 AM, Karl Robillard <krobillard at san.rr.com>wrote:

> Michel,
>
>
> I've been enjoying your blog for the better part of a year now, and I'm
> glad
> to see you shifting to a more active state.  I have a couple questions for
> you.
>
>
> > Fourth, I think time is maturing for a political expression of the p2p
> > foundation; this is distinct from the foundation itself and is centered
> > around changing social and political structures through political and
> policy
> > work. How to do this, I have not thought through, but some type of
> > membership organisation should/could be envisaged. I have as yet no
> > volunteers yet.
>
> Having official members is not a feature which I recognize as being part of
> an
> open, peer-based community.  Contributors are self-selecting and come and
> go
> as they please.  Why would you consider this for an organization which
> seeks
> to promote P2P practices?
>


What I'm thinking of here is the peer production of politics, around the
promotion of peer practices. I see peer production not as confined to making
things, but as part of a remodeling of social structures around it and this
will necessarily entail hybrid modalities. What is important to me is not
the membership per se, but having groups of people dedicated to social
change itself. How they wanted to do this, including the choice of
appropriate structures, would be up to them. Perhaps you are right and
membership is NOT the right structure for this. However, membership has the
advantage that there is a steady stream of contributions that can be used to
develop an infrastructure.




>
> The structure and practices used in the development of any particular
> project,
> such as writing a book or staging an event, would be decided upon by the
> participants.  If they agree that specific people will play specific roles
> in
> the project or use specific tools then so be it.  For the larger community,
> however, P2P implies that any organization be kept to a minimum.
>


You are choosing a pure 'ad hoc' modality here, but I think we should
envisage also longer term social institutions which can exist over time
around a certain purpose. I agree that 'organization' should be kept to a
minimum. For example, as we are now also entering a phase of creating
livelyhoods, I feel long term solidarity is absolutely essential, and this
needs an appropriate structure, i.e. the coop/phyle project. Ad hoc
solidarity doesn't keep a family alive and secure.

>
>
> > Five, I have not lost my dream and hope to create a Association of P2P
> > Researchers.
>
> From my position as a programmer who writes FLOSS, peer production seems
> like
> a very simple concept.  It's about creating something of value that others
> can
> use as they see fit without burdening them with any sort of debt.  It's
> about
> empowering people and choosing to create abundance.  I'm not sure why
> anyone
> would need to research this or create any sort of exhaustive taxonomy of
> peering systems.  I guess I'm thinking like a physicist who only needs to
> know
> a handful of basic rules in order to describe the entire cosmos.  Could you
> briefly tell me what you are still trying to learn about P2P?  It seems it
> would be more worthwhile to study how the human mind imprisons itself with
> mindless habits and the idea of self.
>


P2P practices are constantly emerging and evolving and a lot of
hybridisation takes place, and this is of great interest to me. We want to
know about governance forms, how to maintain the autonomy of the commons,
its infrastructure and community; we want to know about how to secure
livelyhoods without endangering autonomy; I think there is a difference
between your contentment with current practice and ad hoc adaptation; and a
wider concern, which is my point of view, which is that peer practices are
the model for a new type of political economy and human civilization that is
being invented. So basically, I see 'state A', current society; the emerging
patterns around p2p; the hybridisation of one with the latter; the concern
and hope to make peer practices the core of the successor society. The Assn.
would be both a vehicle to study this in academically acceptable manner,
while innovating peer-based methods of research (inclusionary practices
towards non-academics and the like); and a vehicle to obtain funding and
livelyhoods for academics interested in this.

Please note this is not empire building in my view, I don't need or want to
have a role in all of these initiatives, just be part of that emerging
ecology.

Your position is course entirely legitimate, i.e. to see peer to peer simply
as a valuable lifestyle and part of society; but I think it is inevitable
that in a time of great crisis and unsustainability of the current dominant
model, p2p is and will be seen as part of the social alternatives that need
to be developed.

Michel



>
>
> -Karl Robillard
>



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