[p2p-research] market, civic and partner states

[Michel Bauwens]

one of my priorities, I have planned this for july 5 to 9, is to jot down
notes on the partner state,

in the meantime, are you interested that I send some of our political
linkages?

see already, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-State-Approaches, and
http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Partner-State for material by others ..

Michel

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 12:26 AM, David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com> wrote:

>
> aha.  many thanks, michel.  a delight to see.  your interest is reassuring.
>
> ===
>
>
> On Jun 24, 2010, at 10:10 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
>  hi david,
>>
>> planned for the 28th, a review of your recent blog writings:
>> David Ronfeldt’s continued investigations of governance and state forms
>>
>>
>>  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:
>>
>> * A propos the definition of tribes
>>
>> * Tribes vis a vis other governance forms
>>
>> 2) David is starting to review recent state theories, 1) Bobbitt’s Market
>> State; 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)
>>
>> 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:
>>
>> 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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