https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=TiberiusB&feedformat=atomP2P Foundation - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T06:45:41ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.40.1https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Labor&diff=140211Beyond Labor2024-03-28T04:11:29Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"Free Software and commons in general is beyond labor. This can only be understood if you grasp labor as a productive activity specific to a certain historical form of society. Selling labor power – i.e. the ability to work – to some capitalist who uses it to produce more value than the labor power is worth, is unique in history. This has two important consequences.<br />
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First, it turns productive activity – which has always been used by people to produce their livelihood – into alienated labor. This alienation is not imposed by personal domination, but by structural coercion. In capitalism humans can only survive if they pay for their livelihood, which compels people to make money. Making money can be either done by selling their own labor power or by buying and valorizing the labor power of others. The result is a distorted process where structural requirements prescribe what a person has to do (cf. pattern 6).<br />
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Second, it creates the homo economicus, the isolated individual seeking for maximization of his/her own utility – if necessary even at the expense of others. Traditional economists then assert that the homo economicus is the archetype of a human being, which confuses the specific historical result with a natural presupposition.<br />
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Instead of labor, Free Software is based on Selbstentfaltung. The German notion of Selbstentfaltung is not easy to translate. On the one hand it starts from “scratching an itch” (Eric Raymond), “doing what you really really want” (Fritjof Bergmann), and “having a lot of fun” (the Free Software developer). On the other hand it integrates other fellow developers to strive for the best solution possible. This also means high engagement, passion, and effort, not just picking the low hanging fruits. It includes a positive reciprocity with others striving for the same goal in a way, that the Selbstentfaltung of the one is the precondition of the Selbstentfaltung of the others. Not by chance this is reminiscent of the Communist Manifesto where the “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Marx, Engels 1848). However, in Free Software it is not a goal of a future society, but it is an inalienable feature of the beginning new mode of production on the way to that new free society.<br />
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Instead of selling one’s energy for alienated purposes, usually called labor, Free Software is based on Selbstentfaltung which is the free development of all the productive forces of the people." (http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-5-beyond-labor/) <br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Germ_Form&diff=140210Germ Form2024-03-28T04:11:18Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"Last but not least, the most important pattern is the germ form or five-step-model (Holzkamp, 1983). It is a model to understand the concurrent existence of phenomena with different qualities. When discussing peer production the debate is often dominated by two groups: those who are in favor of peer production and who try to prove peer production is anti-capitalist and those who see peer production only as a modernization of capitalism. The challenge is to think it as both. The germ form model accomplishes this by viewing the emergence and development of commons-based peer production as a process of its own contradictory unfolding in time.<br />
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Normally applying the five-step-model is a retrospective procedure where the result of the analyzed development is well known. By mentally assuming the result of a transition towards a free society based on commons-based peer-production the emergence of this result can be reconstructed using the model. Here is a very rough sketch of the five steps applied to the case of peer production.<br />
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1. Germ form: A new function appears. In this phase the new function must not be understood as a rich germ or a seed enclosing all properties of the final entity which only has to grow. Rather in this phase the germ form shows only principles of the new, but it is not the new itself. Thus, commons-based peer production is not the new itself, but the qualitatively new aspect it shows is the need-oriented mediation between peers (based on Selbstentfaltung, see pattern 5). During this phase this is visible only on a local level.<br />
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2. Crisis: Only if the overall old system falls into a crisis can the germ form leave its niche. The capitalist way of societal production and mediation via commodities, markets, capital, and state has brought mankind into a deep crisis. It has entered a phase of successive degradation and exhaustion of historically accumulated system resources. The recurring financial crisis makes this obvious to everyone.<br />
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3. Function shift: The new function leaves its germ form status in the niche and gains relevance for the reproduction of the old system. The former germ form is now double-faced: On the one hand it can be used for the sake of the old system, on the other hand its own logic is and remains incompatible with the logic of the dominant old system. Peer production is usable for purposes of cost-saving and creating new environments for commercial activities, but it rests upon non-commodity development within its own activities (cf. pattern 3). Cooptation and absorption into normal commodity producing cycles are possible (De Angelis, 2007), and only if peer production is able to defend its own commons-based principles and abilities to create networks on this ground will the next step be reached. Free Software as one example of peer production quite clearly is at this stage.<br />
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4. Dominance shift: The new function becomes prevalent. The old function does not disappear immediately, but steps back as the previously dominant function to marginal domains. Commons-based peer production has reached a network density on a global level, so that input-output links are closed to self-contained loops. Separated private production with subsequent market mediation using money is no longer required. Need-based societal mediation organizes production and distribution. The entire system has now qualitatively changed its character.<br />
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5. Restructuring: The direction of development, the backbone structures, and the basic functional logics have changed. This process embraces more and more societal fields which refocus towards the new need-based mode of societal mediation. The state is stripped down, new institutions emerge, which no longer have a uniform State character, but are means of collective Selbstentfaltung (cf. pattern 5). New contradictions may come up, a new cycle of development may begin.<br />
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This is only an epistemological model, not a scheme for immediate action. The main advantage is the possibility to escape unfruitful either-or debates. It allows for thinking the emergence of a new mode of production being useful for the old system while maintaining its transcending function towards a free society as concurrent phenomena.<br />
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The germ form model adapted in the Oekonux context is a dialectical conceptualization of historical transition." (http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-10-germ-form/) <br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Politics&diff=140209Beyond Politics2024-03-28T04:11:05Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"Since commons-based peer production is mainly about constructing a new mode of production, it is basically a non-political movement. Here, politics is understood as addressing the state and its institutions to demand changes in some desired direction. Such politics are based on interests which in capitalism are generally positioned against each other. If a society is structured along inclusion-exclusion patterns (see pattern 7), then it is necessary to organize common but partial interests in order to realize them at the expense of the common partial interests of others. In this sense commons are beyond politics, because they basically do not operate in the realm of interests but of needs.<br />
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It is important to distinguish between needs and interests. Needs have to be organized in the form of interests, if the usual mode of realization is the exclusion of the interests of others. Commons on the other hand are based on the variety of needs of their participants, which act as a source of creativity. The mediation of these different needs is part of the process of peer production. Thus, it is not necessary that participants additionally organize their needs as interests and try to implement them politically. Instead, they achieve this directly.<br />
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One aspect which makes this clear is the question of hierarchies. Usually hierarchies are part of capitalist commodity production. Therefore, a common left topic was to reject any hierarchies to avoid domination. This ignores the fact that hierarchies as such do not generate domination, but rather the function hierarchies have in a given context. In a company hierarchies express different interests, for example the interests of workers and of the management (cf. pattern 5). However, in a peer production project a hierarchy may express different levels of expertise or different responsibilities, which are shared by those who accept someone in a leading position. Being a maintainer does not mean following different interests at the expense of project members. Such a project would not prosper. On the contrary, a maintainer is keen to integrate as many active and competent members as possible. This does not avoid conflicts, but conflicts are solved on the common base of the project’s goals.<br />
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Commons-based peer production does not require to articulate people’s needs in the form of opposing interests and thus is beyond politics."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-9-beyond-politics/)<br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Socialism&diff=140208Beyond Socialism2024-03-28T04:10:55Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
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Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"Socialism, as defined by Karl Marx in the “Critique of the Gotha Programme” (Marx, 1875) is a commodity-producing society ruled by the working class. Historically this was realized by the so called “real existing Socialism”. There have been many critiques of real socialist countries (lacking democracy, etc.) from within the left. Nevertheless, a good part of the left shares the assumption that an interphase between a free society (which may be called communism) and capitalism is unavoidable. The general concept is that the working class holding the power can reconstruct the whole economy according to their interests which represent the majority of the society. In short: power comes first, then a new mode of production will follow, in order to build a really free society. This concept has failed historically.<br />
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The reason for this failure is not due to internal tactical differences and shortcomings. Instead it is due to the unrealistic concept of qualitative historical transformation. Never in history was the question of power placed first, it was always the new mode of production which emerged from the old way of producing which prepared the historical transition. Capitalism initially developed from craftsmanship in medieval towns, then integrated manufactures, finally leading to the system of big industry. The question of power was solved “on the way”. This does not diminish the role of revolutions, but revolutions only realize and enhance what was already developing. The revolutions of the Arab Spring do not create anything new, but try to realize the potentials of a normal democratic bourgeois society.<br />
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This analysis of historical developments (discussed in more detail in pattern 10) has to be applied to the current situation. Historical transition can not be realized by taking over political power – be it by parliament or by street actions – but by developing a new mode of production. The criteria for being “new” can be derived from the negation of the old mode of production: instead of commodities: commons production, instead of exchange and mediation by money: free distribution, instead of labor: Selbstentfaltung, instead of exclusion mechanisms: potential inclusion of all people. However, care needs to be taken since not all developments of capitalism are to be abolished. Rather some continue – though in a transcended form.<br />
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Commons-based peer production transcends capitalism as well as commodity-based socialism."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-8-beyond-socialism/)<br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Exclusion&diff=140207Beyond Exclusion2024-03-28T04:10:35Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"One of the most basic separations capitalism generates is the separation of those who are inside and those who are not. This inside/outside pattern is not a class separation (cf. pattern 6) and it is not only one big separation. It is a structural mechanism of inclusion and exclusion along all possible lines of society: job-owner vs. jobless, rich vs. poor, men vs. women, people of color vs. white people, bosses vs. subordinated, owners of means of production vs. non-owners, members of social security vs. non-members etc. It has to be recognized as a basic structural principle of capitalism: An inclusion of the one side implies an exclusion of the other side. For the individual this means that any personal progress is realized at the expense of others who stagnate or regress.<br />
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In general the commons are beyond the mechanism of exclusion. In Free Software, for example, the more active people join a project the faster and the better a goal can be achieved. Here, the relationship between people is not structured by inclusion-exclusion mechanisms, but by an inclusive reciprocity (Meretz 2012). The maintainer of a project tries to include as many active people as possible, strives for a creative atmosphere, and tries to solve conflicts in a way, that as many people as possible can follow the “rough consensus” and the “running code”.<br />
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If a consensus is not possible the best solution is then a fork: a risky but valid option to test different directions of development. If you look at existing forks (e.g. between KDE and GNOME), then many of them are working closely together or maintain an atmosphere of cooperation. Yes, there are other examples of fights against one another. But these non-productive forks are mainly due to alienated interests playing an important role. Oracle tried to implement a command and control regime after having bought OpenOffice as part of the Sun package. The fork to LibreOffice by many important developers was an act of self-defense and self-determination to maintain their environment of Selbstentfaltung. They don’t want to go back into the old “labor mode” of development (cf. pattern 5)."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-7-beyond-exclusion/)<br />
=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Classes&diff=140206Beyond Classes2024-03-28T04:10:27Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"Capitalism is a society of separations. Buying vs. selling, producing vs. consuming, labor vs. capital, concrete vs. abstract labor, use value vs. exchange value, private production vs. social distribution etc. Capitalist development is driven by the contradictions between these separated parts. Among them, labor and capital is only one contradiction, but it seems to be the most relevant one. A person seems to be defined by being a labor seller or a labor buyer, a worker or capitalist. However, in fact labor and capital are not properties of individuals, but opposite societal functions like all other separations capitalism generates.<br />
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Therefore, it is not true that only one side of the various separations represents the general or progressive one. On the contrary, both parts of a separation depend on each other. Labor produces capital, and capital creates labor. It is an alienated cycle of a permanent reproduction of the capitalist forms. Thus, both sides of these separations, e.g. labor and capital, are necessary functions of capitalism. The so called antagonism of labor and capital is in fact a purely immanent mode of historical development of capitalism. The working class does not represent emancipation, by no means.<br />
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Free Software and peer production in general is not recreating classes, it is rather beyond that mode. It represents a germ form (cf. pattern 10) of a new mode of production which generally is not based on separations, but on integrating different personal needs, behavior and wishes as a powerful source of development. Exploitation does not exist, because selling and buying of labor does not exist and money can only play a role in retro games about antiquated societies called “capitalism”.<br />
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Selbstentfaltung as a free developing human being is the source of societal transition towards a free society, not the class adherence."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-6-beyond-classes/)<br />
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<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Money&diff=140205Beyond Money2024-03-28T04:09:12Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
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Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"Since money only makes sense for commodities, a non-commodity (cf. pattern 3) implies that there is no money involved. Thus Free Software is beyond money. On the other hand, there is obviously a lot of money around Free Software: developers are paid, companies spend money, new companies are formed around Free Software. This has confused a lot of people, even on the left. They stick to an either-or thinking, being unable to think these observations as a contradictory process of parallel development in a societal period of transition (cf. pattern 10).<br />
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Money is not a neutral tool, money can occur in different social settings. It can be wage money, invested money (capital), profit, cash money etc. Different functions have to be analyzed differently. In Free Software there is no commodity form involved, so money in the narrow sense of selling a commodity for a price does not exist. However, Eric Raymond explained how to make money using a non-commodity: by combining it with a scarce good. In a capitalist society where only a few goods had broken out of the commodity realm, it is beyond question that all other goods continue to exist as commodities. They are kept scarce and they are combined with a priceless good. Using a perspective of valorization this is nothing new (e.g. spreading gifts to attract customers). Using a perspective of recognizing a germ form this way a new mode of production starts to develop within the still existing old model.<br />
