[p2p-research] market, civic and partner states

[Michel Bauwens]

hi david,

planned for the 28th, a review of your recent blog writings:

David Ronfeldt’s continued investigations of governance and state
forms<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=9488>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
Michel Bauwens
28th June 2010

 “Blond and Bauwens do not lack academic or other credentials, but their
orientations are far more philosophical and ideological, deliberately
political, even theological and spiritual, than I normally see in searching
for future speculations that bear on TIMN. This too makes them interesting
to review together, as a change of pace. Each in his own way, Blond and
Bauwens seek to surmount old distinctions about state vs. market, public vs.
private, and Left vs. Right. Their views are not exactly representative of
new philosophizing about the state on the Right or the Left, but I sense
that they are indicative.”

Because of the heavy travel schedule last spring, I hardly have had to time
to follow my favorite blogs, and to my great shame I did not update my
readings of David Ronfeldt’s blog.

He has not been sitting still, so here is a review of not too miss blog
items:

1) David is continuing his investigations into the continuation of tribal
forms <http://p2pfoundation.net/Tribes>:

* A propos the definition of
tribes<http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2010/02/incidentals-1st-of-5-apropos.html>

* Tribes vis a vis other governance
forms<http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2010/02/incidentals-2nd-of-5-apropos-tribes-vis.html>

*2) David is starting to review recent state theories, 1) Bobbitt’s Market
State<http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2010/04/bobbitts-market-state-vis-vis-timn.html>;
2) Blond’s Civic State and 3) planned but not written yet, a discussion of
my own concept of a Partner State (inspired by Cosma Orsi’s Political
Economy of Reciprocity)*

“In the looming age of networks — assuming civil society is strengthened as
the framework forecasts, or that a new network-based realm emerges from it —
a new model of the state will emerge that may be relatively leaner, yet
draws new strength from enhanced abilities to act in concert with
civil-society actors. . . . It is not clear what actors may comprise a
network-based sector or realm, but the TIMN framework implies that many will
be non-profit, socially-minded NGOs. As noted earlier, some activities
currently associated with the public or private sectors are already being
redesigned into multiorganizational networks — notably in the areas of
health, education, and welfare — and these seem likely candidates to migrate
into the new realm.”

A few excerpts to give you a taste of David’s approach:

*2.1. David Ronfeldt’s critique of the Market State concept:*

*“My concern is Bobbitt’s “market state” concept, starting with its
definition and timeline. (Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the quotations
and page references from Bobbitt’s book are probably from Ogilvy’s
document.)*

*I have yet to spot a full, single definition of the market state. But to
judge from scattered elements, it is about states becoming shaped more by
global market forces — by globalization — than by national forces of all
kinds. It is also about governments redesigning themselves to rely on
market-oriented measures: e.g., decentralization, deregulation,
privatization, outsourcing, subcontracting. Moreover, Bobbitt claims that
“the market state exists to maximize the opportunities enjoyed by all
members of society” ( p. 229). It is “above all, a mechanism for enhancing
opportunity, for creating something — possibilities — commensurate with our
imagination” (p. 232). That purpose, in Bobbitt’s view, is its hallmark,
making the market state philosophically and strategically distinct from
earlier varieties of the state.*

*As to timeline, Bobbitt treats the market state as something quite new. He
dates its appearance from 1989, and foresees that the “transition to the
market-state is bound to last over a long period” (p. 233). At present, “the
market-state has not fully emerged or been fully realized and accepted by
any society” (p. 335). Indeed, he reiterates in an interview, “We are only
just a few of years down the road to what will be a many decades long
process, but you can already see signs of this happening.”*

*Yet, what seems mostly new to me in all of this is Bobbitt’s novel name for
the phenomenon. In substance, it is not much different from what Richard
Rosecrance earlier termed the “trading state” (1986) and the “virtual state”
(1999). More to the point, I’d say, its emergence began in the early 1970s
when “transnational interdependence” began to gain notice in writings about
the rise of multinational corporations and other nonstate actors, the fusing
of domestic and international matters, the globalization of commerce and
communications, and hence the growth of new constraints on the traditions of
sovereignty and territoriality. (See writings by a host of theorists back
then, notably Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, and James Rosenau).*

*Thus, it is inaccurate for Bobbitt to go on to argue, as he does in his
next book, that developments like these “are outside the frame of reference
of the popular theories of international relations that circulated at the
end of the 20th century” (pp. 30-31). Many of the trends he emphasizes had
been noticed for decades and took hold during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton
presidencies in the 1980s-1990s. Even the individualist,
opportunity-maximizing goal that Bobbitt stresses reflects the
libertarianism that has coursed so strongly the past decade or two. And it
is not at all clear that other market states elsewhere will be so
libertarian — possibly quite the contrary.*

