andy, response inline On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Andy Robinson <[email protected]> wrote:

Hiya,

OK, so the individual in CS doesn't just relate to the community as an undifferentiated whole, but the whole becomes something like a corporate being separate from each of the contributors - as a result of which, one can provide a gift to the whole, or receive something from it?

I don't think that is the case actually, and this is what differentiate the commons from the state; the state aims 'in theory' to handle the collective, but is separated from that collective, and in the best of cases, use representational mechanisms; but in say digital commons, the whole exists for everyone (with access), without exclusion (at least for use); the commons should not be confused with the community and the community should not be confused with the 'infrastructure of cooperation' which may be managed by a democratic representative body. The real answer is that what you say 'can' happen, but is not a necessary feature, the whole can take on different configurations, some of which, as you say below, can be dangerous. In free cooperation commons, 'you must submit to the greater whole', simply does not exist, since your contribution, and your usage for that matter, are free. In physical commons of course, there are many different issues, yet decades of study show they work quite well under a variety of hybrid regimes. Don't know enough of the specifics of potlach to answer question, but it is quite possible that some of it may be CR, though it is generally classified as a gift dynamic ... It seems to me that, because of the essential hybridity of human relations and projects, things may have AND communal shareholding aspects AND gift aspects etc .. each relation to be examined specifically. However, I do believe that social systems can have a dominant core, but again, to be examined concretely, how to analyse LInux as a corporate dominated commons for example, what dominates, the commons aspects of the code, or the privatising aspects of the participating corporations, both are probably in tension with each other, Michel

Does the community have to be something like a Stirnerian spook for this to work? I wonder, too, what the role of status is here: if Linus has status because he contributes to the collective instead of to the individual contributors, does this mean the collective outranks each of the participants (i.e. the collective has a claim to gifts, whereas the contributors do not)? If so, how does this fit with the apparent right to appropriate from the collective?

I'm trying to get my head round the implications, because communitarianism has conservative and authoritarian implications, and often seems to carry the implications, "individuals must submit to the greater whole" (which functions like an external figure, very similar to "individuals must submit to God" or "the king") and "individuals must NOT ask what the collective will do for them" (need, demand, desire and entitlement figure as sins, and human rights as outer frame restricting the collective's demands/acts is rejected) - both typical of gemeinschaft. There's left and right versions of this perspective, but they're pretty much invariant in how they construct the collective-individual relation, and they're also invariant in their social authoritarianism and borderline misanthropy. This doesn't seem to be how you see CR working, and it doesn't seem to be how Open Source works in practice (I've never got that authoritarian/misanthropic/anti-rights vibe from Open Source, quite the opposite), but it sounds closer to CR than to ER, AR or MP. Is this kind of thing CR? Maybe it's a fifth system, or some kind of hybrid?

Also, the fused-group or bund seems to function without reference to a spook, forming immanently around rituals (it sometimes has an object-reference which is also expressive). Fused-groups seem capable of potlatch with collective elements, without the formation of a spook. Does CR vary depending if its context is gemeinschaft, gesellschaft or bund? Or is CR impossible in principle in the bund? (Maybe the moment of intense experience IS the community in a bund?)

Also, wouldn't some variants of potlatch also be gifts to the collective (or to all members in an undifferentiated way), rather than to a specific other person? I'm thinking of the mass-consumption event in which a contribution of (say) food goes into the production of a feast which is consumed by the entire band - an exceptionally high contributor gains status, but the status comes from the common-pool contribution, not from obligations to each specific person. Would this kind of potlatch be CR rather than ER?

bw Andy

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:

...

Hi Andy,

thanks for this genealogy!, would be nice to see this in an essay form one day <g>

so the difference between CS and ER (gift economy),

is that in CR, you have a general exchange with the whole, and indeed, you gain reputation by contributing the most, but there is no 'individual' expectation of any precise return to that whole, as long as enough individuals contribute enough to maintain the system going; in physical systems, this is regulated since the resource is scarce and needs replenishing; in 'immaterial systems', this is usually not so regulated (however any online CS system is predicated on a physical cooperation infrastructure which is predicated on scarcity rules and managed differentially from the online polarity)

in the gift exchange you are exchanging between individuals, families, clans, tribes; in the case of potlach, the chief, representing a clan or tribe, 'gives' to the other tribe, thereby creating a clear debt to that other clan/tribe

I don't see Linux as a gift chief giving to other clans/tribes, but rather as somebody seen as contributing the most to a particular commons, and thus, it's a CS and not a gift logic

I think the psychology is different, i.e. Linux people would feel gratitude and respect to Linux for his contributions, and support him as a key asset, but would not feel to obligated to give back to the individual LInux as a competitive gift

I see an ethical growth between authoritiy ranking, market pricing, gift economy, and communal shareholding, each one has a greater degree of gifting/sharing than the other; and therfore, I see CS dominance as part of an ethical growth ; of course, historically, the logic is rather CS / ER/ AR/ MP / CS