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But why do companies give money if this money is not an investment in the traditional sense, but a kind of a donation, e.g. to pay Free Software developers? Why did IBM put one billion dollars into Free Software? Because they were forced to do so. Economically speaking they have to devalue one business area to save the other profit-making areas. They have to burn money to create a costly environment for their sales (e.g. server hardware). As the enclosure of the commons is a precondition for capitalism, the other way around is also true. Extending the commons in a field currently dominated by commodities means that this field is replaced by free goods.<br />
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However, the “four freedoms” of Free Software – use, study, change, redistribute – (Free Software Foundation, 1996) do not speak about “free” in the sense of “gratuitous”. The slogan “free as in freedom, not in free beer” is legion. This is completely fine and does not contradict the “beyond money” dictum, because the four freedoms do not say anything about money. The four freedoms are about free availability, are about abundance. Thus, the absence of money is an indirect effect. Abundant and thus non-scarce goods cannot be a commodity (cf. pattern 2) and cannot make any money. However, making money is not forbidden per se.<br />
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There have been a lot of attempts to integrate the non-exchange, non-commodity, commons-based free circulation of Free Software into the traditional economic paradigm, which is based on exchange and commodity. The most prominent one was the “attention economy” saying that the producers do not exchange goods, but attention (Goldhaber, 1997). They concluded that attention is the new currency. But this was only a desperate attempt do cling to old terms which neither worked properly nor delivered any new insights and thus was not relevant. Various other similar attempts are skipped here.<br />
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Being beyond money directly results from not being a commodity." (http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-4-beyond-money/) <br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:Demonetization]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Money]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Scarcity&diff=140204Beyond Scarcity2024-03-28T04:08:46Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
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=Pattern=<br />
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Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"It is a common misconception that material things are scarce while immaterial things are not. It seems justified to keep material goods as commodities while immaterial goods are required to be free. However, this assumption turns a social property into a natural one. No produced good is scarce by nature. Scarcity is a result of goods being produced as commodities, thus scarcity is a social aspect of a commodity created for a market. In the digital era this is obvious for immaterial goods, as we can clearly see the measures to artificially make the good scarce. Such measures include laws (based on so-called “intellectual property”) and technical barriers to prevent free access to the good. It seems to be less obvious for material goods, because we are used to the non-accessibility of material goods unless we have paid for them. But the measures are the same: law and technical barriers, accompanied by continuous destruction of goods to keep the commodities rare enough to obtain a suitable price on markets.<br />
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Furthermore it seems obvious that we all depend on material goods which may not be available in sufficient amount. Even immaterial goods depend on a material infrastructure, at least our brains (in the case of knowledge), which also need to be fed. This is definitely true, however, it has nothing to do with a “natural scarcity”. Since all goods we need are to be produced, the only question is, how they are to be produced in a societal sense. The commodity form is one option, the commons form another. Commodities must be produced in a scarce manner to realize their price on the market. The commons good can be produced according to the needs of the people using the given productive capacity. There might be current limitations, but limits always have been subject to human creativity to overcome them.<br />
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Maybe some limitations may never be overcome, but this again is no reason to make goods artificially scarce. In these rare cases social agreements can be used to organize responsible use of the limited resource or good. The commons movement learned that both rival as well as non-rival goods can be produced as commons, but they require different social treatment. While non-rival goods are agreed to be freely accessible to prevent under-use, it makes sense to avoid over-use for rival goods by finding appropriate rules or measures either to organize sustainable use or to extend collective production and thus availability of the rival good.<br />
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Scarcity is a social phenomenon which is unavoidable if goods are produced as commodities. Often scarcity is confused with limitations which can be overcome by human efforts and creativity."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-2-beyond-scarcity/)<br />
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=More Information=<br />
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* [[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Commodity&diff=140203Beyond Commodity2024-03-28T04:08:13Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
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<div>= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
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"In her studies Elinor Ostrom found, that “neither the state nor the market” is a successful means for commons management (1990). Based on traditional economics she analyzed the practices of natural commons and finally simply proved liberal dogmatics wrong. Markets are not a good way to allocate resources, and the State is not a good way to re-distribute wealth and manage the destructive results of markets. Best results occur if the people organize themselves according to their needs, experiences and creativity and treat resources and goods not as commodities, but as common pool resources.<br />
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This is exactly what happens in Free Software. Interestingly it took many years to understand that Free Software is a commons and that it is basically identical to what Elinor Ostrom and others were talking about much earlier. One weak aspect of the traditional commons research and the early phase of Free Software was that a clear notion of a commodity and a non-commodity did not exist. It was the Oekonux Project which clearly said: Free Software is not a commodity. This dictum is closely related to the insight that Free Software is not exchanged (cf. pattern 1).<br />
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Critics from the left argued that being a non-commodity is limited to the realm of immaterial goods like software. From their viewpoint Free Software is only an “anomaly” (Nuss, Heinrich 2002), while “normal” goods in capitalism have to be commodities. This assumption, however, is closely linked to the acceptance of the scarcity dogma (cf. pattern 2). Moreover, it treats capitalism as a kind of normal or natural mode of production under conditions of “natural scarcity” (as they think). This view completely turns real relations upside down. Capitalism could only establish itself by enclosing the commons, by depriving the people from their traditional access to resources in order to transform them into workers. This enclosure of the commons is an ongoing process. Capitalism can only exist if it continuously separates people from resources by making them artificially scarce. A commodity – as nice as it may appear in the shopping malls – is a result of an ongoing violent process of enclosure and dispossession.<br />
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The same process occurs in software. Proprietary software is a way of dispossessing the scientific and development community from their knowledge, experiences, and creativity. Free Software was first a defensive act of maintaining common goods common. However, since software is at the forefront of the development of productive forces it quickly turned into a creative process of overcoming the limitations and alienations of proprietary software. In a special field Free Software established a new mode of production which is going to spread into other realms (cf. pattern 10).<br />
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Goods which are not made artificially scarce and are not subject to exchange are not commodities, but commons."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/)<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
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From the comments area [http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/]:<br />
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==Christian Siefkes==<br />
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"I agree that they are not commodities, but are they really always commons? Free software is certainly a commons, since everybody can use it, improve it, share it. But what if a bakery was operating in the same way, producing goods (bread etc.) that aren’t made artificially scarce and aren’t subject to exchange. The bakery is probably a commons, but what about the bread? If I eat it, nobody else can eat it, which doesn’t seem right for a commons.<br />
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Personally, I usually say that such projects produce “commons or possession [Besitz]”, leaving it open whether goods that are produced for personal possession, usage and consumption (but not for sale/commercialization) are really commons, or whether they are something else, a third category of goods. I would be interested to learn more about how you see that, and whether you would really consider such goods as commons."<br />
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==Stefan Meretz==<br />
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(24.11.2011, 23:08 Uhr)<br />
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"I agree with you: The conclusion is a bit shortened. Additionally I would add, that goods never by itself »are« commons, but can be treated as commons if some responsible people decide to do so. Does that also answer your question about a »third category of goods«?"<br />
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==Tiberius Brastaviceanu==<br />
When it comes to goods, material things that people use or consume, Christian Siefkes' example is not adequate. When we consider a bakery, where bread is made for consumption, we're back into the traditional paradigm, assuming that some people will be producers (making bread) and others will be consumers (wanting to access bread to eat). This relates to the [[Beyond Classes]] pattern where Stefan Meretz talks about the divisions within Capitalism, i.e. producers and consumers. <br />
What we see in open source hardware is something different. People make designs, they make proof of concepts and prototypes to validate these designs and iterate until the design matures into something stable. Then they share these designs. In [[Sensorica]] we use the term dissemination to talk about the spread of designs, which is distinct from distribution, the capitalist market-driven, transactional mode through which goods flow within society. These designs are made with DIY ([[Do-It-Yourself]]) is mind, i.e. to make it easy for anyone in the world to execute, to fabricate the design locally. In that sense, the material artifact that is described by the design is only in potential and as such it is abundant. Everyone uses local means and resources for production. If we think about production in this way, distributed, there is no bottleneck. We can't talk about scarcity in the same way. <br />
So back the the bakery example, the bakers in this case only create recipes of bread, which get disseminated via the web, using various viral techniques, using social networking. People who want to eat bread use these recipes to make their own at home. This process of material peer production, distributed production, bypasses the market. These open source DIY designs are not communities, they are essentially code.<br />
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A separate question can be: ''how can we scale this distributed peer production and make it sustainable?''<br />
Some pretend to ask the same question as: ''how can the designers make money to sustain their lives?''<br />
This second question is fundamentally different than the first one, since it assumes that material peer production is contained within capitalism. But imagine a situation where peer production becomes the dominant economic logic, with its own means of reproduction.<br />
My opinion is that accounting systems and various other types of signalling (following the [[Metacurrency project]]) will dethrone monetary currency as the primary access to resources. <br />
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=More Information=<br />
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[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
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[[Category:Business_Models]]<br />
[[Category:Demonetization]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Post-Capitalism]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Commodity&diff=140202Beyond Commodity2024-03-28T04:07:43Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>=Pattern=<br />
= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"In her studies Elinor Ostrom found, that “neither the state nor the market” is a successful means for commons management (1990). Based on traditional economics she analyzed the practices of natural commons and finally simply proved liberal dogmatics wrong. Markets are not a good way to allocate resources, and the State is not a good way to re-distribute wealth and manage the destructive results of markets. Best results occur if the people organize themselves according to their needs, experiences and creativity and treat resources and goods not as commodities, but as common pool resources.<br />
<br />
This is exactly what happens in Free Software. Interestingly it took many years to understand that Free Software is a commons and that it is basically identical to what Elinor Ostrom and others were talking about much earlier. One weak aspect of the traditional commons research and the early phase of Free Software was that a clear notion of a commodity and a non-commodity did not exist. It was the Oekonux Project which clearly said: Free Software is not a commodity. This dictum is closely related to the insight that Free Software is not exchanged (cf. pattern 1).<br />
<br />
Critics from the left argued that being a non-commodity is limited to the realm of immaterial goods like software. From their viewpoint Free Software is only an “anomaly” (Nuss, Heinrich 2002), while “normal” goods in capitalism have to be commodities. This assumption, however, is closely linked to the acceptance of the scarcity dogma (cf. pattern 2). Moreover, it treats capitalism as a kind of normal or natural mode of production under conditions of “natural scarcity” (as they think). This view completely turns real relations upside down. Capitalism could only establish itself by enclosing the commons, by depriving the people from their traditional access to resources in order to transform them into workers. This enclosure of the commons is an ongoing process. Capitalism can only exist if it continuously separates people from resources by making them artificially scarce. A commodity – as nice as it may appear in the shopping malls – is a result of an ongoing violent process of enclosure and dispossession.<br />
<br />
The same process occurs in software. Proprietary software is a way of dispossessing the scientific and development community from their knowledge, experiences, and creativity. Free Software was first a defensive act of maintaining common goods common. However, since software is at the forefront of the development of productive forces it quickly turned into a creative process of overcoming the limitations and alienations of proprietary software. In a special field Free Software established a new mode of production which is going to spread into other realms (cf. pattern 10).<br />
<br />
Goods which are not made artificially scarce and are not subject to exchange are not commodities, but commons."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/)<br />
<br />
<br />
=Discussion=<br />
<br />
From the comments area [http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/]:<br />
<br />
==Christian Siefkes==<br />
<br />
"I agree that they are not commodities, but are they really always commons? Free software is certainly a commons, since everybody can use it, improve it, share it. But what if a bakery was operating in the same way, producing goods (bread etc.) that aren’t made artificially scarce and aren’t subject to exchange. The bakery is probably a commons, but what about the bread? If I eat it, nobody else can eat it, which doesn’t seem right for a commons.<br />
<br />
<br />
Personally, I usually say that such projects produce “commons or possession [Besitz]”, leaving it open whether goods that are produced for personal possession, usage and consumption (but not for sale/commercialization) are really commons, or whether they are something else, a third category of goods. I would be interested to learn more about how you see that, and whether you would really consider such goods as commons."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Stefan Meretz==<br />
<br />
(24.11.2011, 23:08 Uhr)<br />
<br />
<br />
"I agree with you: The conclusion is a bit shortened. Additionally I would add, that goods never by itself »are« commons, but can be treated as commons if some responsible people decide to do so. Does that also answer your question about a »third category of goods«?"<br />
<br />
<br />
==Tiberius Brastaviceanu==<br />
When it comes to goods, material things that people use or consume, Christian Siefkes' example is not adequate. When we consider a bakery, where bread is made for consumption, we're back into the traditional paradigm, assuming that some people will be producers (making bread) and others will be consumers (wanting to access bread to eat). This relates to the [[Beyond Classes]] pattern where Stefan Meretz talks about the divisions within Capitalism, i.e. producers and consumers. <br />
