[P2P-F] P2P and the economic calculation problem

Mon Jan 11 16:13:29 CET 2016

Michel,

Please look more closely at net metering and the energy exchanges that
happen under it. It seems to be similar to the kind of mechanism you are
looking for, as follows: It measures the individual contribution of a
solar owner's surplus (the reversal in the electric meter) to the grid
supply, and which entitles the solar owner to credit equivalent to his
contribution. You can look at this contribution as a contribution to
the common supply of electricity, although it just so happens that this
contribution is privately appropriated by the utility at this time. But
one can imagine the surplus contributions of many solar owners as
something similar to code, information, etc. contributed to a common
pool. From this perspective, the grid is a network that is now
poised to turn into a commons where the accounting mechanism (my term,
equivalent to your 'economic calculation', I believe) has already been
found--net metering. I'm not sure yet that this is so, but it think it
deserves a second look.

You can google "pseudo-net-metering double-charges customers" to read a
more detailed analysis of the transactions that happen under net
metering.

If net metering solves your "economic calculation problem" at least for
energy sharing/exchanges, then at least we now have one solution to
analyze and perhaps think if a similar solution can be applied in other
P2P transactions.

Greetings,

Roberto

On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 13:54:17
+0700 Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

> 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).
> 