The role of power relations in a p2p economy

The #occupy movement, which is a surface manifestation of a deeper Multitude movement, is in fact a refutation of power. Not only of the "power in place", i.e. big banks, governments, etc. but of what we call "instituted power", the kind of power your boss has over you. The consensus decision making process, a form of direct democracy that has been adopted by the #occupy movement, is the most obvious affirmation of this refutation of instituted power relations, which until now has been seen as a necessary structuring mechanisms of society. 

Where is this coming from? Was it there before? Is this pure Utopia? Or is there something fundamental happening, which makes instituted power relations lose their importance?  

We often hear that instituted power relations are tolerated by people because they are believed to be essential to organize us into efficient and effective groups, to achieve complex goals. Some say that without instituted power relations society would simply brake down, collapse. Go tell that to an anarchist... 

How to play the open game in the present and future economy

This is the fifth draft; it will evolve based on your feedback.
First published on 6/19/12. Last modified on Oct 10, 2024.

Come back later for more...  

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More and more solutions to our problems today come in the form of open artifacts, i.e open source software and hardware, created by online communities and networks. Traditionally, most of these communities have relied on voluntary participation or some type of gift economy, i.e. the developers do not expect a direct or immediate tangible reward for their contributions. These open artifacts have been regarded as marginal, mostly intended for amateurs and hobbyists. How can one expect serious things to come out from loose organizations that don't use the prescribed governance and methodologies, and don't have access to large budgets? At least that was the unadvised belief, until we realized that critical infrastructure, like the Internet, runs mostly on open source software, created and maintained by these unorthodox organizations. The helicopter drone, Ingenuity, which is part of the Perseverance mission to the planet Mars, operates on Linux, which is an open source operating system. Bitcoin, runs on open source software and is maintained by an open group of people, who can be practically anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Since the launch in 2009, no one has succeeded in hacking Bitcoin, despite the astronomical reward, ranging in the tens of billions of dollars, if we only consider the abandoned accounts of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the network. So some open artifacts developed by unorthodox organizations are pretty serious. There are also lots of crappy ones, as there are crappy products offered by serious companies.

Developing open artifacts (based on open source technologies) relying on unorthodox organizations and being able to make a living is what I call playing the open game.

There are a few important components to the open game... 

 

First, there's the nature of the solution, or more precisely, its intellectual property regime. Open source means that no one can create a temporary economic monopoly on a particular solution, as it is the case with products based on patented technologies. The immediate reaction of some people is: how can one make money developing open source technologies. My first reaction to this question is to point to the obvious: 

• IBM has invested billions of US dollars in Linux and other open source technologies. ref
• Google has gained mobile dominance by opening Android, the mobile operating system. 
• Tesla has engaged in a hybrid IP strategy, open source patented.  

It is obviously possible to generate wealth while developing open source technologies, if the business model is not simple and linear. Then one can dive into some examples to understand the second order and even the third order positive effects on the overall business. In other words, in most cases, whatever is open source is not the product, but by open sourcing some technology in the IP portfolio, these companies produce some effects within their ecosystem, which they can harvest or leverage for their core business. In the case of Google, opening Android increased its adoption rate, while propagating some core Google functionalities, thus putting Google services in billions of mobile devices, which then could be monetized using Google's core business model. We also see a second order kickback pattern with online services like Google and Facebook for example, where free access is given to a digital service (search or connecting and interacting with people), while making money from selling users' generated data or attention. So we need to stop thinking about business as a simple and linear process, product-exchange. 

Now, the previous examples are easier to understand for most people, since they can relate the story to their own work experience. But what about people who develop Tiki for example, an open source wiki CMS groupware? The model here is most probably less known by commons people, but it is the best known by those who use open source technologies. The wealth generation model is similar to Red Hat, the poster child, based on support, training, and consulting services around the core open artifact, which is offered for free. 

 

At this point, I find that is it important to raise to your awareness the fact that the wealth generation model is not the same when the technology is software or hardware. It is beyond the scope of this post to dive deeper into this distinction, but if you're interested, we can discuss in the comments.