What we see in open source hardware is something different. People make designs, they make proof of concepts and prototypes to validate these designs and iterate until the design matures into something stable. Then they share these designs. In [[Sensorica]] we use the term dissemination to talk about the spread of designs, which is distinct from distribution, the capitalist market-driven, transactional mode through which goods flow within society. These designs are made with DIY ([[Do-It-Yourself]]) is mind, i.e. to make it easy for anyone in the world to execute, to fabricate the design locally. In that sense, the material artifact that is described by the design is only in potential and as such it is abundant. Everyone uses local means and resources for production. If we think about production in this way, distributed, there is no bottleneck. We can't talk about scarcity in the same way. <br />
So back the the bakery example, the bakers in this case only create recipes of bread, which get disseminated via the web, using various viral techniques, using social networking. People who want to eat bread use these recipes to make their own at home. This process of material peer production, distributed production, bypasses the market. These open source DIY designs are not communities, they are essentially code.<br />
<br />
A separate question can be: ''how can we scale this distributed peer production and make it sustainable?''<br />
Some pretend to ask the same question as: ''how can the designers make money to sustain their lives?''<br />
This second question is fundamentally different than the first one, since it assumes that material peer production is contained within capitalism. But imagine a situation where peer production becomes the dominant economic logic, with its own means of reproduction.<br />
My opinion is that accounting systems and various other types of signalling (following the [[Metacurrency project]]) will dethrone monetary currency as the primary access to resources. <br />
<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Business_Models]]<br />
[[Category:Demonetization]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Post-Capitalism]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Scarcity&diff=140201Beyond Scarcity2024-03-28T04:06:45Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>=Pattern=<br />
= one of the ten [[Peer Production Patterns]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"It is a common misconception that material things are scarce while immaterial things are not. It seems justified to keep material goods as commodities while immaterial goods are required to be free. However, this assumption turns a social property into a natural one. No produced good is scarce by nature. Scarcity is a result of goods being produced as commodities, thus scarcity is a social aspect of a commodity created for a market. In the digital era this is obvious for immaterial goods, as we can clearly see the measures to artificially make the good scarce. Such measures include laws (based on so-called “intellectual property”) and technical barriers to prevent free access to the good. It seems to be less obvious for material goods, because we are used to the non-accessibility of material goods unless we have paid for them. But the measures are the same: law and technical barriers, accompanied by continuous destruction of goods to keep the commodities rare enough to obtain a suitable price on markets.<br />
<br />
Furthermore it seems obvious that we all depend on material goods which may not be available in sufficient amount. Even immaterial goods depend on a material infrastructure, at least our brains (in the case of knowledge), which also need to be fed. This is definitely true, however, it has nothing to do with a “natural scarcity”. Since all goods we need are to be produced, the only question is, how they are to be produced in a societal sense. The commodity form is one option, the commons form another. Commodities must be produced in a scarce manner to realize their price on the market. The commons good can be produced according to the needs of the people using the given productive capacity. There might be current limitations, but limits always have been subject to human creativity to overcome them.<br />
<br />
Maybe some limitations may never be overcome, but this again is no reason to make goods artificially scarce. In these rare cases social agreements can be used to organize responsible use of the limited resource or good. The commons movement learned that both rival as well as non-rival goods can be produced as commons, but they require different social treatment. While non-rival goods are agreed to be freely accessible to prevent under-use, it makes sense to avoid over-use for rival goods by finding appropriate rules or measures either to organize sustainable use or to extend collective production and thus availability of the rival good.<br />
<br />
Scarcity is a social phenomenon which is unavoidable if goods are produced as commodities. Often scarcity is confused with limitations which can be overcome by human efforts and creativity."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-2-beyond-scarcity/)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
* [[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Commodity&diff=140200Beyond Commodity2024-03-28T04:04:58Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"In her studies Elinor Ostrom found, that “neither the state nor the market” is a successful means for commons management (1990). Based on traditional economics she analyzed the practices of natural commons and finally simply proved liberal dogmatics wrong. Markets are not a good way to allocate resources, and the State is not a good way to re-distribute wealth and manage the destructive results of markets. Best results occur if the people organize themselves according to their needs, experiences and creativity and treat resources and goods not as commodities, but as common pool resources.<br />
<br />
This is exactly what happens in Free Software. Interestingly it took many years to understand that Free Software is a commons and that it is basically identical to what Elinor Ostrom and others were talking about much earlier. One weak aspect of the traditional commons research and the early phase of Free Software was that a clear notion of a commodity and a non-commodity did not exist. It was the Oekonux Project which clearly said: Free Software is not a commodity. This dictum is closely related to the insight that Free Software is not exchanged (cf. pattern 1).<br />
<br />
Critics from the left argued that being a non-commodity is limited to the realm of immaterial goods like software. From their viewpoint Free Software is only an “anomaly” (Nuss, Heinrich 2002), while “normal” goods in capitalism have to be commodities. This assumption, however, is closely linked to the acceptance of the scarcity dogma (cf. pattern 2). Moreover, it treats capitalism as a kind of normal or natural mode of production under conditions of “natural scarcity” (as they think). This view completely turns real relations upside down. Capitalism could only establish itself by enclosing the commons, by depriving the people from their traditional access to resources in order to transform them into workers. This enclosure of the commons is an ongoing process. Capitalism can only exist if it continuously separates people from resources by making them artificially scarce. A commodity – as nice as it may appear in the shopping malls – is a result of an ongoing violent process of enclosure and dispossession.<br />
<br />
The same process occurs in software. Proprietary software is a way of dispossessing the scientific and development community from their knowledge, experiences, and creativity. Free Software was first a defensive act of maintaining common goods common. However, since software is at the forefront of the development of productive forces it quickly turned into a creative process of overcoming the limitations and alienations of proprietary software. In a special field Free Software established a new mode of production which is going to spread into other realms (cf. pattern 10).<br />
<br />
Goods which are not made artificially scarce and are not subject to exchange are not commodities, but commons."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/)<br />
<br />
<br />
=Discussion=<br />
<br />
From the comments area [http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/]:<br />
<br />
==Christian Siefkes==<br />
<br />
"I agree that they are not commodities, but are they really always commons? Free software is certainly a commons, since everybody can use it, improve it, share it. But what if a bakery was operating in the same way, producing goods (bread etc.) that aren’t made artificially scarce and aren’t subject to exchange. The bakery is probably a commons, but what about the bread? If I eat it, nobody else can eat it, which doesn’t seem right for a commons.<br />
<br />
<br />
Personally, I usually say that such projects produce “commons or possession [Besitz]”, leaving it open whether goods that are produced for personal possession, usage and consumption (but not for sale/commercialization) are really commons, or whether they are something else, a third category of goods. I would be interested to learn more about how you see that, and whether you would really consider such goods as commons."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Stefan Meretz==<br />
<br />
(24.11.2011, 23:08 Uhr)<br />
<br />
<br />
"I agree with you: The conclusion is a bit shortened. Additionally I would add, that goods never by itself »are« commons, but can be treated as commons if some responsible people decide to do so. Does that also answer your question about a »third category of goods«?"<br />
<br />
<br />
==Tiberius Brastaviceanu==<br />
When it comes to goods, material things that people use or consume, Christian Siefkes' example is not adequate. When we consider a bakery, where bread is made for consumption, we're back into the traditional paradigm, assuming that some people will be producers (making bread) and others will be consumers (wanting to access bread to eat). This relates to the [[Beyond Classes]] pattern where Stefan Meretz talks about the divisions within Capitalism, i.e. producers and consumers. <br />
What we see in open source hardware is something different. People make designs, they make proof of concepts and prototypes to validate these designs and iterate until the design matures into something stable. Then they share these designs. In [[Sensorica]] we use the term dissemination to talk about the spread of designs, which is distinct from distribution, the capitalist market-driven, transactional mode through which goods flow within society. These designs are made with DIY ([[Do-It-Yourself]]) is mind, i.e. to make it easy for anyone in the world to execute, to fabricate the design locally. In that sense, the material artifact that is described by the design is only in potential and as such it is abundant. Everyone uses local means and resources for production. If we think about production in this way, distributed, there is no bottleneck. We can't talk about scarcity in the same way. <br />
So back the the bakery example, the bakers in this case only create recipes of bread, which get disseminated via the web, using various viral techniques, using social networking. People who want to eat bread use these recipes to make their own at home. This process of material peer production, distributed production, bypasses the market. These open source DIY designs are not communities, they are essentially code.<br />
<br />
A separate question can be: ''how can we scale this distributed peer production and make it sustainable?''<br />
Some pretend to ask the same question as: ''how can the designers make money to sustain their lives?''<br />
This second question is fundamentally different than the first one, since it assumes that material peer production is contained within capitalism. But imagine a situation where peer production becomes the dominant economic logic, with its own means of reproduction.<br />
My opinion is that accounting systems and various other types of signalling (following the [[Metacurrency project]]) will dethrone monetary currency as the primary access to resources. <br />
<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Business_Models]]<br />
[[Category:Demonetization]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Theory]]<br />
[[Category:Post-Capitalism]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Commodity&diff=140199Beyond Commodity2024-03-28T03:47:49Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Tiberius Brastaviceanu */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
<br />
=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"In her studies Elinor Ostrom found, that “neither the state nor the market” is a successful means for commons management (1990). Based on traditional economics she analyzed the practices of natural commons and finally simply proved liberal dogmatics wrong. Markets are not a good way to allocate resources, and the State is not a good way to re-distribute wealth and manage the destructive results of markets. Best results occur if the people organize themselves according to their needs, experiences and creativity and treat resources and goods not as commodities, but as common pool resources.<br />
<br />
This is exactly what happens in Free Software. Interestingly it took many years to understand that Free Software is a commons and that it is basically identical to what Elinor Ostrom and others were talking about much earlier. One weak aspect of the traditional commons research and the early phase of Free Software was that a clear notion of a commodity and a non-commodity did not exist. It was the Oekonux Project which clearly said: Free Software is not a commodity. This dictum is closely related to the insight that Free Software is not exchanged (cf. pattern 1).<br />
<br />
Critics from the left argued that being a non-commodity is limited to the realm of immaterial goods like software. From their viewpoint Free Software is only an “anomaly” (Nuss, Heinrich 2002), while “normal” goods in capitalism have to be commodities. This assumption, however, is closely linked to the acceptance of the scarcity dogma (cf. pattern 2). Moreover, it treats capitalism as a kind of normal or natural mode of production under conditions of “natural scarcity” (as they think). This view completely turns real relations upside down. Capitalism could only establish itself by enclosing the commons, by depriving the people from their traditional access to resources in order to transform them into workers. This enclosure of the commons is an ongoing process. Capitalism can only exist if it continuously separates people from resources by making them artificially scarce. A commodity – as nice as it may appear in the shopping malls – is a result of an ongoing violent process of enclosure and dispossession.<br />
<br />
The same process occurs in software. Proprietary software is a way of dispossessing the scientific and development community from their knowledge, experiences, and creativity. Free Software was first a defensive act of maintaining common goods common. However, since software is at the forefront of the development of productive forces it quickly turned into a creative process of overcoming the limitations and alienations of proprietary software. In a special field Free Software established a new mode of production which is going to spread into other realms (cf. pattern 10).<br />
<br />
Goods which are not made artificially scarce and are not subject to exchange are not commodities, but commons."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/)<br />
<br />
<br />
=Discussion=<br />
<br />
From the comments area [http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/]:<br />
<br />
==Christian Siefkes==<br />
<br />
"I agree that they are not commodities, but are they really always commons? Free software is certainly a commons, since everybody can use it, improve it, share it. But what if a bakery was operating in the same way, producing goods (bread etc.) that aren’t made artificially scarce and aren’t subject to exchange. The bakery is probably a commons, but what about the bread? If I eat it, nobody else can eat it, which doesn’t seem right for a commons.<br />
<br />
<br />
Personally, I usually say that such projects produce “commons or possession [Besitz]”, leaving it open whether goods that are produced for personal possession, usage and consumption (but not for sale/commercialization) are really commons, or whether they are something else, a third category of goods. I would be interested to learn more about how you see that, and whether you would really consider such goods as commons."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Stefan Meretz==<br />
<br />
(24.11.2011, 23:08 Uhr)<br />
<br />
<br />
"I agree with you: The conclusion is a bit shortened. Additionally I would add, that goods never by itself »are« commons, but can be treated as commons if some responsible people decide to do so. Does that also answer your question about a »third category of goods«?"<br />
<br />
<br />
==Tiberius Brastaviceanu==<br />
When it comes to goods, material things that people use or consume, Christian Siefkes' example is not adequate. When we consider a bakery, where bread is made for consumption, we're back into the traditional paradigm, assuming that some people will be producers (making bread) and others will be consumers (wanting to access bread to eat). This relates to the [[Beyond Class]] pattern where<br />
<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:P2P Theory]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Beyond_Commodity&diff=140198Beyond Commodity2024-03-28T03:45:21Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Stefan Meretz */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
<br />
=Pattern=<br />
<br />
Stefan Meretz:<br />
<br />
"In her studies Elinor Ostrom found, that “neither the state nor the market” is a successful means for commons management (1990). Based on traditional economics she analyzed the practices of natural commons and finally simply proved liberal dogmatics wrong. Markets are not a good way to allocate resources, and the State is not a good way to re-distribute wealth and manage the destructive results of markets. Best results occur if the people organize themselves according to their needs, experiences and creativity and treat resources and goods not as commodities, but as common pool resources.<br />
<br />
This is exactly what happens in Free Software. Interestingly it took many years to understand that Free Software is a commons and that it is basically identical to what Elinor Ostrom and others were talking about much earlier. One weak aspect of the traditional commons research and the early phase of Free Software was that a clear notion of a commodity and a non-commodity did not exist. It was the Oekonux Project which clearly said: Free Software is not a commodity. This dictum is closely related to the insight that Free Software is not exchanged (cf. pattern 1).<br />
<br />
Critics from the left argued that being a non-commodity is limited to the realm of immaterial goods like software. From their viewpoint Free Software is only an “anomaly” (Nuss, Heinrich 2002), while “normal” goods in capitalism have to be commodities. This assumption, however, is closely linked to the acceptance of the scarcity dogma (cf. pattern 2). Moreover, it treats capitalism as a kind of normal or natural mode of production under conditions of “natural scarcity” (as they think). This view completely turns real relations upside down. Capitalism could only establish itself by enclosing the commons, by depriving the people from their traditional access to resources in order to transform them into workers. This enclosure of the commons is an ongoing process. Capitalism can only exist if it continuously separates people from resources by making them artificially scarce. A commodity – as nice as it may appear in the shopping malls – is a result of an ongoing violent process of enclosure and dispossession.<br />
<br />
