[P2P-F] an evaluation of the flok

Thu Jul 10 18:26:43 CEST 2014

Dear friends,

this is my comment to the text from Michel on the blog.
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ecuador-as-a-state-form-the-proposal-for-a-partner-state-and-lessons-for-future-commons-transition-strategies/2014/07/10#comment-797174

many greetings, willi

Dear Michel,

on the P2P/F list i answer to your text. Yow don’t continue this 
important discussion on the list. Now, i read the same text in the blog.
It’s not a good way to fly from a strong discussion base and act on 
different areas with the same thing without to continue the process of 
reflection.

many greetings, willi
now Bogota, Colombia

Am 7/6/2014 11:53 AM, schrieb willi uebelherr:
>
> Dear Michel,
>
> many thanks for your general answer. I will also use it to a more
> general answer.
>
> The answer to the question for our relation to the state construction,
> always based on the roman constitutional law, follows immediately from
> our perspectives. I think, therein, we agree.
>
> After then, we check what is the state. And then we can decide.
>
> Based on my personal principles:
> 1) all people are equivalent. It follows
>    a) all opeople have the equal rights
>    b) all our working have the same values
> 2) never we accept the private ownership of common resources
> 3) all decisions about the way of life are taken local
>
> Based on my principles of development as a result of the principles of
> the nature:
> a) massivly decentral
> b) massivly parallel
> c) massivly redundant
>
> Immediatly we come to the concept of the world society as a network of
> local independent community. The P2P environment of local communities.
> This, because we live always in local communities and we act as a part
> of this communities. The stability of our lifebase is a direct function
> of our local independent economy. And this rest always on our local
> technical infrastructures.
>
> The destination for me is, that the people in the local communities can
> create and build most of that, what they need or what they think, that
> they need. Also this is a local decision.
>
> Because we know, that many task for that are more general, we follow the
> old principle:
> "global thinking, local doing".
>
> This means, that all our theoretical work we do together in an open and
> free environment. Therefore, the communication system is so important.
> But in his inner structure we use our general and fundamental
> principles. The free access to the free communication for the free
> access to our free knowledge and information exchange.
>
> Knowledge is always worldheritage. It is always a common resource.
>
> Now to the state construction.
>
> In general it is a system from the elites for the elites against the
> people, against the self-organisation of the local communities. In the
> political systems we have two poles:
> a) the representative systems
> b) the democratic, local self-decision systems
>
> In the area of the representative system we have a big garden of
> different flowers. But in his core it is always the same. Incapacitation
> and centralization.
>
> The elites need this to organize her parasitic existence. And, because
> it is not so easy, they need the violence apparatus and the bureaucratic
> instances. Always based on the incapacitation of the local people.
>
> The private ownership of common resources is a necessary part of that.
> And to legitimate and stabilize this they need the control of the law
> system, based on the violence apparatus.
>
> This is in short form my general view. And immediatly, we see, that
> never we can operate together with any state system that follows a way
> against our principles, agains the people.
>
> States always are parasitic instances. They use but never they create or
> build. But in our perspective, we need the reduction of parasitic
> instances and change to a overall creative and productive activities.
> With that We can massively reduce the individual cost, the individual
> effort.
>
> Om the blog of Robert Steele we find the sentence in the head:
> "the truth at any cost lowers all other cost". Maybe, this is a more
> free interpretation from me. But this is the core for distribution of
> the activity for our life.
>
> If all people are part of the basical activities in the areas for our
> material existence then all people have enough time to study the laws of
> the nature to extent the reduction of the efforts for our material
> life-basics.
>
> Of course, we can first disolve all not necessary instances, the
> parasitic instances. May be, this is the most effective part on our way.
> Likeany military and all infrastructure for that.
>
> In the communication system we can see it very clear. All this parasitic
> instances we don't need any more. All this stupid instances of "Internet
> Governance" are superfluos. And we can massivly reduce the volume of
> packet transports.
>
> The same we will find in all spheres of our life.
>
> many greetings, willi
> now: Medellin, Colombia
>
>
>
> Am 05/07/2014 21:22, schrieb Michel Bauwens:
>> Thanks for the first spate of reactions: orsan, willi, Kevin
>>
>> First thing, yes Orsan, the hard politics of p2p transition in the
>> existing
>> context of capital-state-polity-policy-funding-culture.. that is the key
>> issue we have to deal with, and I hope to add my own efforts to this, as
>> soon as my homecoming fever is over ..
>>
>> Willi and Kevin, you both pose the specific problem of the Partner
>> State. I
>> think there are really big misunderstandings if the relative failure of
>> Ecuador is interpreted to mean that it means the failure of the Partner
>> State.
>>
>> The Ecuadorian state is not a partner state, it's a market state, though
>> different from the neoliberal one. I interpret as a state that wants to
>> rebalance the market state towards local sovereignity and the local
>> bourgeoisie. It represented a different type of class alliance that
>> wanted
>> to strengthen the local state to tame international capital for its own
>> ends. After a more radical phase after 2007, it is now slowly retreating
>> and seeking a new accomodation with Empire. The results are a mixed
>> bag of
>> very strong social justice results, but a disempowering of civil
>> society as
>> a collective force. It is remarkable that after meeting more than 70
>> different civic groups, I could not find a single one that supported the
>> government, and even the ones that one did, are now alienated from it.
>> The
>> Ecuadorian state is technocratic, 'knows best' and dislikes
>> participation.
>> They dislike indepedent civic groups as much as, if not more, than
>> neoliberal capital. So-called neosocialism is a statist approach to make
>> Ecuador fit for a socially better kind of capitalism. It's mostly better
>> than what existed before (though quite a few civic groups disagree and
>> say
>> they have less freedom now), but it's neither socialism nor p2p nor
>> participatory.
>>
>> The second important point is that while we can never idealize the state,
>> the big and central question remains:
>>
>> 1) is it possible to imagine a class society without a state ? My
>> answer is
>> no, as who would stop the homeless of going into empty houses, or elite
>> paramilitaries to take away the land of the farmers ... While failed
>> states
>> are possible, they are generally worse. I am not aware of big
>> migrations to
>> Somalia, nor of colombian urban dwellers to the lands of the
>> paramilitaries, but am only aware of the opposite. People able to vote
>> with
>> their feet, flee stateless regions
>>
>> 2) is it possible to imagine abolishing class society by fiat. My
>> answer is
>> no. Therefore in any transition period, there will be a state to
>> defend the
>> mass of the people and their democracy against attempts at restoration.
>>
>> Thus the state is simply unavoidable.
>>
>> So the question becomes, what kind of state. My answer is the partner
>> state, a state where the people themselves are the state, and the
>> historical precedents are of course the greek polis and the free medieval
>> city states described by the anarchist Kropotkin. If you agree, I don't
>> care what other name you use for it, that is the partner state we are
>> talking about, nothing else can be it.
>>
>> The third question is: what do we do in the meantime. My answer is 1)
>> build
>> autonomous social organisation 2) engage with the state to fight bad
>> legislation and promote good legislation 3) create prefigurative partner
>> state policies where the people's forces have majorities.
>>
>> So back the question: does the relative failure of flok prove anything
>> about the failure of the partner state concept ? My answer is: the
>> opposite. Ecuador shows that anything but a partner state approach is
>> relatively doomed. It wasn't a partner state, we thought a prefigurative
>> experiment was possible, and it wasn't. But micro-experiments, like in
>> Sigchos, are still possible, and worth fighting for.
>>
>> Michel
>