We can go even further into more esoteric wealth generation models, some of which are not even well understood by people who participate in the development of open source technologies. You have probably vaguely sensed by know that I deliberately use the term open artifact instead of product and the expression wealth generation instead of business model. The reason for that is to avoid, as much as possible, what I call cognitive interference. When we say product people think about commodity, something that you can buy/sell on the market. But you cannot sell the Linux operating system, because the open source license gives the right to anyone to make a copy, use and modify. In this IP regime, it becomes an abundant, non-rivalrous resource, like the air that we breath. One cannot sell it, its price is zero according to the law of supply and demand. Even though, unlike the air, we need to deploy efforts to produce functional software, once it is made, its costs of reproduction (copy/paste) and distribution (download) are negligible. This is not the same for open source hardware, which has higher costs for reproduction and distribution. But since everyone has access to the design, anyone can make it too. I also like to say that open artifacts disseminate, they are not distributed as products through the market. In other words, software can be found online and downloaded by people and in the case of hardware, anyone can download the model and make it themselves, which has become much easier nowadays, with the use of digital fabrication techniques (3D printing, CNC, etc.). So what about the expression wealth generation? When we say wealth most people think about money and I want to avoid this association. In more esoteric models, people are seeking other forms of wealth, for what they are, or for a later transmutation into money. For example, someone may want to contribute to an open source project to learn new skills, to develop new relations with people that have specific skills or share specific values, or to build reputation.

 

 

The second component of the open game story is the type of organization that produces the open artifact.

...

 

 

Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of new economic models that brake away from the gift economy, directly rewarding those who contribute (with time, financial capital, social capital, ...) to open projects. The open artifact is gradually becoming sustainable. The first step in this direction can be illustrated by Open Source Ecology, which designs open hardware for farming, construction and manufacturing. The designs are  entirely open and free, but the Open Source Ecology community is not interested in commodification, i.e. market exchanges, their designs made with DIY (Do It Yourself) in mind, destined to be produced by the user, or very close to the point of use. In the case of Open Source Ecology their model for subsistence is based on revenues in fiat currency, from donations or educational services.

Open crowdsourcing is another model in which designers, part of an (open) community, are rewarded to complete a project. This scheme doesn't only rely on donations or voluntary participation, since those who contribute are rewarded in exchange with some symbolic gifts (tokens of recognition), reputation tokens, job opportunities, etc. Arduino is an example of such model, a hybrid between the open (value) network OVN and a traditional business, which relies on a vast community of enthusiasts to propose new designs, find and eliminate bugs, engage in promotion, etc. 

There are also closed and non-transparent crowdsourcing initiatives, such as prizes, in which only the best contributors are rewarded. Contributors are often placed in competition against each other. The resultant designs or artifacts are closed and remain under the control of the initiator. We are definitely against this new form of human exploitation, as you can see in this post. 

Sensorica is based on a more radical model, referred to as an open value network (OVN), which implements commons-based peer design production. It is in fact a mix between a gift economy and a transaction-based, or market economy. Sensorica can produces open artifacts that can either be exchange on the market or disseminated as DIY open designs. Various forms of rewards (including revenue from market exchanges or donations) are redistributed to all contributors in proportion to their contributions, based on a Benefit Redistribution Algorithm, which is at the heart of the Network Resource Planning and Contribution Accounting system (NRP-CAS). 

P2P

a post by Poor Richard

What is peer-to-peer (P2P)  culture?
P2P culture is the post-capitalist framework that makes the most sense to me. It includes but transcends capitalism; and encompasses many hybrids of open and closed, public and private, hierarchical and egalitarian associations.

photo by Ian McCalister

P2P emphasizes cooperation, openness, fairness, transparency, information symmetry, sustainability, accountability, and innovation motivated by the full range of human aspirations even including, but definitely not limited to, personal financial gain.

I call p2p a “post-capitalist framework” because many of us are quite happy to abandon capitalism’s euphemisms and reductio ad absurdum altogether. However, other 99%-ers still consider it a major factor in lifting millions from poverty. They would rather reform and adapt it to humanitarian and ecological ends than to abandon it for something novel. I think it is entirely possible to craft forms of capitalism which “do no harm”, and I think there is ample room in the p2p community for such “diversity of tactics.”
Read more on Richard's blog... 

By AllOfUs

Crowdsource the solution to the student tuition problem!

How do we educate our population? 
Where do we get the resources necessary to do it?

Every society on this planet struggles with these fundamental questions. The education problem evolves in time and as technology advances, as societies change, and we are constantly trying to find better solutions for it. The student tuition crisis in Quebec/Canada is seen as part of this process of finding solutions (although this crisis must be seen within an even larger socio-economic crisis). It is described as a conflict between two social factions who have different views on the problem and who propose incompatible solutions. On one side we have a coalition of student associations, now enlarged by other non-student organizations, and on the other side the Liberal Government of Jean Charest.

