[P2P-F] prince of networks and grid group theory

Thu Mar 17 14:41:21 CET 2011

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 <ldxar1 at gmail.com> 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 <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>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 <ldxar1 at gmail.com> 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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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
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