[p2p-research] Thoughts on Robb

Sun Jun 20 06:14:35 CEST 2010

Dear gordon,

I'm not a john robb expert, having not read the book, but I follow his blog,
though with some delay, but  I consider him, together with jeff vail, I
consider him a top thinker on p2p ...

what makes distinctive is 1) his emphasis on negative p2p developments, the
dark side if you like, i.e. p2p-democratisation of warfare, insurgent
organisation, and the means of destruction .... According to him, combined
with other developments this leads to a fatal weakening of the nation state.
The meltdown for him is less a crisis of capitalism than actually a victory
of the global market forces over the nation state. The result is hollow
states, that keep the form, but are no longer able to carry out the duties
and functions of the state .... So, when people discover that the
nation-state is no longer able to solve any of their fundamental issues they
turn to more basic levels of identity and social organization, and they can
do this in progressive ways (open localization concerned with equity and
world governance), or in reactionary ways (restricted group identity
communalism). It;s pretty clear the tea party is the latter, while john
robb, like us here at the p2p foundation, are in the former. The key
distinction is where do you draw the line of concern (who is the in and out
group), and how you relate to the outgroup (solidarity vs. enmity).

Another distinction is the optimism/pessimism factor and how to factor in
the possibility of progressive social forces .. My own take is that you can
never discount new social movements emerging, and I hope to see at some
point, a merger of social mobilization, with constructive p2p communities. I
think John Robb totally discounts that form of collective agency, hence he
can only see the global market, captured nation state by predatory factions,
and in reaction, local resilient communities. It's really like there is
nothing in between collapse and resilience. I  hope he is wrong, is all I
can say, and that a new progressive wavew is still in the realm of the
possibilities. It all boils down to this: is this the final stage of
dislocation of the current global system, as John Robb asserts, or do we
still have a possibility of a new growth wave, even amongst the serious
problems developing?

But in any case, even if the latter were possible, we still have to go
through a deep period of dislocation to deleverage the former system-wave...
and exactly because the global political elite fails to do this (they are to
weak vis a vis the global market forces and can't rely on any strong social
movements to counter-pressure them), we are in for a prolonged period of
chaos, like the thirties in Europe ...

Short term (say 15 years dislocation) or long term dislocation (think end of
roman empire), that is the question ...

in any case, even if a positive kondratieff wave was still possible, it
would very very soon collide with interlocking global crisis which would
make the continuation of capitalism unthinkable in a frame of more than 50
years .. so the problem is, what will replace it, a reactionary power
structure of increased exploitation, in a global struggle for dwindling
resources amongst overpopulation, food and water and resource depletion and
climate change, with scattred pockets of resilient communities ... or a new
p2p system centered around open commons of knowledge, code and designs,
linked to relocalized and more distributed property formats, with forms of
global governancde that protect the planet?

Michel

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Gordon Cook <cook at cookreport.com> wrote:

>  Hi Mike, I wonder I don't know if it's the right question to ask but I
> wonder who is here it is John Robb expert. I am really intrigued by him on
> so many levels.   But the subtitle of the brave new war book however the
> next stage of terrorism and the end of globalization think is way off the
> mark of what the book does. The subtitle is certainly off the mark of what
> I'm interested in  and I think our reasons for being interested would be
> similar
>
> One of the most startling conclusions to me are his remarks about the end
> of the  nation state.  but he may well be right also i am not quite clear on
> the relationship between the nationstate on the one hand and when he talks
> of nationalism on the other hand.  maybe nationalism is the tea party in its
> frustrated reaction to the actions of the executive branch saying that there
> still is no public interest or national interests and if Robb is right and I
> think he may be there is only a resilient community survivalist interests
> now and my interests and I hope the interests of the list intersect in the
> idea that a resilient community needs its own robust Internet broadband
> infrastructure owned operated and controlled if possible by the community
>
> I'm feeling the need to go into extended detail with regard to Rob's
> conclusions as an introduction to the peer-to-peer foundation.  This is
> really spooky stuff.  He talks about brittle infrastructure and his very
>  short chapter in the whole discussion fits into a collapse scenario and
> whether we realize it or not localities are essentially on their own and
> with Katrina like disasters and can you imagine if a hurricane slop soil in
> the middle of New Orleans that would be like Chernobyl on the Gulf Coast.
>
> I know a little bit about what collapsed t because I made two trips and
> Russia Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1992 the first within 90 days after the
> collapse of the Soviet Union. two more trips in 1994 and in 1994 people
> still standing on a street corner selling their personal possessions to
> survive but every darn one scurrying onto local trains get out to the
> suburbs into their little plot of land to grow food bring back into
> statement into St. Petersburg as it was known then in September 1992 was
> bringing burlap sacks of cabbages and beats in potatoes and all kinds to put
> in his pantry to get something to eat for the winner
>
> But the idea of a resilient local community and the time of global economic
> stress needing its own telecommunications infrastructure fits very very well
> with the theme of the list.   and I think it fits with another interest of
> mine and research networks in this country in Europe. On page 178 he
> describes the objective of this effort is to get key players and emerging
> network to act.  There's a lot of richness here and Rob explains why what
> you are doing is so very important and needs a good foundation on which to
> be considered and I'm not going to postpone in any significant way our
> interview and I do  want your  comments on that piece. but I think I may
> turn what I'm reacting into a piece of my own and try to get some of my
> research network people to look at it and to see how this fits. I think I'm
> going to begin working on this and probably will send material for you to
> look at it and comment on if you're able to do so,
>
>  tell me are you back in Thailand? Rob makes a lot of things make sense out
> of a lot of things that otherwise don't make any sense.
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