The Meta Plan

The Meta Plan (see also the Diigo annotated link- it will save you some time reading) is in essence the Multitude Project.

This is the Meta Plan, the plan for building the We Plan...
We are not disorganized but disconnected. We have self-selected and self-organized and self-lead our prior efforts. We must coalesce these efforts into one global organism. One organism with many parts, and a single purpose.
The plan starts with our common purpose...
There are answers. Many have been working on the pieces for years. We must put these answers together in once place: the We Plan.
Some will work on design for technologies; some on design for social structures; some on the logistics systems required to deliver the people, information, and materials required under the plan, some on the architecture of the Plan itself.
Just as we collectively and continuously build Wikipedia, we will collectively build the We Plan.
The We Plan will be developed both top-down and bottom-up simultaneously. Some will tie the pieces together. Some will flesh out the details of the pieces. The entire Plan will be visible to everyone all the time.
The We Plan will be a living plan.
Together, We will comprise the We Movement.
As the We Movement builds, We will begin implementing the plan. We will find resources. We will make the parts. We will educate. We will build.
We will have a movement with the force to make political change where necessary, to pool resources and knowledge, to stop destruction and looting by the few against the many, to remake the world in the image of our highest dreams.

The world is waking us and coming together!

By AllOfUs

Commanding Heights

[The name of this post was inspired by the Commanding Heights documentary.]

Four years ago we launched the Multitude Project with the aim of understanding the effects of the new digital technology on our socio-economic institutions. We convinced ourselves that humanity was fast approaching a transition point, and that a new social order was about to emerge. But, unfortunately, we now realize that the future doesn’t look as unidirectional as we would like it to be.

Three possible worlds

One possibility, the one we would like to see materializing, is another step of emancipation of the multitude. It is a world in which individuals have greater control over what they want to become, over the value they produce, in all dimensions of value and, as a matter of fact, a world in which individuals have greater control over their own lives. It is a continuation of an undeniable historical trend of emancipation, as the multitude became more cohesive with the advance of communication and coordination technologies. We have finally reached the era of real-time peer-to-peer coordination, with practically no spatial barriers. The multitude is now more coherent than ever. It is able to generate very powerful large-scale effects, surpassing the containing forces of any social system previously designed to constrain it. The will of the people can now be expressed in massive global waves. The #occupy movement is one recent example of such manifestations.

New economy - how things will be designed, produced and distributed in the future

Here's another example of the newly emerging pattern of design, production and distribution.

We are glad to see that our vision of the new economy is finally materializing. In 2008 we proposed the Discovery Network concept (see the post describing the initial motivation behind it). In 2010 we launched our first pilot project for the new economy a commons-based peer production system the Matchmaking Device System. It failed...  : (    but we learned a lot.

In 2011 we launched the second pilot project SENSORICA, which evolved into an open, decentralized and self-organizing value network.  SENSORICA is increasing in value and potential since its creation. 

Also in 2011, the know how developed within  SENSORICA spilled over to glocal food systems. In Ohio, USA local food systems are now morphing into value networks, see Greener Acres.

Furthermore, early this year we initiated another project in Montreal, through the #occupy movement, to implement value networks in clothing design and manufacturing. This is the #occupy Fashion project.

In the following weeks we will publish a few videos and documents detailing how value networks form, self-organize, and operate. This information will be put into context based on our new understanding of the new economy.

By t!b!

Rebranding the #occupy movement

What do we hear when we listen to the forgotten U.S. nation-wide End the Fed movement in 2008, which sparked the TeaParty movement, or to the so-called Twitter revolution in 2009 in the Republic of Moldova, or to the 2009-2010 Green Revolution in Iran, or to the Arab Spring, or to the 15-M movement in Spain, and now to Occupy Wall Street and to Occupy Everywhere? We hear a desire for change. Not any change, people want a PROFOUND structural change.

The multitude is now awakened thanks to the new media. We are now conscious of our situation and we are starting to imagine a better world. Moreover, the multitude becomes increasingly aware of the potential of the new democratic digital technology. As we experiment with it in various creative ways we grow confident, we grow empowered, we get this feeling that change IS indeed possible and that WE can make it happen.

How fragile is the system?

