hi James,<br><br>I agree there is an important difference, though that does not mean that 'real-world enterprises' dealing with scarce resources need to be autocratic ...<br><br>they need an allocation mechanism that recognizes scarcity, which still can be hierarchical, democratic, or say, marketprice driven ... there is a lot of historical experience with democracy in the enterprise as well, but of course, the latter cannot be the same as in the case of digital self-allocation, where the antirival nature of the good makes scarcity-driven allocation superfluous ... but of course, not impossible, wikipedia being a good example of where the artificially introduced scarcity of deletionism has created a basis of autocratic power to establish itself ...<br>
<br>the situation of war, creates 'temporal scarcities' as it were, and if my reading of history is correct, even 'democratic-egalitarian' types of societies had temporary war chiefs, who when the war or battle was over, became again 'normal' members of their society ... It is probably the breaking down of this temporary arrangement/achievement which created 'class society' in the first place?<br>
<br>Michel<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 5:28 PM, James Wallbank <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jw@access-space.org">jw@access-space.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<u></u>
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
Hello All,<br>
<br>
It's interesting to reflect on the demonstrable effectiveness of
autocratic governance on the development of many open source software
projects, but it's also important to understand how they differ from
real-world enterprises.<br>
<br>
The key is that open source projects always provide the opportunity for
the fork - so whatever their governance mechanism alternative solutions
can branch off to become parallel projects. Software development
projects do not occupy scarce territory, or monopolise scarce
resources. (Except in circumstances where sufficiently skilled coders
are in short supply - which is generally a temporary phenomenon.)
Unlike in the physical realm, the digital land expands when you decide
to set up a new farm or factory. This possibility to fork is the
guarantor of freedom, and the ultimate counterbalance to any open
source power structure.<br>
<br>
When considering forms of governance the distinction between the
context of software development and real-world contexts is crucial.<br>
<br>
Best Regards,<br>
<br>
James<br>
=====<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 18/07/11 09:34, Michel Bauwens wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">hi George,<br>
<br>
thanks for both the details on perl and freebsd, any links on this, to
document in the wiki?<br>
<br>
as for the soviets, as I was indeed talking on the situation 'before'
they were turned into administrative organs of the bolcheviks, but so
did rosa luxemburg when she wrote about it; her point was I think that
without checks and balances coming from multiple governance, there
would be an inherent tendency for this councils to degenerate into a
single power mechanism ... Your argument is that the bolcheviks were
the proximate cause of that, and it is indeed difficult to know what
would have happened without them, but the reality was also that the
councils were not strong enough an independent power to actually oppose
that transformation, and that once they submitted, no other power in
society could counter-balance the power of the bolchevik regime, which
is a good argument for the rosa luxemburg position.<br>
<br>
My conclusion from that is that it is better to take into account
antagonisms and to have institutional self-rule within a pluralism of
institutions and social logics.<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:41 AM, George
Dafermos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl" target="_blank">G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div style="direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10pt;">hey
michel,<br>
<br>
no doubt, some open source projects - linux being the most famous -
have a 'benevolent dictator'. in the case of linux, that's linus
torvalds who ultimately decides what code (contributed by other linux
developers) goes into the mainline kernel release. however, as you
know, this model is by no means the only governance model encountered
in the realm of free software development. for instance, *perl* uses
rotation so that for every new version of the software a different perl
developer is responsible. other projects diverge even more radically
from the benevolent dictator model: in *freebsd* decisions are made
collectively by consensus. freebsd has an element of 'representation',
or more precisely, it has a formal means of representing its few
hundreds of developers (known as committers because of their ability to
'commit' changes to the code repository) in project leadership. the
so-called core team - the administrative organ of the project -
consists of 9 committers elected biennially by and amongst committers,
and is responsible for (a) granting/revoking commit privileges and (b)
mediating in serious conflicts between committers. it is obvious that
this type of representation and modern parliamentary representation are
markedly different. in freebsd core members are revocable and
accountable: they have to defer to the wishes of the base of
committers, making decisions that receive their consensual backing.
core team membership is not accompanied by any special privileges, nor
by the mandate to tell others what to do. many sociologists, following
max weber, view such 'instructed representation as inherent in
direct-democratic/antiauthoritarian types of government and hence as
the opposite of the enlightened dictator model.�
<br>
<br>
as for soviets in russia, in my last email to the list i spoke of
'self-rule' referring to individual autonomy of action, using the term
as a property of the individual. you, on the other hand, use it to
refer basically to a circumstance in which the administrative organ (by
appropriating or monopolising the means of administration?) becomes
independent from the collectivity and starts to act as a distinct
social stratum with its own goals and interests. this is a syllogism
that i can understand: it warns against vesting authority bearers with
unlimited powers and advises in favour of employing checks and balances
to ensure that administrative organs don't turn into mechanisms of
domination of the many by the few. but i still don't see the connection
between self-rule and totalitarianism. <br>
<br>
in any case, what transformed soviets into administrative organs of the
openly totalitarian regime of the bolsheviks was not their own internal
tendency toward totalitarianism but the fact that the bolsheviks
stripped them of their autonomy and turned them into extensions of the
bolshevik party. that's what i've gathered from my readings on that
period.
