[p2p-research] a new funding mechanism for useful online services

[Michel Bauwens]

well my vision is that of concentric circles

- in the middle, different commons of knowledge, software and designs, where
people freely input and which can be used by all, as we have today in the
many open knowledge sources of the internet, free and open source software,
and the emerging shared designs ecologies

- around it, enterpreneurial coalitions, that either take a classic
corporate form (but less and less so as this form is world destroying by its
very DNA), but increasingly more cooperative and other socially embedded
forms that take into account both social and environmental externalities (we
can call this the ethical economy, natural capitalism, the solidarity
economy, etc...)

- also around the common core, various other forms of exchange, based on
reciprocity etc ... gift and sharing economies as monitored by shareable
magazine

- public authorities as responsible for the metagovernance of the three
spheres (civil society commons, private and social enterpreneurs, and public
services)

My expectation is that the models which already exist at the margins in many
fields, will move gradually (or as punctuated equilibrium) to the core of
value creation; I also expect lots of hybridity and differentiation
according to different cultures,

but the main model, respecting natural limits in the material world and
nurturing its natural abundance through abundance engineering; and creating
sustaining the infinite growth of human culture and knowledge by removing
artificial barriers, will be very similar.

I personally think we don't have much choice in that matter, the alternative
is a return to the authoritarian management of scarcity,

in essence though, as after WW I, the neoliberal corporate welfare (i.e. the
so-called free market) model is dying, and the real politics is about the
alternatives (after WW I it was between fascism, communism and social
democracies, including in its american version of the new deal)

in the short term, it will depend on the flexibility and adaptibility of the
current market system, of its ability to integrate ecological constrains,
and restrain destabilizing inequality, how much of the old system can be
retained, and how much new structures need to be incorporated

but I do expect, after a period of deleveraging, stagnation and
instability, and renewal of the political elite which can last another 8-15
years, that some relatively successfull form of green capitalism can emerge,
before the last vestiges of biospheric destroying infinite growth mechanisms
have to be abandonded altogether for responsible growth in a steady state
economy.

but to answer your question about mixing, the system I envision does mix a
commons (civil society based non-reciprocal exchange), market forms, and
state forms (I'm assuming you call the latter socialist)

Michel

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On 1/4/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> thanks as usual for your honesty and representing a point of view that is
>> not so often present here, as usual I'm learning a lot.
>
>
> Thanks to all for the fair treatment.
>
> >>Ideally, I prefer a civil society based peer polity,
>
> I hear this a lot and say it myself, but I am not sure we know what it
> means wholly.  I have pressed before for definitions, boundaries and
> examples.  Is Bolivia closer or is Ethiopia?  Why?
>
> The best I have seen so far was that list of a while ago stating the sorts
> of enterprises one would see in a P2P city.  It named a number of specific
> enterprises from Berlin or San Francisco or someplace.  That gave me real
> hope.  Part of my capitalist overhang is a desire for management by
> objective.  Further, one of my great worries about P2P is the absence of non
> amoeba-like progress.
>
> I believe in polyarchy--maybe that is most of what we mean by "civil
> society".  States with civil societies with private sectors with many
> different local and federal governance strategies.  We need global action
> sometimes (e.g. on climate) and local action most times.  We need organs
> inbetween.  I wonder if we can envision a system that is equally capitalist,
> socialist and P2P?  Could such an overlay exist?  What would it look like?
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>>>
>>>


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