*In other words, insofar as the United States is concerned, Bobbitt’s
concept is far more a reflection of the present than a portent of the
future, and it’s been developing decades longer than his analysis conveys.
It may be true that the nature of the market state is still unfolding in the
United States, and that it has barely taken hold elsewhere around the world.
But it may also turn out that the recent U.S. version proves more an
exception than a rule, more ephemeral than enduring.*

*Thus, my TIMN angle is that, much as I’m impressed by Bobbitt’s coinage of
“market state” as a term, it may turn out to say more about the American
present than the world’s future, and it began to emerge decades earlier than
he argues. The term does illuminate the exalted (overweening?) influence
that global market forces exert over states these days. It also reflects the
rising importance of outsourcing, subcontracting, and other market-oriented
measures — sometimes called “government by market” (or acidly,
“market-mimicking governance”) — as options for government policies and
programs. That is useful and revelatory; it means the concept helps focus
people’s perceptions on how powerful and pervasive market forces have
become. But are we thereby opening our eyes to the beginning or the end of a
long trend?*

*Let’s recall that the +M form began to spread centuries ago, and that its
principles long ago filtered into and altered the nature of states, enabling
the rise of increasingly open competitive political systems. That helps
account for Europe’s evolution from the absolutist state to the liberal
democratic (or parliamentary) state — in other words, from a state devoted
to hierarchical (+I) doctrines, to a state whose electoral, party, and other
structures also rested in part on market-like (+M) political principles.*

*From a TIMN perspective, then, the market state actually has a long
history. It overlaps with the nation state and does not represent a
departure from it as Bobbitt claims. Indeed, the world’s major liberal
democracies —nation states all — have amounted to early market states for
over a century. What Bobbitt has illuminated is the late market state — its
overwrought aging, not its youthful rise.*

*If Bobbitt’s “market state” is better viewed as the “late market state”
arising a century or so after the “early market state,” then its rise is
occurring on the eve of the next major form: the network (+N). And that
suggests a new proposition about TIMN dynamics. I’m not sure, but perhaps
absolutism in the Middle Ages may be viewed not only as a pinnacle of the +I
hierarchical form, but also as its overwrought exaltation, again on the eve
of the rise of a next major form: in that era, the market (+M). Perhaps —
and here’s the proposition (phrasing tentative) — the late aging of one form
may interact with the germinal stirrings of the next in a way that leads
existing regimes to overemphasize the aging form, partly to defend against
the rise of the germinal form that those regimes are just beginning to
detect.*

*Indeed, the details of Bobbitt’s analysis — the trends he stresses, the
terms he uses — are often as much or more about the +N form than the +M
form. He has confounded and conflated the market (+M) form with what is
really new and next: the rise of the network (+N) form. A system of late
market states is emerging, but so too are the outlines of what will in time
supersede the market state: something akin to a network (or nexus) state.”*

Here is “Red Tory” Phillip Blond’s critique of the market state (he himself
advocates a civic state <http://www.respublica.org.uk/articles/civic-state>)

*2.2 Phillip Blond critique’s of the market state*

*“We know what is right and what is wrong with the market state. Clearly the
market is a more effective and efficient mechanism for the distribution of
many resources than the state. Evidently if one can enter the market place
and if one has something to trade – the market creates wealth, prosperity
and independence. Finally there is the manifest good of liberty and unless
this has an economic reality – one would exist under the permanent
subjugation of the state, or the private cartel. Yet we also know what is
wrong with the market state – too often it replaces a public monopoly with a
private cartel. In the name of breaking up the state too little attempt was
applied to breaking up the market. Under the dispensation of the market
state, private replaced public monopoly and market entry was effectively and
progressively denied to newcomers. The majority of Britons having being
denied entry to the market lost any access to investment capital. Thus the
ability to transform one’s life or situation steadily declined as wealth
flowed upwards rather than downwards and a new oligarchical class, asset
rich and leverage keen, assumed market freedom was synonymous with their
complete ascendancy. Market fundamentalism abandoned the fundamentals of
markets. Prudent Chancellors promised no more boom and bust, the state
sanctioned monopoly capitalism and sat happy on the tax receipts of
unrestrained global gambling. As Labour stoked the engine of inequality – it
abandoned the rest of the economy for the receipts of city speculation and
the re-distributive power of welfarism . Thus the market and the welfare
state merged into one as they both colluded in a system whose bankruptcy is
now ongoing and self-evident.*