Let's imagine a scenario and try to assess how fast the multitude could demolish the system. Hypothetically speaking, the act of personal bankruptcy can one day become an act of rebellion and spread like a wildfire throughout the world. What would be the consequences? How possible is this?

What keeps people that are in debt up to their eyeballs from declaring personal bankruptcy?

Comparing business development paradigms

Steve Bosserman introduced the idea of "Production Centered Local Economies", and "People Centered Local Economies". This article synthesizes Steve's coining of those terms, and uses concepts developed by Sam Rose, Paul Hartzog and Richard C Adler of Forward Foundation to further explain the differences between these economies, from a business development perspective.

In fact, "People Centered Local Economies" is what we would call "Multitude Economics".

  Read more...

By AllOfUs

Marcin Jacubowski on the Global Village Construction Set & Open Source Ecology

Marcin, you really understood the essence of the Multitude constructive revolution. You are a hero! 

The Multitude movement builds new alternatives for production and distribution of value. It proposes new forms of property. It builds new decentralized institutions based on free and open collaboration, and sharing, alongside classical hierarchical and monopolistic institutions that are based on competition, secrecy and control. It greatly reduces our dependence on the system. It decentralizes innovation, production and distribution. It decentralizes power. The Multitude social movement dose NOT directly attack to destroy classic institutions, it builds new ones to compete with them. In that sense, the Multitude movement is a constructive revolution.  

In Marcin's case we can even take the term "constructive" literally.

By AllOfUs

Takeover - MULTITUDE rise up!

America is on an accelerated path towards tyranny. How do you get from freedom to tyranny? Naomi Wolf thinks it can be done in only 10 steps.

At this moment, many US states are introducing legislation to break down labor unions and to establish a chain of command from the federal and state governmental level to the local level. The attacks on unions are NOT about capitalism vs socialism. Depart from this mentally disabling dichotomy! Think outside of the box! The goal of the elite is to dissolve social structure, to diminish our capability to organize against the establishment. Unions are powerful social organizations which can catalyze massive opposition against tyrannical measures. You might be against labor and socialist ideas, but you must recognize the role of unions in enabling popular descent. Learn from Egypt and Tunisia. We need to fight the tyrants who dress in red AND blue and keep us divided over sterile political ideologies. The Democrat and the Republican parties are the two faces of the same fiat "Federal" Reserve coin.

MULTITUDE build an infrastructure for mass movements, organize, plan and TAKE ACTION!

By AllOfUs

Wikinomics in 5 minutes

By AllOfUs

Sustainable Models for Creativity in the Digital Age

From the FCForum:

Go To Site

We can no longer put off re-thinking the economic structures that have been producing, financing and funding culture up until now. Many of the old models have become anachronistic and detrimental to civil society. The aim of this document is to promote innovative strategies to defend and extend the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably.

This document is addressed to policy reformers, citizens and free/libre culture activists to provide them practical tools to actively operate this change.

Read more...


By AllOfUs

The Multitude Revolution is a natural, inevitable process

The Multitude Movement was accelerated in recent years by the introduction of a new potent technology, which induces fundamental material changes, new possibilities, and transforms the way value is produced and distributed in our society. It is a natural and inevitable process, a pragmatic revolution, a constructive revolution.

Some scholars attache great importance to the invention of the birth control pill in the feminist movement. In essence, it is a technology which gives women the choice to keep or not to keep their unborn baby. Without minimizing its ethical implications, the point I want to make is that this pill introduces a new material possibility, a new alternative for women, making them able to decide if they engage or not in a long-term relationship with a man. It fundamentally changes the relationship between a man and a woman. Once this pill is made available it operates irreversible social changes, as women realize the shift in the balance of relational forces, which is in their advantage, and massively adopt a new attitude.

The Industrial Revolution was set in motion by the electro-mechanical technology, which fundamentally transformed the way the economy worked. The leading societies at that time went from an agrarian economy to a predominantly manufacturing economy. As the new means of production and distribution of value were spreading, the locus of economical power shifted. The small artisan became the manufacturer and snatched the political power from the hands of the landlord, to share it with other players occupying key positions within the new economical system, the bankers, the energy producers, the distributors, etc. Together, they changed society by creating new institutions tuned with their new reality.

There was no ideological bases to the industrial revolution. It was a natural and inevitable process set in motion by a new technology, by the introduction of new material possibilities. We can say that the French revolution was mostly ideologically driven and contained the seeds of the new industrial order. But because the material conditions were not there when it happened it rapidly degraded back into tyranny, and went back and forth a few times until it finally took roots.

