[P2P-F] class analysis of the token economy, part 2

Fri Jan 12 16:10:09 CET 2018

thanks james,

I see a parallel of what is happening with this labor aristocracy with what
happened to the engineering class in the late 19th cy ... part of these
post-artisans where coopted by capital .. ; the difference today is as you
say that the ecological crisis makes it a tragedy ...

the good news is here, i.e. how close the new generative social movements
are to our own analysis and recommendations,

see:

 (
http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Interface-9-1-Pleyers.pdf
)
Excerpts[edit
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Local_Food_Movement_in_Belgium&action=edit&section=2>
]On the political origins of the movement[edit
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Local_Food_Movement_in_Belgium&action=edit&section=3>
]

"The current renewal of local food networks in Western Europe, and notably
in France (Zimmer, 2011), Italy (Toscano, 2011) and French-speaking Belgium
finds its roots in the alter-globalization movement in the early 2000. In
France, the new local food network setting, AMAP2, was launched in 2001 by
small peasants and a local section of the alter-globalization network ATTAC
and was directly inspired by the US groups for “Community Supported
Agriculture”.

In Liège, two social and cultural centres particularly active in the local
alterglobalization movement were also among the first ones to start direct
purchase groups for local food. The “Beau Mur” hosts both the local section
of ATTAC and one of the larger group of local food consumers in town. It
gathers over 80 families every Tuesday. A frontrunner of the local
alter-globalization movement and the heart of the "Social Forum in Liège"
in mid-2000s, the autonomous social and cultural centre "Barricade3"
launched its “GAC” as early as 1999. It organizes a dozen talks a year
about food, denouncing the hold of transnational corporation over food and
pointing to concrete alternatives. In 2013, Barricade was again the main
initiator of a new model of local food network: the “Liège Food-Earth Belt”
(“Ceinture Aliment-Terre Liégeoise”, see below). It involves dozens of
actors from different sectors and promotes the production and local food
consumption.

As I have showed elsewhere (Pleyers, 2010: 35-105) Barricade and most of
the local food initiatives emerged in a specific part of the
alter-globalization movement, bathed in a culture of activism4 that focuses
on prefigurative activism, personal subjectivity and a concept of change
rooted in everyday life."
Scaling through swarming[edit
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Local_Food_Movement_in_Belgium&action=edit&section=4>
]

"Rather than enlarging its various groups, many groups thus opt for
“emulation” (Tarde, 2001) and “swarming” rather than a growing organization
(Pleyers, 2010: 93): “We don’t seek to build a big organization but many,
many small organizations, each maintaining its specificities.” By doing so,
they hope to maintain convivial and participatory group dynamics and to
counter the trend towards institutionalization that usually characterizes
civil society organizations and solidarity economy projects. When a group
grows, the interpersonal dimension progressively gets lost and the
separation between the project entrepreneurs and the more passive
“consumers” widens. These actors lead us to reconsider the importance of
local level in a globalized world."

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 4:06 PM, <jbquilligan3 at charter.net> wrote:

> Ironic how an ICO token economy is actually a classic *token economy, *a
> faux system of symbolic exchange. Yet it is difficult to understand why yet
> another version of supply-side production, investment and finance -- which
> has led to most of the present crises in global society, including the
> widening inequality and poverty of the precariat and the increasing
> deterioration of Earth's vulnerable natural cycles -- is continuing to be
> marketed as an invisible hand of God which will regenerate civilisation and
> create a Techno/Hayekian/Randian Utopia. We know from history that social
> illusion and economic bubbles go hand in hand, but it is past time to
> recognise that we are in a major planetary crisis because Nature will not
> wait for us to reconfigure our economic systems. So it is simply not enough
> to critique this civilisational problem as a failure of democratic
> capitalism or neo-liberalism. A new generation is being drawn into this
> myth of token economies as its overarching hope, and more human energy,
> creativity and productive labor are being diverted from the real social and
> ecological problems, distracting everyone and creating greater confusion.
> Much of the dialogue I've seen in this space during recent weeks has
> renewed my faith that the P2P group is truly on the track of systemic
> change and the development of a new narrative. Thank you, friends, your
> efforts are much needed and greatly appreciated.
>
> -----------------------------------------
> From: "Michel Bauwens"
> To: "p2p-foundation"
> Cc:
> Sent: 12-Jan-2018 11:40:47 +0000
> Subject: class analysis of the token economy, part 2
>
>
> Tokens as a Model for Community Acquisition
> <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Tokens_as_a_Model_for_Community_Acquisition&action=edit&redlink=1>
> [edit
> <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Bancor&action=edit&section=3>
> ]
>
> Chance Barnett:
>
> "In this way, a token sale represents a new model of crowdsourcing or
> crowdfunding, where the line between buyers and customers are blurred.
>
> As an example, imagine if 1,000 new participants sign up and buy tokens in
> an ICO. This not only provides funding for futher development and
> expansion, it also jumpstarts the underlying service with a community of
> users as token holders. One example of this was the Bancor ICO, which took
> in over $153M at the time, while the sale also resulted in thousands of
> token-buyers. These early and first buyers of the Bancor token are the most
> likely future users and adopters of the core protocol and services that
> Bancor provides.
>
> "We had one of the largest bounty programs in history with thousands of
> active participants working towards the success of the token launch,
> directly through our software's alpha demo," Galia Benartzi, CoFounder and
> VP of Business Development at Bancor explained.
>
> "While we ourselves were a small team, we had ambassadors all over the
> world translating, explaining and creating great content about the Bancor
> protocol. These contributors remain more motivated than ever to see the
> project succeed, as they own a piece of the open source network via their
> tokens. Rather than paying marketing or PR firms, we can share these
> resources directly with end-users in a distributed and still orchestrated
> way. The reach is a step function larger and also feels much more
> authentically aligned. This is inline with blockchain's promise to
> decentralize every aspect of business, including growth itself." (
> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2017/09/23/inside-the-meteoric-rise-of-icos/#2e010b515670>
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2017/09/23/
> inside-the-meteoric-rise-of-icos/#2e010b515670)
>
> --
> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
> <http://commonstransition.org>http://commonstransition.org
>
> P2P Foundation: <http://p2pfoundation.net>http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net>http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
> <http://twitter.com/mbauwens>http://twitter.com/mbauwens;
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>
> #82 on the (En)Rich list: <http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/>
> http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>

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

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

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