The same process occurs in software. Proprietary software is a way of dispossessing the scientific and development community from their knowledge, experiences, and creativity. Free Software was first a defensive act of maintaining common goods common. However, since software is at the forefront of the development of productive forces it quickly turned into a creative process of overcoming the limitations and alienations of proprietary software. In a special field Free Software established a new mode of production which is going to spread into other realms (cf. pattern 10).<br />
<br />
Goods which are not made artificially scarce and are not subject to exchange are not commodities, but commons."<br />
(http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/)<br />
<br />
<br />
=Discussion=<br />
<br />
From the comments area [http://keimform.de/2011/pattern-3-beyond-commodity/]:<br />
<br />
==Christian Siefkes==<br />
<br />
"I agree that they are not commodities, but are they really always commons? Free software is certainly a commons, since everybody can use it, improve it, share it. But what if a bakery was operating in the same way, producing goods (bread etc.) that aren’t made artificially scarce and aren’t subject to exchange. The bakery is probably a commons, but what about the bread? If I eat it, nobody else can eat it, which doesn’t seem right for a commons.<br />
<br />
<br />
Personally, I usually say that such projects produce “commons or possession [Besitz]”, leaving it open whether goods that are produced for personal possession, usage and consumption (but not for sale/commercialization) are really commons, or whether they are something else, a third category of goods. I would be interested to learn more about how you see that, and whether you would really consider such goods as commons."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Stefan Meretz==<br />
<br />
(24.11.2011, 23:08 Uhr)<br />
<br />
<br />
"I agree with you: The conclusion is a bit shortened. Additionally I would add, that goods never by itself »are« commons, but can be treated as commons if some responsible people decide to do so. Does that also answer your question about a »third category of goods«?"<br />
<br />
<br />
==Tiberius Brastaviceanu==<br />
When it comes to goods, material things that people use or consume, the<br />
<br />
=More Information=<br />
<br />
[[Peer_Production_Patterns]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:P2P Theory]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Network_resource_planning_and_contribution_accounting&diff=139938Network resource planning and contribution accounting2024-02-28T22:52:17Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to NRP-CAS</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[NRP-CAS]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Network_resource_planning&diff=139937Network resource planning2024-02-28T22:50:56Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Network Resource Planning</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Network Resource Planning]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=NRP&diff=139936NRP2024-02-28T22:50:29Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to NRP-CAS</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[NRP-CAS]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=CBPP&diff=139935CBPP2024-02-28T22:49:57Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Commons-Based Peer Production</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Commons-Based Peer Production]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Open_Value_Network&diff=139934Open Value Network2024-02-28T22:47:30Z<p>TiberiusB: /* History */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
<br />
==Context==<br />
<br />
The '''[[Value Network]] definition''' from the Wikipedia at<br />
<br />
<br />
"'''Value networks (value webs), are complex sets of social and technical resources that work together via relationships to create value in the form of knowledge, intelligence, products, services or social good.''' Included in a company’s value networks are research, development, design, production, marketing, sales, and distribution - working interdependently to add to the overall worth of products and services. Companies also have external facing value networks where value is created from the relationships and interactions between organizations, its customers or recipients, intermediaries, stakeholders, complementors and suppliers. Value network principles apply equally well to public agencies, civil society organizations and other purposeful networks focused on creating economic or social good."<br />
<br />
([[Wikipedia:Value network]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Definition==<br />
<br />
'''1.''' From [http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork]:<br />
<br />
"'''Open Value Network(s) expand on Value Networks, by incorporating the possibility to open different processes and exchanges up to a broader base of volunteer, but reciprocated participants.''' <br />
<br />
The Value Network approach seeks to add value to all exchanges in a Value Chain. Including voluntary or traditionally non-compensated participants in Open projects related to business webs.<br />
<br />
The Open Value Network approach also seeks to create effective ways for many independent-actor and small group business ventures to create and use OpenValueNetwork models."<br />
<br />
(http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. OVN Wiki:'''<br />
<br />
[http://ovn.world http://ovn.world]<br />
<br />
"From a social perspective: an OVN is a complex form of social organization. Through interaction, values and rules as well as norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness are constantly emerging and being (or not) sustained.<br />
<br />
From an economic perspective: an OVN is a group of agents that collaborate openly and transparently to offer goods and services, expecting benefits in proportion to everyone’s contribution.<br />
<br />
An OVN is understood as a complex dynamical system, a living system, with an emergent structure (not imposed or predefined)... [with] initial conditions for such systems to exist and basic requirements for such systems to succeed in their mission, which are characterized as a Critical Path."<br />
<br />
See also<br />
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit Essay: comparison between DAO and OVN]<br />
* [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=DAO DAO on the OVN wiki]<br />
<br />
==Description==<br />
<br />
"The OVN model applies to open and decentralized networks. It makes these networks formidable economic agents. The Bitcoin network for example, can provide a stable and secure service of value exchange. It is an open (permissionless) network: anyone can join as a user, as a provider of infrastructure (as a miner), or as a developer (contributing to the Bitcoin open source software). The OVN model allows similar networks to offer more complex services and to produce and distribute material goods."<br />
<br />
<br />
'''1. [[Yasir Siddiqui]]:'''<br />
<br />
"An open value network (OVN) is a network of open-enterprises that can provide all functions of a corporation in an open-collaboration fashion. Recently, we have seen a rise in open-collaboration in the functions of marketing, communication, value creation, and so forth. Yet, there has never been an open collaboration model that can provide all the functions of a corporation. The structure of OVN framework provided in this paper outlines a model that could create a true open-collaboration enterprise that would follow the principles of open source.<br />
<br />
Open-source models present a tremendous opportunity to tackle social and environmental challenges. Nonetheless, open source models daunting financial and legal challenges since there are gaps in the business model. The open-enterprise framework provided in this paper could help resolve these challenges by providing the required open-legal and governance structures.<br />
<br />
From sustainability perspective, an OVN provides mechanisms of non-control and open-access while providing all the function of a corporation. Therefore, I conclude that open-enterprises can truly target social and environmental market needs in efficient way while creating and redistributing the value generated in an ethical fashion. Hence, the OVN model meets the Porter and Kramer’s (2011) criteria for scalable sustainability."<br />
<br />
[http://sensoricablog.blogspot.ca/2013/11/blog-post.html go to the source paper]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:'''<br />
<br />
"The OVN model proposes that each production process publishes all information about its internal functioning. That allows production methods to be copied. Provides accountability. Public view allows people to propose better solutions and to detect errors sooner. Moreover, ecological and other externalities are easily Identifiable.<br />
<br />
The OVN model also proposes that information about the supply chains be also visible. All production processes should provide information about their product and the requirements they have in tools, materials and human resources as well as the current suppliers and customers.<br />
<br />
The ability to search and analyze these data allows for different groups that were otherwise isolated and small to interconnect. This has the profound advantage that these small groups can cooperate, coproduce value and thus be able to compete with traditional companies with a higher number of capital assets. Moreover the information about the supply chains allows people to suggest more efficient supply chains and at the same time bypass the supply chain middlemen entirely."<br />
<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''3. Alex Pazaitis:''' <br />
<br />
"An OVN is a generic organizational and business model, which could possibly enhance and support commons-based peer production. As an organization it is highly adaptive, fully decentralized, and governed through distributed decision-making processes and resource allocation. As the name implies, it supports open participation, has very low barriers of entry, and is designed to empower permissionless individual action through open knowledge and transparent processes. <br />
<br />
The OVN is characterized by three fundamental principles: open membership, transparency, and variety of contributions. Open membership means that members can freely join or leave the network and form, join, or acquire enterprise entities. Also, members can be individuals of diverse backgrounds or organizations, including non-profits, government entities, enterprises, or even other OVNs. Transparency enables the open-source communities to gain access to information, knowledge, and processes, with certain restrictions regarding specific types of resources that may need to be handled exclusively by special expertise (e.g., dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists). Finally, a broad spectrum of contributions can take place, including material (e.g., resources, tools, consumables) and immaterial inputs (e.g., time, effort, information) or capital (e.g., financial investments, space, equipment, infrastructure).<br />
<br />
The aspiration of the OVN model is to create a viable structure that harnesses the advantages of open collaboration and sharing, while it addresses the challenges of open-source projects related to governance and sustainability." <br />
<br />
See full paper here: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm. <br />
<br />
<br />
'''4. David Bollier:'''<br />
<br />
"Most commons tightly limit or prohibit the sale of their resources to markets except on stipulated<br />
terms, lest market ambitions begin to unravel collective commitments. Open value networks have<br />
no reservations about engaging with markets, but they do take active steps to maintain their<br />
organizational and cultural integrity as commons-based peer producers. This means that OVNs<br />
insist upon open, horizontal and large-scale cooperation and coordination so that everyone knows<br />
what is going on. Using systems like Co-budget, OVNs seek to democratically manage shared<br />
wealth and assets while allowing individual access, use, authorship and ownership of resources,<br />
consistent with group needs. OVNs use a careful accounting of individual “inputs and outcomes”<br />
via a common ledger system, and distribute rewards to participants based on their individual<br />
contributions to the project.<br />
<br />
OVN stress that while they may be legally nonprofits or for-profits, they are not functionally either,<br />
in that they have no retained earnings or fixed assets. They instead function as “a flow-through<br />
entity which is as formless as possible,” but which functions as a trust for its members, as outlined<br />
by a “nondominium” agreement.<br />
<br />
While still fairly rudimentary, OVNs represent a fascinating new<br />
type of consensual governance/production regime, bound by contractual terms, that blends<br />
commons principles and market activity."<br />
<br />
([https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/transnational-republics-of-commoning-2-new-forms-of-network-based-governance/2016/09/16],<br />
[https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-09-19/new-forms-of-network-based-governance/])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Example==<br />
<br />
The OVN model originated within the [[Sensorica]] network/community<br />
<br />
===[[Tiberius Brastavicenau on the Open Value Networks Practice at Sensorica]]===<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"Since 2008 I have been involved in building infrastructure for commons-based peer production. In the open value network model that we propose, the economic activity of all the network affiliates operating in a peer production network is recorded, activities are compared and weighted against each others based on metrics that are agreed upon democratically. The redistribution of benefits is in part quantitative, turning someone's efforts into coins, which can represent equity or debt and can be later used to get tangible benefits. Qualitative characteristics of economic contributions and behavior are also taken into consideration, based on how the contribution is made, on different dimensions of reputation of the affiliate, etc. All this is packaged into an IT tool, a contribution accounting system and an algorithm for computing the redistribution of benefits that we call a value equation. This represents a social contract among affiliates, designed to generate a sense of fairness among them and to render the economic activity effective and efficient.<br />
<br />
This system for capturing, recording and comparing economic activity has been implemented in SENSORICA, the first open value network. The same system can also be applied to other types of organizations, more or less networked, more or less open (with respect to access to participation) or transparent (with respect to access to information).<br />
<br />
This system has profound consequences on how the global economy works. Let's enumerate a few of them.<br />
<br />
When I was in my teenage years, I worked on a farm situated a few kilometers north of Montreal, Canada, picking blueberries and strawberries. We were payed by the weight of fruit that we picked. Throughout the day, we would bring our fruit baskets to a tractor, where they were weighed, and a record was produced. At the end of the day, everyone was paid according to the total weight gathered (a metric for economic activity). Some were making a lot more than others. It was a purely meritocratic redistribution scheme for a simple economic activity, using a very simple metric. This is very different from the normal employment setting, where employees are paid a fixed, negotiated and agreed upon salary, formalized as a job contract. The employer agrees to pay a certain number of coins to an employee before even starting working. This requires some diligence from the employer, which comes in a form of a filter, a job interview. Moreover, this also requires constant monitoring of the employees' contribution to the company. Companies engage in time management and regular performance reviews. There are at least two important setbacks in this employment setting compared to the first one. For one, the managerial overhead for time management and performance monitoring. Second, the inability of the company to dynamically adjust its workforce and talent base, because of the heavy filtering mechanisms and the contractual agreements in place. We will expand on this below. In the raspberry picking case, the payment is proportional to the production, therefore the need to filter and for time management is less stringent. The reward is directly related to the production. This case presupposes the existence of means to evaluate contributions. The activity that doesn't result in a positive contribution, or that causes damage can be dealt with in various ways. For raspberry picking, the evaluation scheme is obvious: total weight of the picked fruit. The new information technology allows us to go far beyond this simple case, to deal with the complexity of numerous and various tasks involved in our normal workday. A contribution accounting system coupled to a value equation gives flexibility to organizations of all sorts and help them reduce costs.<br />
<br />
Another important consequence of this technology is that it allows an organization to tap into the world's massive human resources in a very dynamic way. At any given moment, there is someone on this planet that has the solution to your problem. Finding this individual or a group of individuals is one important hurdle. But once that hurdle is passed, we need to be able to effectively integrate this new talent into the stream of activities and its associated reward mechanisms. The possible contributor can be far away, which means hard to identify and authenticate, hard to monitor, hard to reprehend, … In these circumstances, the classical mode of employment is long, costly, and sometimes even impossible if we take into consideration all the geopolitical hurdles in place. These opportunities are lost most of the time, and the company is obliged to work with what it has. Different crowdsourcing platforms have emerged as an interface between companies and the crowd, but in my opinion their value proposition is not resonating well with the crowd. Crowd-based problem solving schemes work very well in open source projects and in projects with a great social impact, They are not performing well when only corporate interest is behind the problem. Companies can develop less exploitative and less alienating mechanisms for managing their own crowd-based activities. In order to do so, they must move away from contractual relationships and time management, to interface directly with the crowd by using tools for contribution accounting and evaluation.<br />
<br />
There are other important consequences that we can discuss here, but I think we should jump directly to the one that has, by far, the most disruptive effects on our global economic system. That is the possibility to put information about past economic activity back into the system of redistribution of resources. <br />
<br />
A dollar bill that you receive from someone doesn’t come with a description about how this individual acquired it, or about how this individual is seen by his peers in a context of work. It could have been earned honestly or dishonestly. <br />
<br />
The contribution accounting system and its value equation implemented in the SENSORICA open value network is used to reward participants based on past economic activity. This data accumulated for every affiliate can be distilled into a socioeconomic profile that can be consulted by anyone around the world. It is very dangerous to allow all this information to be gathered and controlled by private interests. These systems should not be deployed by organizations like Facebook or Google. They must be developed on top of p2p infrastructures like block chain for example. That is precisely what we are striving to do with the open value network infrastructure.<br />