This would mean a core of society governed by communal sharing, through commons for open knowledge, software and design; surrounded by a level of gift economy; surrounded by a level of market mechanisms; and finally surrounded by a level of hierarchical distribution, with the different levels in a level of 'subsidiarity'

in other words, do whatever you can as communal shareholding (giving without direct expectation of return); if that doesn't work, what can work through gifting exchange (giving with indirect expectation of return), if that doesn't work, what can work through equivalent market exchange (giving with direct expectation of immediate return of same value), and if that doesn't work, what can work through some form of centrally decided allocation/distribution (centrally regulated obligated giving/receiving)

This is the 'ethical' logic, I see, though in practice, a centrally allocated basic income, may actually be necessary for CS to work in a sustainable manner in the first place,

Michel

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Andy Robinson <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hiya,

Well, the way you're talking about communal sharing reminds me a lot of the fused-group in Sartre, its descendant the subject-group in Guattari, and its close relative the bund/band/sect in Peterson, which is traced back to Toennies. Communal ownership has been theorised by people like Owen J. Lynch as underpinning traditional land-use rights in relation to CBNRM, although i think it's being stretched a bit. There's other precedents in anarcho-mutualism and utopian socialism (Fourier, Morris). Fourier's idea of 'harmonisation' is intriguing, basically turning all problems of need into common problems and seeking to solve them by systemic rearrangements which turn problems into assets. Illich talks about certain tools/technologies as 'convivial', implying something like CR, in various works including Deschooling Society and Tools for Conviviality: something like the phone system and the postal system would be a convivial tool (roughly speaking, use-neutral and user-led), whereas the road system and the school system would not be (because it imposes particular uses, has a scarcity structure and is oriented to individualised/competitive use). He talks about using low-tech alternatives, such as 2-way radios and audiocassette networks instead of TV and radio, and electronic mules instead of cars, as appropriate technologies in the South, in similar terms; ditto his 'learning webs' as alternatives to school. His work actually reads nowadays as proto-internet. Something else to look at might be autoreduction, the idea of making services (public transport, electricity, etc) free/common by refusing to pay, which emerged in Italy from autonomia: http://libcom.org/history/autoreduction-movements-turin-1974

I can see why you'd make the move from gift economy to CR. But how would this fit with the authority/status which accrues to people like Linus Torvalds and Assange? This would fit very well with gift economy (the cyber-chief accumulates status by means of disproportionately large contributions, as in potlatch, Big Man systems etc) and not so well with CR (why would contributions be recognised if contributions count as if from a single body?)

bw Andy

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]

...

wrote:

...

Hi Andy,

thanks a lot for this,

defining all the characteristics of p2p would take some time,

but in a nutshell, from http://p2pfoundation.net/Relational_Model_Typology_-_Fiske

Communal Sharing (CS) is a relationship in which people treat some dyad or group as equivalent and undifferentiated with respect to the social domain in question. Examples are people using a commons (CS with respect to utilization of the particular resource), people intensely in love (CS with respect to their social selves), people who "ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee" (CS with respect to shared suffering and common well-being), or people who kill any member of an enemy group indiscriminately in retaliation for an attack (CS with respect to collective responsibility).

I'm starting to list the essential concepts here as well: http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Companion_Concepts

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Andy Robinson <[email protected]>wrote:

...

Hiya,

Actor-network theory (ANT) which Latour is associated with, views everything which exists (people, animals, objects) as 'actors', these actors as arranged more-or-less horizontally in networks, and seeks to analyse the composition of particular networks (e.g. science as an interaction of scientists with one another, with their equipment, with whatever they're studying, etc). It's a bit different from peer-to-peer in that, while it's an anti-authoritarian view, it doesn't really distinguish horizontal and vertical organisations, and the actors can co-constitute in different ways - in a sense, peer-to-peer would lose its specificity when everyone and everything is a peer. Also, it would imply that something like open-source programming is not simply a network of programmers, or even programmers and users, but also of computers, peripherals, bits of code and so on, which are all actors in their own right. It's certainly similar to peer-to-peer approaches but it would be hard to unpack its influence from other horizontalist theories, e.g. Deleuze and Situationism, which precede it by a long way (ANT really took off in the 80s, horizontalism has been around since the 60s), and contempotaries such as Hakim Bey. If I was tracing a genealogy for peer-to-peer ideas it would probably go from Situationism to culture-jamming (things like subvertising, subway graffiti, street theatre), to DIY activism in the techno field (such as phone phreaking, rave and pirate radio), to early hacker culture, to peer-to-peer, but I might be wrong. (Also, weren't some of the early hacktivists rather techno-progressivist? This would sit badly with perspectives such as ANT). ANT is mostly used in Science and Technology Studies, but has become a significant force in sociology too. Certainly worth reading up on if you're interested in networks more broadly than in the computer setting. I think Latour has written his own introduction to ANT as well. Latour declares his own inspiration to be Gabriel Tarde, who would arguably be a further 'original' a long time before - though I think some variety of peer-to-peer production has been around since time immemorial.

What would you take to be the defining characteristics/ideas of p2p? I can probably tell you when they first popped-up in theory.

bw Andy

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