[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: P2P and the economic calculation problem

Tue Jan 12 09:44:35 CET 2016

dear Bob,

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 10:27 PM, Bob Haugen <bob.haugen at gmail.com> wrote:

> I thought Ackerman's article was excellent, although I am not sure how
> much of it I agree with. He gets into a lot more detail about the problems
> of Soviet planning than I usually see in such articles.
>
> I added some sources to the quotes in the Discussion of the cited P2P
> page: http://p2pfoundation.net/Economic_Calculation_Problem#Discussion
>
> (There were no quotes from Jean-Daniel Cusin in that section, so I took
> him out.)
>
> I'm thinking about Ackerman's ideas about "a form of socialized finance
> which would respect the autonomy of the firm." I think it might help, but I
> don't know how we would get it to happen. Which is the problem with a lot
> of "good ideas", including those of the P2PF. They would require a
> non-existent organization to take over from our present rulers. (P2PF is a
> bit more realistic than Ackerman, but still...)
>

I am puzzled by your point here. I think the logic is very different. The
proposal of Ackerman are a proposal for a political program that needs to
win power first, but the great majority of the proposals of the p2p
foundation are already working (it's the rule for the wiki, it has to
exist), though they may need politics to be scaled and generalize.

Of course, i have a few proposals which call for new institutions, but they
are happening as well (phyles, assemblies and chambers of the commons);
stigmergy and transparency between entrepreneurial coalitions is happening
as well

so which proposals do you mean exactly, dear Bob ?

>
> I do have a question for Michel, though: P2PF says, "*To qualify as
> stigmergy, agents cannot communicate directly with one another, but rather
> must engage indirectly via a medium*."
>

actually, I disagree with that statement,  the signalling stigmergy does
not at all exclude additional layers of person to person communication, as
is standard in all open source projects .. stigmergy never happens alone,
as human are communicating their intentions all the time

>
> I have maintained that the actual signals by which the advanced capitalist
> supply chains coordinate their physical production and transportation are
> valid precursors to, and directly usable by, a very different economic
> system. They do not depend at all on prices. Those signals are always
> through a medium, but sometimes indirect (as between agents who do not
> directly coordinate with each other) and sometimes direct (the agents do
> coordinate directly with each other, but use messages via some medium to do
> so). Do those direct signals between coordinating agents qualify for
> stigmergy?
>

see above, if you give an expanded definition of stigmergy, which I think
is appropriate, then yes. COULD YOU PLEASE write a full article on this !!
We really need to make that argument formally as part of our mutual
coordination proposals. Can you educate us about this path forward.

>
> And re Ackerman: from reading, and also working with an ex-Soviet planner
> on a software project, I have concluded that the main problems with Soviet
> planning were ideological, not technical. The bosses of the nominally
> state-owned enterprises treated those enterprises as their own businesses,
> and regularly subverted the plans. Those bosses were eager to become the
> new oligarchs when Russia's system converted to capitalism.
>
> Likewise, if you read between the lines of the fascinating Red Plenty
> book, the failures to adopt computerized planning were political and
> ideological, not technical. Likewise the problems of quality and fitness
> for use were ideological, not technical.
>
> By "ideological", I mean world view, your consciousness determined by your
> social being. I don't have the quote handy, but Marx talked a lot about the
> people in the new system being indoctrinated in the thinking of the old. So
> for capitalism, the individual ideology is "me first", and the social
> ideology is domination and subordination.  "Me first" can subvert any
> plans, Ackerman's or anybody else's. So a new system cannot be developed
> just with technical and organizational ideas, however good. Ideological
> transformation will be necessary, and that is the hard part.
>

absolutely agree, I have seen this numerous times, 'solutions' are only
accepted if they serve material interests

ok, to help you write that article, see:
http://p2pfoundation.net/How_Current_Supply_Chains_Can_Serve_Broader_Mutual_Coordination

end of my remarks

>
> And that's still true ~after~ the revolution. Better to start now, before.
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 5:08 AM, Bob Haugen <bob.haugen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'll read the article cited below later today and comment on it, but I
>> think most such discussions miss what I talked about here, which was cited
>> in this list when I first joined it:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q6hEpH75Q0VkkCIFUAJhXejrBZqD_j6-gFhkmKNROMQ/edit?usp=sharing
>>
>> The short version is that the people who are still talking about the
>> calculation problem do not seem to understand how planning and replanning
>> is done now in capitalist supply chains (as well as US military supply
>> chains), by propagating signals from the end customers or users back along
>> the networks.
>>
>> And, of course, by finance capital.
>>
>> Plus, heres a link to Nick Dyer-Witheford's "Red Plenty Platforms", which
>> might be what ORsan was looking for:
>> http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/download/511/526
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Orsan <orsan1234 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> In relation to below I would suggest closer to look at:
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net/Economic_Calculation_Problem
>>> and also Fabian Tompsett's text here:
>>> https://www.academia.edu/15806152/ENCYCLOPEDISM_FOR_DEVELOPMENT_FROM_THE_UNITY_OF_SCIENCE_MOVEMENT_TO_CYBERNETICS
>>>
>>> Best, Orsan
>>>
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>> *From:* Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
>>> *Date:* 11 januari 2016 07:54:17 CET
>>> *To:* p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>, xavier
>>> rizos <xavier.rizos at gmail.com>, celine trefle <piques.celine at gmail.com>
>>> *Subject:* *[P2P-F] P2P and the economic calculation problem*
>>> *Reply-To:* P2P Foundation mailing list <
>>> p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>
>>> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>>>
>>>
>>> =
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>> Blog - http://www.blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>> Wiki - http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>
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>>> making a donation. Thank you for your support.
>>> https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/donation
>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
> http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
>
>

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

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

<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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