<br>
<br>
x,<br>
g.� � � � <br>
<br>
�� <br>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px;">
<hr>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2">
<div><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a> [<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a>] on
behalf of Michel Bauwens [<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>]<br>
</div>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, July 14, 2011 2:47 PM
<div>
<div><br>
<b>To:</b> P2P Foundation mailing list<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [P2P-F] autocracy as most efficient governance?<br>
</div>
</div>
</font><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>hi george,<br>
<br>
don't you agree that a lot of open source projects have some degree of
autocratic rule (the so-called benevolent dictator phenomenum), in
order to insure productivity .. .(though this does not involve command
and control over labour, nor over the allocation of resources, but
rather over the post-hoc quality control mechanisms)<br>
<br>
now, regarding " self-rule leads to totalitarianism"<br>
<br>
this was the debate between rosa luxemburg and lenin, discussed in the
poulantzas books which I have been reading this year (p. agrees with
rl). Basically, Rosa Luxemburg warned that a total reliance on
self-rule through soviets, could lead to authoritarianism, so she urged
the bolcheviks to retain representational parliaments in a structure of
dual power ... I tend to agree that we need plurarchic forms of
governance keeping each other in check, to avoid the degeneracy of any
form of self-rule that may be the 'only game in town' ..<br>
<br>
I'm also warming up more and more to greek sortition mechanisms ..
interestingly, this is now also being discussed by the new Anonymous
Party I believe ..<br>
<br>
Michel<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 12:22 AM, George
Dafermos <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl" target="_blank">G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div style="direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10pt;">Yes,
you're right: the interviewee (MT) uses the word - erroneously - in
both senses, without realising he's contradicting himself by saying
first that social conduct in his world is based on players' self-rule
and then going on to say that his authority is fast becoming
'autocratic' (i.e. totalitarian). <br>
<br>
the point he's apparently making is that self-rule is the norm for vast
sections of eve space that remain free from 'policing' but authority
inside the big corporations/alliances of eve tends to be autocratic
(i.e. centralised in the hands of one person). yet, there is no logical
connection between the two: there's no proof - neither in the real
world nor in eve - that self-rule leads to totalitarianism.
<br>
<br>
g.<br>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px;">
<hr>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b>
<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a> [<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a>] on
behalf of Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis [<a href="mailto:xekoukou@gmail.com" target="_blank">xekoukou@gmail.com</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, July 13, 2011 6:09 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> P2P Foundation mailing list<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [P2P-F] autocracy as most efficient
governance?<br>
</font><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>I think that what he is saying is that he is the ultimate
ruler, ie an autocracy.�</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2011/7/13 George Dafermos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl" target="_blank">G.N.Dafermos@tudelft.nl</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div style="direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10pt;">Hi
Michel,<br>
<br>
there's a basic misunderstanding here. the passage conflates
*autocracy* with *autarchy* (i understand that greek words can be
confusing..). the author uses the former term to refer to a situation
'where players rule themselves'. That is, what he means to say is
'self-rule', self-government. that being the case, (s)he should have
used the word autarchy instead; or even better: self-rule or
self-management. in light of this correction, the subject line of your
email should read: 'self-government as the most efficient governance?'<br>
<br>
x,<br>
g. � <br>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px;">
<hr>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b>
<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a> [<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation-bounces@lists.ourproject.org</a>] on
behalf of Michel Bauwens [<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, July 13, 2011 10:53 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> p2p-foundation<br>
<b>Cc:</b> John Robb; Robert Steele<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [P2P-F] autocracy as most efficient governance?<br>
</font><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>see <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/07/eve-online-audience-with-the-king-of-space/" target="_blank">
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/07/eve-online-audience-with-the-king-of-space/</a><br>
<br>
Autocracy is the most effective form of government in null sec [the
enormous sections of space within Eve Online with no AI police, where
players rule themselves]. Council systems don�t work very well.
Goonswarm is very lucky in that we have one large corporation,
Goonwaffe, which used to be Goonfleet, which is mostly Something Awful
members and has over 2,000 people. Since I�m the CEO of that
corporation all the other ancillary corporations in the alliance are
relatively powerless, and that works towards an autocracy.
Council-based alliances typically have corporations of roughly the same
size.<br>
<br>
(I actually agree with this, in case of warfare, even egalitarian
tribes had warchiefs for the duration of hostilities; or does anyone
want to challenge thi?)<br clear="all">
<br>
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-- <br>
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </pre>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Sincerely yours, </pre>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis</pre>
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</div></div><pre cols="72">--
James Wallbank
CEO, Access Space Network Ltd.
Access Space, Unit 1, AVEC Building, 3-7 Sidney St, Sheffield S1 4RG
Access Space is UK Registered Charity: #1103837
Tel: +44 (0)114 2495522
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