<br />
Sensoricans designed and experimented with a system that allows redistribution of benefits and privileges, eliminating the problem of the classical monetary coin, for being detached from the role of the individual in society. This is very similar to the situation in my mother’s village. The system can be scaled and it is using digital technology instead of clay tablets, which makes it easy to gather, store, analyse and retrieve information about socio-economic activity in real time, with no spatial barriers. This is not a Big Brother situation if applied according to p2p principles. <br />
<br />
We are in the middle of a socioeconomic revolution. It is still unclear what the future will look like. In order to inform this transformation we need to revisit a fundamental concept that is used in all these approaches, value."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F19rvACy80_0k3p32dI2NReuVkmozRvDJceaQCuf8y0/edit#])<br />
<br />
<br />
===Directory===<br />
<br />
From Nathan Schneider:<br />
<br />
* [[Assembly]] - “Where we band together to build.”<br />
* [[Bioecon]] - “a peer to peer, growth sensitive, decentralized and self regulated economic agreement in which the means of exchange is produced by participants as a result of our activity”<br />
* [[Enspiral]]: Formally a cooperative, legally an LLC in New Zealand - “we hacked the constitution to make it cooperative-like”<br />
Also a number of Ventures within the structure ; Uses Loomio (which is an Enspiral Venture) for decision-making<br />
* [[Greener Acres Value Network]] - “a resource for entrepreneurs in for-profit and non-profit startups and operational expansions who want to take advantage of agricultural localization”<br />
* [[Metamaps]] - “a free and open source web platform for changemakers, innovators, educators and students. It enables individuals and communities to build and visualize their shared knowledge and unlock their collective intelligence.”<br />
<br />
(http://open.therowboat.com/commons/doku.php/enterprise)<br />
<br />
==History==<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastavicenau:<br />
<br />
"“The model was first proposed, developed and implemented by [[Sensorica]] affiliates. [[Sensorica]] was created in February 2011. Initially, the model evolved from the Discovery Network model proposed by Tibi between 2008 and 2010. In 2011, the model was developed in collaboration mainly by Tibi, Steve, Kurt, and Bayle, and drew from the work of [[Verna Allee]], [[Yochai Benkler]], [[Michel Bauwens]], Clay Shirky, and others. After the summer of 2012, the [[network resource planning and contribution accounting]] system ([[NRP-CAS]]) was influenced by Bob Haugen who has been working on resource planning systems since 1995.<br />
<br />
Yasir joined Sensorica in 2013 and helped develop the framework for open value networks. The OVN model was extended to network of networks, in the context of the Open Alliance initiative also lead by Sensorica, an attempt to federate open organizations in Montreal. In 2016 the [https://www.sensorica.co/ventures/4th-sector/NOICE NOICE/Verdun] project built on the Open Alliance initiative, as a second attempt to bring the OVN model at a larger scale.<br />
<br />
Other organizations have adopted a model similar to [[Sensorica]]: CoMakery, CollectiveOne, Scuttlebutt.” [OVN world wiki pages].<br />
<br />
Although rooted in earlier and ongoing traditions of open source and collaborative economies, OVN redresses the flaws of collaborative [[crowdsourcing]] in [[CBPP]], notably the unsustainable capture of open source value by corporate private interest. The value that is captured by private interest can be captured by an OVN and shared internally bringing value to both contributors and the community. The emphasis thus far has been on FabLab type manufacturing, research intensive projects in a [[permissionless]] setting, but can apply to a variety of end uses. The OVN framework accomplishes this feat through a formal accounting of contributions and planning via (….) protocols: [[NRP]] ([[network resource planning]]), socialization of work, transparency, commoning, a Contribution Accounting System that includes localized cultural subjectivity, signalization, content, interaction, and logging contributions. An OVN also requires contribution accounting and exchange systems, a fair Reputation system, a Role system, a Feedback system, an Incentive system. The OVN framework structure is at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (inter-project level), network level (inter-enterprise level), and global level (inter-network level) [Yasir Siddiqui 2013]. This serves to trickle up network synergies to empower social and environmental demands at global network level. <br />
<br />
Organizationally, OVNs at project level are [[permissionless]], less hierarchical than more traditional business models, relying on [[stigmergy]] as mechanic\sm for coordination. OVN’s structure formalizes stigmergic patterns through patterns of actions/feedback and self-documentation. OVNs like [[Sensorica]] are focused on prototyping, research with an eye to serial manufacturing. In practice, an OVN registers contributor contributions towards the goal a project (open source designs, DIY artifacts, even product or service) in a cycle from design to fabrication to dissemination or distribution via a [[benefit redistribution algorithm]]. <br />
<br />
The key idea behind the [[benefit redistribution algorithm]] is to reformulate the benefit distribution problem to a matching problem and disconnect money from the process of dissemination or distribution. [Value cycle and value equation Yasir Siddiqui 2014 ]<br />
<br />
In effect, for the first time, an attribution system is integrated into the production workflow and supply chains. The first record keeping implementations were in the form of google spreadsheets, in development on blockchain and holochain alpha. Meanwhile [[DAO]]s and other protocols are rapidly converging on similar solutions."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
==Characteristics==<br />
<br />
"The open value network model departs from capitalism for 3 main reasons:<br />
<br />
* No economic cast, no division between owners and workers, between those who own the means of production and those who provide work. The commons takes care of that. <br />
* No clearly defined frontier between the system of design-production-distribution and the market, the system rewards every contributor to value creation in proportion to his/her contribution. The value accounting system takes care of that. <br />
* Reappropriation of labor. Active affiliates who are involved in value creation are not exchanging their labor for wages, they are in fact accumulating equity, which gives them rights to the future revenue generated by exchanging the value they create with the market. Thus the individual is always the owner of his work. <br />
<br />
The value accounting system allows value networks to go beyond the gift economy AND beyond the candy economy."<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
This section defines three fundamental characteristics of an OVN network: open-membership, transparency and open-access, and contributions and their governance.<br />
<br />
===Open Membership===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Open-membership is a major difference between a traditional enterprise and the OVN. In traditional organization, the contributors are employees who need permission to produce use-value, whereas, in an OVN, the employer-employee control relationships do not exist. Instead, an OVN is open, that is, anyone can join and/or leave the network and/or form, join and/or foreclose an open-enterprise at any point. Members can be individuals, or organizations (non-for-profits, governments, open-enterprises or other open-value networks); that is both the OVN and any open-enterprise thereof could consist of individuals, organizations, non-for-profit, government entity and OVNs. This open-membership permits OVN to engage with crowd and operate on a long-tail curve."<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
===Transparency and open-access===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Transparency is applied in the open source communities to provide access to information, knowledge, and processes. In addition to transparency, in an OVN, open access to participation is also critical to allow an equal opportunity for value creation. Nonetheless, certain contributions could be restricted due to the nature of the contribution. For example, dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists. Access to such contributions would be available provided that a certain level of expertise is attained (explained further under project custodian.)"<br />
<br />
===[[Contribution]]===<br />
<br />
"A contribution of a member can be any product, service, time spent on tasks or projects, physical space offered for activities, prototype, ideas, data, information, financial investment, social connection, manufacturing, distribution channels, sales, assuming liability of a product, providing insurance, certification, evaluation, and any other tangible and non-tangible input that a community member provides to satisfy a desire, want or need. In other words, any effort that is a part of the use value is a contribution. By allowing “contribution” to be defined in such a wide spectrum, an OVN does not differentiate between financial and non-financial contributions and therefore, all contributions are evaluated and rewarded as per the defined governance of the project and network.<br />
<br />
There are three types of contributions: project-contribution, network-contribution, and commons-contribution. Project-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the project; the governance of these contributions is defined at the project level. For instance, perishable or consumable materials could only be a part of the project. Network-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the network; the governance of these contributions is defined at the network level. For instance: a physical tool can be shared across projects. Commons-contributions are those contributions that are applicable across networks; the governance of these contributions is defined at the global governance level. For instance: use of standards, legal framework and knowledge."<br />
<br />
==Governance and structure==<br />
<br />
'''The OVN framework defines the structure at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (or inter-project level), network level (or inter-enterprise level), and global level (or inter-network level)'''. This hierarchical structure is design to create synergies among many open-value networks in a network of network environment (or a network of open-enterprise environment). These synergies can be leveraged to collaborate across open-value networks in order to rapidly address the social and environmental demands of the marketplace. In the next section, we will explain the aforementioned hierarchal structures: the project level structure, the open-enterprise level, the network level structure and the global level structure.<br />
<br />
===Project level structure===<br />
<br />
An OVN consists of many open-enterprises that may engage with many projects organized in a non-hierarchical fashion with each project acting as an emergent, self-governing and open structure. Due to the emergent nature, the structure of each project will be different. Nonetheless, there are certain guidelines that each project will need to adopt to enable collaboration at large-scale given under the Collaboration model.<br />
<br />
====Collaboration model====<br />
<br />
The collaboration model is the cornerstone of the OVN framework designed to support collaboration within projects. Similar to a traditional enterprise, an open-enterprise can undertake numerous projects. However, unlike a firm, both the open-enterprise and any projects thereof could be forked to achieve maximum flexibility (explained further under forking.) This collaboration model consists of two major components: value capture and distribution processes; and value creation and exchange processes.<br />
<br />
====Value capture and distribution processes====<br />
<br />
An OVN provides mechanisms to capture value by providing structure and infrastructure required to track each contribution within a project. Finally, once the project reaches maturity, any revenue generated from the project is redistributed based on the respective contributions. <br />
<br />
These mechanisms are achieved by implementing the following processes:<br />
<br />
* '''Initiation:''' A member or members of the network or an open-enterprise thereof can have an idea, which could come from personal interest, a scientific study, or a market study, for a product and/or service that they would like to develop and/or provide.<br />
* '''Agreement:''' Prior to engaging in a project, the initiators of a project agree on three aspects: first, a value equation, second, a governance equation; and third, decisionmaking process within the project. A value equation is a set of evaluation criteria used to evaluate members’ contributions; for example, labour market could provide an appropriate parameters for the initial value equation. A governance equation is a set of criteria that give access to contributors to decisionmaking processes. If and once there is an agreement on these matters, the project commences.<br />
* ''' Logging:''' Once the project commences, each member of the project logs his or her contribution during the course of the project. Logging contribution could be a role that a member can undertake for a project to make the process more efficient (explained further under project tasks and roles)<br />
* '''Referencing:''' Whenever a member uses a contribution of another member, he/she makes a reference in the original contribution. Failure to do so could end up in a bad reputation (explained further under reputation)<br />
* '''Fluid equity:''' Each member’s fluid equity in a project is updated frequently (or in real-time) based on the value equation and the members’ contributions. Since the contributions are logged and referenced, it is possible to calculate the fluid equity by re-tracing the contribution chain and applying the value equation to the contributions.<br />
* '''Reward distribution:''' Whenever members generate revenue (through a market exchange), they distribute it through the financial custodian (explained further under global custodian), who redistributes the revenues based on the fluid equity system.<br />
<br />
====Co-creation of value and exchange processes====<br />
<br />
While the processes to maximize coordination within a larger membership have been realized within the open source communities, the OVN structure provides additional guidelines on processes to ensure that there are synergies among the value creation and exchange processes, and value capture and distribution processes.<br />
<br />
'''1) Project tasks:''' A project task refers to an action that a member must perform to advance the development of a project. Each task is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. On the other hand, roles refer to a certain list of tasks that a person is required to perform and the decisions thereof.<br />
<br />
Each project will have a combination of tasks and roles. For example, producing a component of a product is a task; distribution, selling and repairing are all tasks that could be logged as contributions.<br />
On the other hand, roles consist of a list of tasks that a member assumes the responsibility of. For example, assuming the liability of a product is a role. Additional examples of roles include coordinators, strategists and/or community developer. Roles can be logged as contributions.<br />
Tasks and roles within projects are published for members to accept. Any member could be a part of the project by accepting a role of a task even if the role and/or task is currently under-taken by another member by “Forking” the project (explained further under forking.) Moreover, each task could undergo verification, which can further inform reputation mechanisms (explained further under reputation.)<br />
<br />
'''2) Verification:''' Once a contribution is logged, another member could evaluate the validity and quality of the contribution. Moreover, this verification could take place immediately or after a certain period of time during the course of the project. Verification could be a role within a project. <br />
<br />
'''3) Project custodian:''' Project custodian is a special role chosen through the decision making process of the project. For example, a project custodian could be responsible to ensure the proper use of an asset, such as fragile, complex or expensive equipment. At any point during the project, members can vote to select a different member as a project custodian. Similar to other roles, project custodianship is a contribution.<br />
<br />
'''4) Decision-making:''' Whereas members within the context of a task or a role undertake the task-based decisions, certain decisions such as the selection of a project custodian or a communication platform would require decision making across the project. Such decisions can be based on voting, meritocracy, consensus or executive decision (see more on the governance equation). On the other hand, on a disagreement, it would be possible to fork the project (explained further under forking) since the knowledge is open sourced.<br />
<br />
'''5) Conflict management:''' If there is a conflict among members during the course of the project, members can modify the value equation and the governance equation based on the parameters as per the prior agreement. However, if the conflicts are not resolved, the members can fork the project (explained further under forking.)<br />
<br />
'''6) Forking:''' During the course of the project, any member(s) can choose to fork a project for any reason. That is, take a different direction on the development of the project than the rest of the contributors to the project. In such an instance, the new project can choose different agreements on the value equation and the governance equation of the project from the time of the forking. However, all the contributions prior to the forking will utilize the agreements at the time of forking.<br />
<br />
'''7) Predictability:''' If the project is based on a market study or a customer demand, which are both contributions, then a mechanism could be implemented to predict the value received based on the expected input required to finish the task. This mechanism would improve efficiency of the project by attracting the appropriate level of contributions by guiding the development of value equation. For example, a market study could entice financial contribution, which would be evaluated as per the value equation.<br />
<br />
'''8) Reputation:''' Reputation refers to the detailed track record of a member; for example, tasks delivered and not delivered. During the course of the membership, any member can evaluate another member, which would be visible to all the members. The reputation system could be designed by skill set to create a comprehensive knowledge, skill and attribute profile. Evaluation for reputation could be a role within a project. If coupled to the calculation of fluid equity, the reputation system becomes a very powerful mechanisms for self-regulation.<br />
<br />
===Open-enterprise level structure===<br />
<br />
There are two types of open-enterprises within an OVN: brand-based and liability-based.<br />
<br />
