[P2P-F] P2P and the economic calculation problem

[Michel Bauwens]

Friends, this is really the key issue for a commons transition, I will
publish this on the 19th as a commentary on a jacobin article which I urge
everyone to read.

Stacco, this is a strong recommendation for you as well, as the 'head' of
our commons transition project.

Xavier and Celine: I talked in Sydney, apart from our very exciting joint
project on the thermodynamic efficiencies of peer production, about the
need for a more strategically-oriented group of thinkers operating within
and around the p2p foundation; this would the the kind of issues we need to
collectively tackle.

So anyway, here is my short text, presenting the problematique, as well as
the very specific solution we are proposing:

How a p2p-driven mutual coordination economy may solve the economic
calculation problem (2) <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=53483>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]

Michel Bauwens
19th January 2016


Two days ago, we presented the article
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/> by Seth
Ackerman in which he presented the ‘economic calculation problem’ and
various solutions to it, ending his argument with a call for a form of
socialized finance which would respect the autonomy of the firm.

For a more in-depth understanding, see how I have processed his arguments
here <http://p2pfoundation.net/Economic_Calculation_Problem>.

Please note what may be an essential difference between the classic left
approach of the author Seth Ackerman, and our own sensibility .. Ackerman
seems to call, despite the autonomy of the firms that he recognizes, for a
unified public property as socialized finance, while I believe today the
approach of distributed property (including distributed commons), offers
stronger guarantees against any state-driven control.

In the P2P and commons transition context, the issue is the following:

* capitalist pricing is very flawed and often miscalculates, but the
autonomy of the firms allows a lot of flexibility to coordinate the economy

* central planning only worked well (and at a costly human price), in the
early moments of economic modernization and stalls in the informational
stage

* democratic central planning, like proposed by Parecon, seems eminently
unworkable

Therefore, the P2P proposal, which maintains the autonomy of the firm, but
transforms them into commons-oriented entrepreneurial coalitions which
‘internalize’ the costs that capitalism itself externalizes, make a lot of
sense, allowing maximum coordination through stigmergy, both at the level
of the work done by the open contributory systems, and at the level of the
cooperative firms.

Here are four five theses, which introduce our special wiki section on
Mutual Coordination Economics:

“0. What market pricing is to capitalism and planning is to state-based
production, mutual coordination is to commons-based peer production!
1. Today we have the emergence of a new proto-system of production,
Commons-Based Peer Production in which contributors are free to contribute
to a common pool of shareable knowledge, code and design, which may be
associated through physical production in microfactories using distributed
machinery such as 3D printing.
2. This emerging new system of value creation and distribution is not
sustainable if contributors need to find work as labour for capital, so
contributors need to be able to generate livelihoods for themselves,
keeping the generation of surplus value within the sphere of the commons
and its contributors.
3. To achieve this, we advocate the use of Commons-Based Reciprocity
Licenses such as the Peer Production License. This allows for the creation
of a non-capitalist ‘counter’ economy based on Open Cooperativism and other
forms of an ethical economy. In this proposal, the commoners or peer
producers, i.e. the contributors to the commons, are also cooperators of
their own corporate entities, which create livelihoods and insure the
surplus value remains within the commons. So, in between the sphere of the
accumulation of the commons (open input, participatory process,
commons-oriented output), and the sphere of capital accumulation, there is
a intermediary sphere of cooperative production, which regulates physical
production and the social reproduction of the commoners-cooperators.

4. The production of immaterial common pools is already regulated through
mutual coordination and stigmergy, i.e. coordination based on open and
transparent signals of what is needed by the system; but physical
production cannot be coordinated without similar signals, i.e. the
coordination of production through information. It is therefore a next
logical step to advocate and practice, within the ethical entrepreneurial
coalitions that coalesce around particular commons through their shared
adherence to the commons-based licenses, to also practice open accounting
and open supply-chains and logistics. This means that within these
coalitions, physical production can also be coordinated through stigmergic
signals; and negotiated coordination and even voluntary common planning can
take place on the basis of the shared production information.”

Recent advances would seem to suggest that the blockchain may be a key
technology for participatory open supply chains, while advances in
contributory accounting are in the process of producing an added
coordination mechanism for open contributory systems based on distributed
tasks, linking the contributory dynamics to those of the cooperative firms.
(I am personally however, quite happy with a stronger ‘wall’ between the
two systems, i.e. a strong separation between commons and market).

-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org


P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
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