The technology behind the new wave of the Multitude Movement is one that enables efficient circulation of information and that enhances coordination throughout society, down to the level of the individual. The material possibilities it introduces are one-to-one, one to many and many-to-many exchanges of all sorts, and massive collaboration with no geographical barriers. It creates the possibility for open and decentralized collaborative systems to emerge as an alternative to closed hierarchies, for the production and distribution of value. Its effects are to empower the individual, to set us free from centralized and monopolistic systems.

By allowing different forms of organization and by creating an environment in which sharing and openness are rewarded, the new technology changes the way value is created and distributed in our society. Economical power is shifting hands, NOT by putting new people in charge of the same levers of power, but by dissolving the classic levers of power and by creating new ones, for a newly emerging system. Old processes are overpowered by new ones. Those who are still in control of the old ones will soon find themselves powerless.

Ideological revolutions that are not based on changes in material possibilities, like the Bolshevik Revolution for example, are basically a fight between different social classes for the control of the same levers of power. They entail a direct confrontation to control the same means of production. The new wave of the Multitude Movement is not in direct opposition to the establishment. It develops on a newly emerging parallel structure, which gradually replaces the old one.  

Multitude is a massive and powerful but almost clueless Revolution

The Multitude Revolution is a pragmatic revolution. Most people engage in it without even realizing. They are naturally drawn towards the new things simply because they find value in them. We go to Wikipedia because we find it convenient and useful. We stopped watching TV because we find more substance in alternative media. We invest in solar technology because it is cheaper, convenient and it sets us free from the centralized and monopolistic systems of energy production and distribution. We use alternative currencies and financing mechanisms because we get a better deal than at the bank. We use Gnu/Linux because it is more robust than Windows. Every time you engage in the creation, improvement or maintenance of democratic and popular systems that allow peer-to-peer exchanges you contribute to the Multitude Revolution. Every time you chose to use such systems over the other ones you contribute to the Multitude Revolution.

Multitude Project's mission is to raise awareness about this movement.

t!b!
By AllOfUs

An answer to Internet blackout during a popular uprising: pre-programmed mass movements

A concept proposed by Multitude Project: Pre-programing means preparing the masses in advance to react to different outcomes of a future action. The action can be a protest, or a popular revolt against a tyrannical government. This preparation becomes necessary in situations where technology-based lines of communication are temporarily cut during the events or in preparation for such an eventuality – like during the Jan, 25th (2011) Egyptian revolution. But even in normal situations pre-programing is always advised in order to reduce panic during events, and to increase the level of cohesion of the masses.

1. Knowledge-based pre-programing
2. Technology-based pre-programing
3. Emergency EXIT TO FREEDOM plan

See this concept in action

See also Rethinking Social Movements

By AllOfUs

The Wind of Change

Listen to The Wind of Change, narrated by Tibi

See the section The Balance of Power

By AllOfUs

Clay Shirky - Hierarchy & Leadership

"Many of the relative advantages of hierarchy are now reduced." 

The informational advantage of hierarchies is reduced. 

Institutions have lost their monopoly on tight management of information and thigh coordination of action. Now large distributed groups can share information and coordinate through social networking. 

This increases individual power and group power! This is the Multitude social movement!

By AllOfUs

Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration

Important concept

• coordination costs. 
• power law distribution, 80-20 curve, or long-tail distribution. 

The classic answer to getting a group to do something was the institution (centralized organization based on power relations). Today, the costs of communication, which is fundamental for coordination, has fallen. It is now possible to put the coordination into the infrastructure and to reduce the need for planning.  

The institution asks for:

• explicit goals 
• management, 
• enforcement of goals (carrots and sticks) 
• structure (economic, legal, physical, etc) 
• exclusion (cannot higher anyone) --> professional class 

Collaboration infrastructure: moving the problem to the people instead of moving the people to the problem, shedding institutional costs, adding flexibility. Decentralization, openness, inclusiveness. 

Tension between the institution as an enabler and institution as an obstacle. "Many of the relative advantages of hierarchy are now reduced."

It's all abut value! Open collaborative networks are mostly value-based organizations, and are increasingly replacing institutions (power-based organizations) on different arenas. 

By AllOfUs

New Tactics in Human Rights

The Multitude answer to tyranny!

Visit the Balance of Power

By AllOfUs