'''Brand-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a new brand and market any of the products through this brand trademarks. This brand trademark could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the brand trademarks could be privately owned, a brand charter would dictate the use of the brand trademarks. The brand trademarks could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the brand charter; for example, product quality and standards. The management of the brand use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of brand trademarks is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the governance of the project.<br />
<br />
'''Liability-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a legal entity to assume the liability of the product including the appropriate use of brand trademarks. This liability could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the legal entity could be privately owned, a liability charter would dictate the use of the legal entity name for contractual obligation and liability purposes. This liability entity could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the liability charter; for example, product verification. The management of the liability entity use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of liability entity is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the value equation of the project.<br />
<br />
===Network level structure===<br />
<br />
Network-level structure defines the structure across all projects of the open-enterprise. The guidelines in the network-level structure supersede the guidelines in the project structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the network-level structure are pertinent only to the network commons. For example, the misuse of the network will have negative consequences for all the members. In addition, since any project can fork, the network governance needs mechanism to resolve any conflicts. Hence, it is pertinent to establish a structure for the network commons. <br />
<br />
The OVN framework identifies the commons of the network and then provides guidelines for the governance for the network.<br />
<br />
====Network commons====<br />
<br />
OVN framework identifies five commons with the network: Network Brand, Infrastructure, Contribution-commons, Reputation and Solidarity mechanisms. In addition, any network-contributions are also a part of the network commons.<br />
<br />
'''1) Network Brand:''' provides value to all the projects by providing trust relationship among the collaborators and potential collaborators of the network. Therefore, it is pertinent to protect the network brand in order to maintain an advantage in the marketplace since the brand value could decrease if misused by a member.<br />
<br />
'''2) Infrastructure:''' Infrastructure provides the tools to produce, store, transfer, exchange and modify information within and outside of network. Therefore, changes in the infrastructure could impact all projects. In addition, tangible tools could also be part of the network that would be governed as per the network governance.<br />
<br />
'''3) Reputation:''' Reputation of a member in a given project is carried forward to other projects. Thus, reputation is a part of the network commons in order to main trust among members.<br />
<br />
'''4) Solidarity mechanisms:''' Solidarity mechanisms are part of the open-value network to ensure two unique aspects: compassion and distribution of risk. Compassion is an important part of human-collaboration and therefore, the network provides insurance mechanism for its members based on the members’ reputation. In addition to compassion, solidarity mechanisms are used to partially reward for unavoidable failures in order to create higher levels of trust and knowledge base within the network; these failures include: process inadequacy, task challenge, process complexity, uncertainty, hypothesis testing, and exploratory testing.<br />
<br />
The network governance determines the decisions on the implementation of solidarity mechanisms.<br />
<br />
====Network governance:====<br />
<br />
Similar to the project governance, the network governance requires decision-making processes and mechanisms to change the decision-making processes. In addition to decision-making, the network requires roles or network custodians to ensure continuity and compliances. Moreover, network requires mechanism to respond to non-compliances to the decisions. Lastly, network needs to be able to recuperate costs in order to self-sustain.<br />
<br />
'''1) Liquid democracy for voting:''' Whereas the democracy relies on choosing a representative for a fixed term, liquid democracy allows a member to delegate a trusted peer to vote on the member’s behalf on certain or all decisions. The trust delegate could apply the same principle. This creates a trust-based decision network that can be applied to take network level decisions efficiently and to maintain high level of satisfaction since getting involved in all decisions can lead to stress and dissatisfaction.[53] Moreover, to avoid biases, an individual member can directly cast their vote on a decision if the member does not agree with the decision outcome within a fixed period of the outcome. Lastly, the number of votes delegate to a member is hidden from the delegate to avoid any possibilities of corruption, power and favoritism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Conflicts during the forking of the project:''' Value equation developed at the time of the forking of the project has to account for the previous contributions at the time of the forking. Failure to reach an agreement at the time of the forking could result in a conflict that could be arbitrated using the liquid democracy mechanism for a faster turn-around.<br />
<br />
'''3) Accountability and Non-compliance:''' It is possible that a member may not comply with the OVN framework. For example, a member may choose a task but not deliver that causes grievances or worse, a member sells a product and keeps the rewards rather than redistributing it. In such instances, the member may get bad reputation, which will be visible to the members across networks.<br />
<br />
'''4) Low-reputation and retribution:''' A member with low reputation will be less likely to find collaborators in any OVN since the reputation is shared across networks (explained further under global structure.) Therefore, a member with low reputation will be unable to benefit from the advantages of the OVN model (explained further under the OVN advantages.) Nevertheless, it is important to create mechanisms to encourage members to regain the lost reputation rather than banishing the members with low reputation since it could increase hostility against the networks, which could lead to intentional attacks. Yet, any decisions on banishment could be taken based on liquid democracy.<br />
<br />
'''5) Network costs:''' All efforts related to the network are considered as projects; for example, the development of the network IT infrastructure is a project. Therefore, the contributions to the network level projects are equally divided among all the projects as contributions to the projects.<br />
<br />
'''6) Network custodians.''' The network custodians are chosen using liquid democracy process and can be responsible for network-commons: brand, infrastructure, and network-contributions. Similarly, network custodians can take the role strategists for the brand and infrastructure; these roles would be selected through liquid democracy but can the responsibility on any and/or all of the decisions could be revoked at any time.<br />
<br />
===Global level structure===<br />
<br />
Global level structure defines the structure across all open-enterprises or networks within an OVN. The guidelines in the global level structure supersede the guidelines in the network structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the global level structure are pertinent only to the global commons. For example: the flow of information across networks. Hence, it is crucial to establish global governance and a legal structure for the global commons.<br />
<br />
====Global governance====<br />
<br />
Global governance of OVN will provide decision-making guidelines for the change in legal constitution of the OVN including the selection of the custodian of the global OVN constitution. This selection could be done through liquid democracy process, as previously described, with participants across OVN.<br />
<br />
'''Legal framework'''<br />
<br />
Legal framework of OVN would consist of global structure, network structure, and enterprise structures. The purpose of the legal structure at the network level is to create a platform for open-innovation. For example, Airbnb provides a platform where the crowd can rent their homes to strangers. Similarly, the OVN provides an ethical and legal framework to create a platform for open source based innovation. Hence, an OVN acts as a platform that consists of many open-enterprises, supported through legal structure at the enterprise level for both brand-based and liability-based entities. In other words, the OVN network provides a platform for the Peer-to-Peer (p2p) liability structure to create a many-to-many relationship between brand owners and liability owners.<br />
<br />
In addition to collaboration within an OVN, the legal structure also provides support for many platforms or open-value networks to co-exist. This is accomplished by sharing reputation, value and knowledge across networks while safeguarding the infrastructure and brand of the network.<br />
<br />
====Permanent global legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Global OVN Constitution custodian:''' will serve as the umbrella organization for the legal framework and will hold the Global OVN constitution. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities and voting mechanisms on how to change the constitution and any of the custodians including global custodian, as per the governance defined in the constitution. Further the constitution defines that each custodian must have its own decision-making mechanism and policies on how to change its decision-making mechanism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Personnel Information custodian:''' will be responsible for the information infrastructure including holder of private information to keep records of the reputation across OVNs. This custodian will have an agreement to share information required for reputation purposes within and outside of the Open-Value Network with the holder of the constitutions as per the rules of the constitution.<br />
<br />
'''3) Standards custodian:''' will hold the global standards in order to ensure the flow of information, contribution, value and reputation across the OVN.<br />
<br />
====Network level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Network custodian:''' would be responsible to hold the constitution of the network. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities within the network and voting mechanisms on how to change the network constitution and any of the custodians within the network including the network custodian, as per the governance defined in the network constitution. In addition to the network constitution, the network custodian will have an agreement with holder of the global constitutions as per the rules of the global constitution.<br />
<br />
In addition to the constitution, the network custodian may hold the brand of the network as well as the responsibility of the any physical and virtual infrastructure, although, these function could be assigned to a separate custodian. For example, one network brand custodian for the network brand, one virtual infrastructure custodian for the virtual infrastructure, and several physical infrastructure custodians for each or some of the local physical hub.<br />
<br />
'''2) Contract holder custodian:''' will be responsible to hold the contract among all enterprise level legal entities (elaborated under enterprise-level legal structures). This custodian will have an agreement with the network custodian as per the rules of the constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
'''3) Financial custodian:''' will be responsible to conduct all financial transaction across the OVN. This custodian will have an agreement with holder of the network custodian as per the rules of the network constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
====Enterprise level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Brand custodian:''' Any member(s) that wishes to form a brand could initiate an open-enterprise within the network with its unique brand name and provides a charter for the brand use. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. For example, the open-enterprise can use the services of the network as long as it allows for peer-based audits to ensure transparency and ethical behavior as defined in the network constitution.<br />
<br />
'''2) Liability custodian:''' Any member that wishes to assume the liability of a product can form a legal entity. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. Thereafter, any member that abides by the terms and conditions of the liability custodian would be able to transact directly with the market while forwarding the liability to the custodian."<br />
<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
The above material is mostly sourced from the document under construction: '''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. Authors: [[Yasir Siddiqui]] (main author), [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].'''<br />
<br />
Creative Commons (BY NC CA) licence granted by the authors. First published on December 25th, 2013<br />
<br />
See also the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page Open Value Network wiki]<br />
<br />
See also the paper titled: [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica] by Alex Pazaitis.<br />
<br />
==Discussion==<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"What we see in the case of OSHW is a greater integration between a commercial entity and its market. Traditional commercial entities maintain provider-consumer type of relations with their markets: some "smart" individuals within the firm study what consumers might need, pass that to a team of engineers to make it, and put it for sale with a team of marketing wizards who will make almost anything look like the perfect fit. If the firm was right about the need, which is not always the case, customers pay for it and take it, and ask for service if needed. Service is provided by the commercial entity in exchange of customer loyalty. In this approach, the consumer is educated about what he needs and wants, after the "smart guys" have made the market study, decided on the general need, and offered a one-fit-all solution. This is obviously the extreme case, or what was widely practiced 20-15 years ago. Today, traditional corporations build communities around their brands, and they try to absorb more feedback from their consumers. In the case of OSHW, individual consumers drive design and development.<br />
<br />
This integration between the commercial entity and the market in the prevalent OSHW models is made possible by the internet technology. But as we saw above, there is still a clear distinction between the commercial entity and the community. For example, a community member who proposes a new design that becomes commercially successful is not rewarded with a fair share of the profits made by the commercial entity. I call this the "candy economy", meaning that the members of the community around a OSHW company stick with it and contribute mostly for intrinsic motivations, and a small present (a candy) or a token of recognition from time to time.<br />
<br />
Is this division between the commercial entity and the community necessary? Or is it an impediment for a better arrangement?<br />
<br />
The open value network model abolishes the distinction between <br />
the commercial entity and the community!<br />
<br />
The open value network is a model for commons-based peer production. <br />
<br />
See graphic via http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fp3YPAw6icQ/UWsYwdnoYeI/AAAAAAAAGDw/GTexHmVUkgY/s1600/organizational+structure.JPG<br />
<br />
The diagram above depicts the structure of a value network. The physical and the virtual infrastructure, as well as the tools and the equipment used in R&D and in production are part of a pool of shareables, legally owned by a custodian, which is bound by a contract to act in the interest of the community, obeying a set of predefined rules set by the community. All the information and the knowledge generated by the value network become part of the commons (there is no intellectual property). Affiliates (agents) rely on their know how to create value (products), using these resources. This value (products) is exchanged on the market for some form of revenue. The revenue is redistributed among all affiliates in proportion to their contributions, using a value accounting system. The barrier to participation to value creation processes is very low. In that sense, the value network is open. Value creation is so widely defined that it encompasses activities usually performed by members of the commercial entity and the community, in the prevalent OSHW model cited above. Therefore, the two structures, the community and the commercial entity are merged together at the level of value creation.<br />
<br />
The open value network model distinguishes between different types of agents, based on their degree of involvement/participation. Thus, we can distinguish between active affiliates (those who take part in value creation) and unaffiliated observers (those who know what's going on in the value network). If we go back to the prevalent OSHW model cited above, we can say that the owners and the employees of the commercial entity, as well as the community members who provide feedback and new design ideas, or who actively propagate information about products are ALL active affiliates.<br />
<br />
We also need to note that active affiliates are those individuals who participate in value creation AND who decide to log their contributions within the value accounting system. Participation in the value accounting system is NOT mandatory. Someone can elect to contribute to the value network without expecting something in return. Thus, the open value network integrates a gift economy with a market-oriented economy. <br />
<br />
That is all fine on the value production side, but what about the distribution side, or the market side?<br />
All the transactional logistics (for the exchanges between the value producing network and its market) and the legal aspects associated with it are moved into what sencoricans call the "Exchange firm", which can be embodied as a non-profit, with the sole purpose of serving the value network.<br />
<br />
So why is the open value network a menace to current OSHW business models? Because by abolishing the distinction between the commercial entity and the community, value networks like SENSORICA threaten to drain these communities associated with OSHW-based firms of their talent!"<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
"We need to make the distinction between co-creation of value and value exchange. These are two important processes but very distinct ones. Sensoricans are working hard to solve the value accounting problem, which is meant to support large scale co-creation of value. The value accounting is a way to capture individual contributions that blend into a unique product, to evaluate these contributions, and to compute equity in the end product, a % for every member.<br />
<br />
NOTE the value accounting system is NOT a system that objectifies value and it is not a bean counting system! It is a contract, a method to which all contributors adhere to reassure every contributor about how the future revenue will be redistributed. That's it! It preserves the subjective nature of value, it can take, in theory, into consideration all types of value, tangible and intangible.<br />