*The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually
supporting failures. The real merit of the current conservative renaissance
has in some way escaped notice. Those on the now bankrupt left argue that
the new Toryism is but a cover for Thatcherism Mark II, while those on the
bankrupt right secretly agree and seem to want nothing more than a return to
monopoly capitalism and the dominance of their kind of people.*

*Modern conservatism rejects both dispensations as it seeks to replace the
welfare and the market state with the Civic State.”*

David Ronfeldt then looks at Blond’s advocacy of a civic
state<http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2010/06/blonds-civic-state-vis-vis-timn.html>
:

*2.3 David Ronfeldt on the civic state:*

*“Blond is quite sketchy about the civic state. But it’s clear he means a
decentralized, distributist state of limited scope. Indeed, he also calls it
the civil state, the associative state, the mutualized state, and the
ownership state.*

*According to Blond, the civic state will restore people’s participation in
“the common good” by re-enabling “the associative drive” that liberalism
stifled. Thus it will be a state that “privileges the associative above the
alienated, the responsible over the self-serving and . . . the communal over
the individual.” It will express a “radical communitarian civic
conservatism” — his “red Toryism” concept — that can “inveigh with equal
vigour against public monopolies of state and giant cartels of the market”.*

*This is not just high-sounding rhetoric, for he makes clear the direction
he wants the state to go in:*

*“In the political realm, we have to admit that democracy doesn’t work
particularly well, mainly because it’s hugely centralized and substantially
captured by vested interests. We need to turn it upside-down — a doctrine of
radical democratic subsidiarity that would allow local associations both to
select and vote for their own candidates. We can’t do that in the current
political settlement. It’s too locked; there are too many vested interests.
But if, like budgetary capture, we had a democratic capture, we could send
democracy back to the streets. If we could ally that political economy with
actual democracy, we could really have bottom-up associations and render the
central state increasingly superfluous.” (source; my italics)*

*“The new civil state would restore what the welfare state has destroyed —
human association. This new civil state will turn itself over to its
citizens; it will foster the power of association and allow its citizens to
take it over rather as it had originally taken over them. . . . So conceived
the monolithic state could gradually be broken down into an associative
state where citizens took over and ran their own services . . . .” (source;
my italics)*

*Thus, Blond proposes that the “public sector should be broken up — not
privatized out” — and many of its services transferred to civil-society
actors apart from the existing public and private sectors. That appears to
be his main point about the civic state; it is mainly “a facilitator” in
this associative scheme. The state is still a parliamentary democracy atop a
party system; but its bureaucracy is smaller, and its orientation to the
economy and civil society has been redefined and restructured.*

*He links this to ideas for a “re-moralized market” — a “whole new model of
social capitalism” based on a “civic economy” — that would benefit small and
medium businesses and be less fraught by government bureaucracies and
corporate cartels. However, I’m going to skip over that, and head into
what’s far more significant for my sense of TIMN: Blond’s proposals for new
kinds of civil-society associations.*

*Blond’s vision is about creating the civic state. But to make that
feasible, his vision is even more about re-energizing civil society — so
much so that local civil associations get to assume functions long performed
by the state.*

*It envisages the rise of a “social economy” based on a “new localism”. And
it’s loaded with lingo about public service businesses, social businesses,
social enterprises, civil companies, and civic companies. I’m not exactly
sure what such terms mean, but the aim is clear: a bottom-up system for
“citizen groups to take over government budgets and run them for themselves”
(source). Blond favors worker buy-outs, employee-owned coops, and local
investment trusts, where employees and other locals get to share in
ownership, and profit is not the key purpose. His emphasis is on the
delivery of public services, but he also proposes reforms to banking. It’s
all very much about mutualism and distributism, in conservative senses.*

*What Blond lays out is consistent with what I think TIMN may imply for the
future: a more delimited but also stronger kind of state (a “nexus state”),
along with the rise of a new networked social sector. What’s missing from
Blond’s vision is a connection to the network (+N) form. The Ownership State
(2010) mentions that the “baseline requirements” for his proposals include
“open systems” in which “hierarchies give way to networks” (p. 11). It also
recommends “a flatter management structure in the public sector” . . .
“where peer-to-peer motivation builds ethos and expertise and replaces
vertical sanction” (p. 34). But so far these points are made only in
passing; they deserve elaboration.”*
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