<br />
Once the product is made it is exchanged, and this is where you need currencies, or systems of value exchange.<br />
<br />
Again, value accounting for co-creation of value and value exchange are two different things in my mind. These two systems must interact with each other, but we need to see them as separate. One is designed to manage the amalgamation of value from different agents into one product, the other one is designed to facilitate value exchange between different agents, with no value added in the process."<br />
<br />
<br />
===The current infrastructure on which the first OVNs rely is too centralized===<br />
<br />
Joseph Brown:<br />
<br />
"Currently, OVN relies on a traditional relational database system, which requires a server that represents a central point of failure that cannot be considered resilient. Likewise, the user interface of OVN is a traditional webserver-based application. Technologies already exist that can replace these traditional client-server (or cloud) models, which I will try to cover in sufficent detail.<br />
<br />
Two modern technologies are required to replace the conventional centralized structure of OVN: <br />
<br />
Firstly, in a single-page application (SPA) such as Node.js, MeteorJS, Amber Smalltalk or PharoJS frameworks provide, the entire application runs in the browser and asynchronous messaging between peers or datastores is transparently handled. No web application server is necessary. I will elaborate in another document why I argue for a smalltalk that compiles to JavaScript (and ES6) as the better transitional technology over JavaScript. <br />
https://medium.com/smalltalk-talk/smalltalk-vs-javascript-f35e8bcc5ef4<br />
<br />
Secondly, the data repostitory can be replaced with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). This is a very ingenious peer-to-peer protocol that replicates versioned data among a distributed network of nodes, guaranteeing availability and migrating data accross the IPFS network where demand is highest to reduce latency and bottlenecks. <br />
<br />
Everything in it is content addressed, so it is self-authenticating and can't be confused with with another apparently very similar file - not even different by a dot or a space. It also means it can never disapper behind a broken link and can't vanish into a gone server or memory hole. No particular server need always be online but the file is always online. <br />
<br />
Also, data can be cryptographically authenticated and signed and redundant data is removed and replaced with a locable reference (much like zip or other compression), so it has the good properties of a blockchain without the large waste of storage. The version history repository, like Git, ensures that all changes are completely auditable. <br />
<br />
In fact, a shared virtual file system (via FUSE) probably means that the JSON messaging between OVN nodes would be redundant. JSON messages would probably still be used for IPFS searches. The system could present itself as a seamless interface to a unified data repository, but as impossible to disrupt or corrupt as bittorrent.<br />
<br />
IPFS stores version differences in a kind binary tree structure (Merkel Directed Acyclical Graph) and thus has a tremendous efficiency advantage over blockchains, which have to be fully copied to every node. The bitcoin blockchain size is already 45 Gigabytes and will never cease growing, making blockchains impractical or impossible for mobile applications, reducing the degree of decentralization."<br />
(https://hackpad.com/Omnilocal-Resource-Based-Economy-ORBE-OixTKH54JY3)<br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN, Ethereum and IPFS===<br />
<br />
[http://www.sensorica.co/home/about-us/jim-anastassiou Jim Anastassiou] from [http://www.sensorica.co/home SENSORICA] has done some work for transitioning the OVN's infrastructure, the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/NRP-CAS NRP-CAS], or network resource planning and contribution accounting system, on truly p2p infrastructures. SENSORICA affiliates are looking at [https://www.ethereum.org/ Ethereum] for the governance of OVNs and to IPFS for data and information storage. <br />
On the governance side, Jim has identified three main modules that can be implemented on Ethereum: The [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Governance_equation Governance Equation], the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/The_Value_Equation Value Equation], and the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Resource_Type Resource management system]. <br />
<br />
* '''Governance Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the access to decision making to network affiliates, based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Value Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the redistribution of benefits to all participants in an open venture based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Resource management systems''' are bundles of virtual representations of resources with smart contracts associated with them, that govern access to resources and their use. <br />
<br />
Other people work on building '''process management''', '''reputation systems''', etc. on Ehtereum. <br />
<br />
Recently, sensoricans have looked into [https://holochain.org/ Holochain] as an alternative to Blockchain, as backbone technology for resource and process management applications. <br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN's vs DAOs===<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastaviceanu et al. :<br />
<br />
“An Open Value Network (OVN) is primarily an organizational framework designed to support commons-based peer production” ; structure comes first. But not in the same way as DAOs. DAOs are more an engineering approach, designing a game with the goal to incentivize people to behave in a certain way, geared towards collaborative production. OVNs provide a frame, without prescribing a specific game for open ventures. Open ventures can start from a template game, remix a template or create an entirely new game. An OVN is seen as an ecosystem. Ventures within the network interconnect at a very intimate level as valuables flow freely between them. In DAOs there is no real discussion about flow of resources between them other than cryptographic tokens. Nevertheless, DAOs do have an underlying ecosystem of libraries of smart contracts and DAO2DAO protocols, AMM (Automatic Market Makers) for tokens, TheGraph to provide interoperability between DAOs. The underlying blockchain provides basic connectivity. But no real structure exists for DAOs to perform the level of sophisticated project management, division of labor, accounting methodology that OVN embed in their framework to get things done and that legacy organizations have benefited from for centuries."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
<br />
===What does radical openness mean?===<br />
<br />
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:<br />
<br />
"Radical openness means that any person is able to join a production process. The only constrains are there to protect the shared resources, the commons. This has a profound effect on the way the production process works.<br />
<br />
From an economic point of view, radical openness and radical transparency allows engagement to the production processes by a great number of people that can produce value in amounts that could have never before being conceived(wikipedia, wikispeed).<br />
<br />
From an ethical point of view, the production process tries to maximize product value rather than profits. At the same time revenue is distributed to a greater number of people. Because everyone is free to join and cocreate value, in an open and democratic way, people love to work, they work on things they like or are good at."<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/ April 2015)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
* See the related entry on [[Open Value Metrics]].<br />
* see [[Value Networks]] ; by [[Verna Allee]]<br />
<br />
'''Introductory links''':<br />
<br />
# [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page See more on the OVN wiki]<br />
# [http://www.sensorica.co/ sensorica website]<br />
# [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Sensorica Case Study]<br />
<br />
More:<br />
<br />
* [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page OVN wiki]<br />
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. [[Yasir Siddiqui]], [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].<br />
* [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica]<br />
* [https://open.coop/2016/06/15/open-value-networks/ Open Value Networks] introducing TEDx talk by [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Business]]<br />
[[Category:Encyclopedia]]<br />
[[Category:Open_Company_Formats]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Accounting]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Open]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Policies_for_a_Transnational_Commons_Economy&diff=139933Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy2024-02-28T20:47:20Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>=Discussion=<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using [[Open Value Network]] (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with [[OVN]] architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic ([[OVN]] based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Policy]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Transnational_Economic_Collectives&diff=139932Transnational Economic Collectives2024-02-28T20:46:17Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Commons_Based_Reciprocity_Licenses&diff=139931Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses2024-02-28T20:44:35Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Commons-Based Reciprocity License</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Commons-Based Reciprocity License]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Commons-based_peer_to_peer_production&diff=139930Commons-based peer to peer production2024-02-28T20:43:29Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Commons-Based Peer Production</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Commons-Based Peer Production]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139929Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:42:05Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
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= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating [[commons-based peer production]] and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design [[commons]] should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge [[commons]].<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global [[commons]]. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design [[commons]], as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design [[commons]] would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design [[commons]] and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized [[commons-based peer production]] and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form [[mesh networks]], use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. [[Globalization]] was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resources, energy and waste limits force cities to create [[circular economies]] that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See [[FabCity]] as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using [[Open Value Network]] (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of [[Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses]] (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional [[currency]] capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that [[commons-based peer to peer production]] is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, [[Phyles]] and [[Transnational Economic Collectives]] – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139928Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:41:24Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sources */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating [[commons-based peer production]] and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design [[commons]] should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge [[commons]].<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global [[commons]]. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design [[commons]], as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design [[commons]] would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design [[commons]] and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form [[mesh networks]], use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. [[Globalization]] was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resources, energy and waste limits force cities to create [[circular economies]] that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See [[FabCity]] as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using [[Open Value Network]] (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of [[Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses]] (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional [[currency]] capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that [[commons-based peer to peer production]] is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, [[Phyles]] and [[Transnational Economic Collectives]] – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139927Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:39:40Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Transformation: Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form [[mesh networks]], use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. [[Globalization]] was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resources, energy and waste limits force cities to create [[circular economies]] that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See [[FabCity]] as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using [[Open Value Network]] (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of [[Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses]] (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional [[currency]] capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that [[commons-based peer to peer production]] is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, [[Phyles]] and [[Transnational Economic Collectives]] – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139926Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:35:33Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form [[mesh networks]], use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. [[Globalization]] was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resources, energy and waste limits force cities to create [[circular economies]] that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See [[FabCity]] as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139925Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:31:40Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form [[mesh networks]], use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139924Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:28:11Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make™ and Facebook Fabricate™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Some observations'''<br />
<br />
When it comes to distributed manufacturing, see the history of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechShop TechShop], an attempt at the franchise model that failed. <br />
<br />
When it comes to local food production, [https://www.ubereats.com Ubereats] is a great example that shows potential for growth. In essence, Uber provides the interface with clients to local restaurants, a market (variety and quantity) and delivery logistics using independent drivers. By monopolizing access to clients Ubereats can dictate prices and generate powerful signals to local restaurants for the type of food that is needed in a specific area, affecting quality as well.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form mesh networks, use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139923Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:15:33Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Description */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design [[commons]] in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of [[value]]. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with [[Maker Bot]]’s Thingverse and the [[Global Village Construction Set]] ([[Open Source Ecology]]), as well as medicines under [[Creative Commons]] licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located [[intellectual property]] within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form mesh networks, use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139922Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:10:11Z<p>TiberiusB: /* More Information */</p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design commons in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of value. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with Maker Bot’s Thingverse and the Global Village Construction Set, as well as medicines under Creative Commons licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located intellectual property within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
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= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
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=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
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= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form mesh networks, use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
=See also=<br />
[[Subsidiarity]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Cosmo-Localism&diff=139921Cosmo-Localism2024-02-28T20:09:31Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>* see also our companion entry on [[Cosmo-Localization]]<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
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<br />
<br />
= Contextual Quotes =<br />
<br />
Cosmo-localism "comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost. Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains. Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed."<br />
<br />
- Vasilis Kostakis and Jose Ramos ([https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591 TheConversation], 2017)<br />
<br />
Below we describe cosmo-localism as both an objective reality, i.e. a way of organizing production, and as a potential aspect of a new world order. But it can also be seen as an ethical principle:<br />
<br />
“To live in such a way that the world becomes, here and elsewhere, more cosmically beautiful than it already is. If the beautiful here supposes the unlivable elsewhere, it is not beautiful in the cosmic sense: I cannot be satisfied with a beauty which would be reserved for me, if it supposes ugliness and suffering elsewhere. Only this type of aesthetic, not 'environmental', but cosmic, seems interesting to me. Beauty is not based on competitive ugliness.”<br />
<br />
- Bertrand Guest (Krisis, #49, 2018, p.24)<br />
<br />
<br />
= Description =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design commons in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of value. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with Maker Bot’s Thingverse and the Global Village Construction Set, as well as medicines under Creative Commons licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.<br />
<br />
As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located intellectual property within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
= Characteristics =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:<br />
<br />
* that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;<br />
* that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;<br />
* that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;<br />
* and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.<br />
<br />
Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism."<br /><br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
===Visualization===<br />
<br />
[[File:Cosmo-localism - table.png]]<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
=Discussion=<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.<br />
<br />
Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.<br />
<br />
Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).<br />
<br />
As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy [[subsidiarity]] (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
== Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism ==<br />
<br />
In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:<br />
<br />
# Global knowledge and design commons<br />
# Consumer manufacturing technology<br />
# Maker movement<br />
# Urbanization and mega-city regions<br />
# Economic precarity<br />
# Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies<br />
<br />
Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.<br />
<br />
A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.<br />
<br />
A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.<br />
<br />
The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.<br />
<br />
Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.<br />
<br />
The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism==<br />
<br />
"In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:<br />
# Platform oligopolies<br />
# Economic incumbents<br />
# Intellectual property regimes<br />
# Consumer culture<br />
<br />
Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.<br />
<br />
Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).<br />
<br />
The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
= Discussion 2: Scenarios =<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.<br />
<br />
== Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted==<br />
<br />
In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)<br />
<br />
In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.<br />
<br />
Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.<br />
<br />
== Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping ==<br />
<br />
A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.<br />
<br />
Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?<br />
<br />
In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form mesh networks, use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.<br />
<br />
Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.<br />
<br />
== Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states ==<br />
<br />
In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.<br />
<br />
Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)<br />
<br />
Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).<br />
<br />
Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade."<br />
<br />
== Transformation: [[Policies for a Transnational Commons Economy]] ==<br />
<br />
Jose Ramos:<br />
<br />
"A transformation scenario is one where [[Cosmo-Localism]] is supported by a ‘[[Partner State]]’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.<br />
<br />
Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.<br />
<br />
Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. <br />
<br />
<br />
The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:<br />
<br />
* The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;<br />
* Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;<br />
* Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;<br />
* New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;<br />
* Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.<br />
* Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them."<br />
(http://actionforesight.net/cosmo-localism-and-the-futures-of-material-production/)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
===Key Articles & Books===<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., Giotitsas, C. 2023. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. ''Sustainability Science''. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1<br />
<br />
*Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex. 2019. [https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book33/ "Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto"]. University of Westminster Press. <br />
<br />
*Manzini, E. (2013) [https://designobserver.com/feature/small-local-open-and-connected-resilient-systems-and-sustainable-qualities/37670 Small, Local, Open and Connected: Resilient Systems and Sustainable Qualities] in Design Observer.<br />
<br />
*Schismenos, A., Niaros, V. & Lemos, L. (2020) [https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1188 Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics Towards Post-Capitalism]<nowiki/>in ''Triple-C.'' ''18'' (2): 670–684.<br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Niaros, Vasilis, Dafermos, George, and Bauwens, Michel. 2015. “[[Design Global, Manufacture Local]]: Exploring the Contours of an Emerging Productive Model”. Futures, 73, 126-135. http://www.p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Futures.pdf <br />
<br />
*Kostakis, Vasilis, Latoufis, Kostas, Liarokapis, Minas, and Bauwens, Michel. [http://www.p2plab.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Journal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases]. ''Journal of Cleaner Production''.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Global_Governance]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Commons_Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Open_Science_Funding&diff=139883Open Science Funding2024-02-21T20:54:22Z<p>TiberiusB: </p>
<hr />
<div>= Open Science Space: We help communities, researchers, scientists, teachers and students attain their financial goals through crowd-funding.<br />
<br />
URL = http://funding.opensciencespace.com/en<br />
<br />
: NOTE: URL doesn't work anymore...<br />
<br />
[[Category:Peerfunding]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139869Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T20:10:55Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Other theoretical arguments for peer production */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to the point of disrupting. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around 3D printers and drones.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores.<br />
But most importantly, peer production is largely dependent on the mainstream economic system to reproduce itself, as it cannot feed al the agents that engage in it. Thus, most agents involved gain their subsistence from gobs in companies. This is also about to change and the leading tendencies are in web3. First, people created cryptocurrencies and tied them to specific processes to give them value. They in turn used these cryptocurrencies to fund their own activities, which constitutes a bootstrapping ability via new monetary currencies that are entirely under the control of these communities. Although this constitutes a good start, it still relies largely on markets and monetary currency, which is still under the logic of the industrial capitalist economy. More creatively, we've seen the use of the same blockchain technology to create tokens that represent no-monetary currencies, that can code for credentials, entitlements, access to services and processes (governance for example). All these new forms of currencies provide new channels for access and are able to incentivize economic activity while bypassing markets and the monetary system. We are seeing here the beginning of a complete detachment of peer production from the dominant economic logic. In our opinion, it may take another decade or two before peer production can reproduce itself, independently from the current economy, which building and implementing its own social support structures, institutions and social governance.<br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity, versatility and especially for the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Other theoretical arguments for peer production=<br />
<br />
Reference: [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Economic_model Imported from the OVN wiki]<br />
<br />
First, please consider the notion of [[value]], then come back to read further. <br />
<br />
The possibility of stable, sustainable global-scale open networks is no more questionable, they exist in almost all spheres of human activity. If we listen carefully to [https://draft.blogger.com/# Ronald Coase], we can understand why open networks are possible. In essence, the Internet '''reduces [https://draft.blogger.com/# transaction costs] among economic [[agents]]'''. We join other individuals into an arrangement, we join [[organizations]], if we have more to gain than operating independently.<br />
<br />
: The type of organizational arrangement depends on the type or the area of activity. Thus we can form private, public, cooperative (co-ops) and non profit [[organizations]]. We live in cities, build nation [[states]] and form international alliances. Today, we can also organize as global, [[transnational]] open networks. There is a blueprint for every type of [[organization]], which prescribes a set of relations or [[roles]], policies, methods and procedures, as well as capturing and redistribution mechanisms for [[valuables]]. People decide to restrict their individual autonomy by entering in relation with others according to an organizational blueprint, that is to join an [[organization]], to increase their collective capacity beyond the sum of their individual [[capacities]] and, in doing so, to [[benefit]] from their collective output. If they don't gain in [[capacity]] and [[benefits]], they will likely operate alone until a new form of [[organization]] that provides greater advantages emerges, if possible.<br />
<br />
The Internet with the recent p2p technologies ([[blockchain]] and others) that the [[open culture]] has built on top of it make open networks a new possible arrangement, where the cost / [[benefit]] ratios for a new type of global scale collaboration is favourable. Open networks do exist and some of them are highly innovative and very efficient in production and [[distribution]], or [[dissemination]], of their outputs. How can we understand this fact?<br />
<br />
: The [[open source]] movement has democratized 3D printing and [[DIY]] drones and has created [[blockchain]], which are some of the most disruptive technologies in the past two decades. Also, despite the negative press on [[Bitcoin]] related to its energy consumption, it only represents a small fraction of the energy consumption of the banking system. It is also the most secure exchange network that humanity has ever produced.<br />
<br />
[https://draft.blogger.com/# Yochay Benkler] identifies two reasons for understanding why open networks can outcompete traditional [[organizations]]. The first one is related to what economists call '''''information opportunity cost'''''. In essence, it says that open networks perform better in complex situations where a lot of information needs to be processed in order to seize opportunities and produce good responses to events. The second reason refers to what economists call the '''''resource allocation problem'''''. Open networks do better in matching skills to [[tasks]] and allocating [[resources]] to the right activity.<br />
<br />
Li and Seering (2019) also found that an open community reduces costs and shortens the time to market with five mechanisms: <br />
# OS community members can help '''decrease the risk of product failure''' by providing product testing feedback, <br />
# OS community developers can help '''reduce internal R&D costs''', <br />
# the OS community helps to r'''educe marketing and sales costs''' by introducing OS products to ideal potential customer pools, <br />
# the OS community represents a '''talent pool for recruitment''', which saves on recruiting costs, and <br />
# the OS community provides '''resources for product customer channels and partnerships'''. [https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2023-1-page-109.htm?ref=doi Reference paper].<br />
<br />
In ancient times, the tribe's socioeconomic structure was effective when the in-group was less than ~150 people, and one could remember reputation, debts and favours for each member of the tribe. This is called the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar number]. Since then, religions, nation-states, and corporations have all taken our ability to collaborate on shared goals to new levels of achievement. Today, [https://draft.blogger.com/# Michel Bauwens] speaks about peak hierarchy: horizontality is starting to trump verticality, it is becoming more competitive to be distributed, than to be (de)centralized. If we go back to Ronald Coase, hierarchies have higher costs due to excessive overhead for bureaucracy (an army of paper pushing middle men), a lack of [[transparency]], coherence, speed & efficiency. Open networks seem to be poised for domination.<br />
<br />
All these transformations are not just the desire of a group of individuals, they are not driven purely by ideology. They happen because the conditions are right, because a new potential exists and people all over the world respond to it, intuitively understanding the benefits that it offers. But disruptive changes are usually met with resistance. Sooner or later those who benefit from the status quo come to understand the threat that the change poses to their situation and they start to oppose it. A conflict takes shape between them and those who already benefit from the new potential. The church opposed the enlightenment by denigrating the scientific method and by banning the printing press, trying to stop the spread of new ideas. Monarchs opposed the shift to parliamentary democracy and free market economy fuelled by the industrial revolution. Today, states go after cryptocurrency which symbolizes the movement of decentralization. In all these cases, a technology was at the heart of the movement: the printing press for spreading non-dogmatic ideas, the steam engine for spreading new modes of production, the Internet for facilitating new ways of organizing. It is easier to crash a movement that is solely organized based on ideas. History shows that it is almost impossible to stop a diffused transformation based on a new potential.<br />
<br />
Fundamentally speaking, the new potential comes from disruptions in three key areas:<br />
* Communication: The Internet makes possible many-to-many [[communication]] at global scale, in a p2p way (i.e. non-intermediated).<br />
* Coordination: The Internet makes possible [[stigmergic]] coordination, allowing huge numbers of individuals to swarm into action like never before.<br />
* Collaboration: The Internet allows many minds to think together, many arms to swing together. In other words, it gives rise to [[social intelligence]], makes possible massive [[crowdsourcing]] and facilitates the deployment of complex activities based on [[stigmergy]].<br />
<br />
In sum, we are witnessing the emergence of a [[p2p society]], which has its own load of good and bad. On the good side of things, it strikes a balance between the individual and communities. It transfers power to the individual, allowing open access to participation in all socioeconomic processes, within the boundaries of community, or network, self-imposed rules.<br />
<br />
At the economic level, individuals in a [[p2p society]] have the ability to coordinate their efforts, transact among themselves, co-create and distribute their creations, while bypassing hierarchical and closed intermediary institutions, thus escaping the established [[power]] structure, which is designed to perpetuate economic dependence. We are witnessing the emergence of a new mode of production, [[commons-based peer production]] (or simply [[peer production]]), the formation of a [[p2p economy]].<br />
<br />
When it comes to material production, digital fabrication allows small groups of people to create local capacity for production at very low cost. [[Fablabs]] and [[makerspaces]] are local production units that go in that direction. This is coupled to access to global supply markets for key components. These small groups are interconnected via the Internet to coordinate innovation ([[open source]] development). <br />
<br />
<br />
The underlying economic model depends on the type of value network.<br />
<br />
<br />
Read also [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Stigmergic&diff=139868Stigmergic2024-02-14T20:10:00Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Stigmergy</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Stigmergy]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139867Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T20:09:22Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Open Source Washing Machine */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to the point of disrupting. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around 3D printers and drones.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores.<br />
But most importantly, peer production is largely dependent on the mainstream economic system to reproduce itself, as it cannot feed al the agents that engage in it. Thus, most agents involved gain their subsistence from gobs in companies. This is also about to change and the leading tendencies are in web3. First, people created cryptocurrencies and tied them to specific processes to give them value. They in turn used these cryptocurrencies to fund their own activities, which constitutes a bootstrapping ability via new monetary currencies that are entirely under the control of these communities. Although this constitutes a good start, it still relies largely on markets and monetary currency, which is still under the logic of the industrial capitalist economy. More creatively, we've seen the use of the same blockchain technology to create tokens that represent no-monetary currencies, that can code for credentials, entitlements, access to services and processes (governance for example). All these new forms of currencies provide new channels for access and are able to incentivize economic activity while bypassing markets and the monetary system. We are seeing here the beginning of a complete detachment of peer production from the dominant economic logic. In our opinion, it may take another decade or two before peer production can reproduce itself, independently from the current economy, which building and implementing its own social support structures, institutions and social governance.<br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity, versatility and especially for the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Other theoretical arguments for peer production=<br />
<br />
Reference: [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Economic_model Imported from the OVN wiki]<br />
<br />
First, please consider the notion of [[value]], then come back to read further. <br />
<br />
The possibility of stable, sustainable global-scale open networks is no more questionable, they exist in almost all spheres of human activity. If we listen carefully to [https://draft.blogger.com/# Ronald Coase], we can understand why open networks are possible. In essence, the Internet '''reduces [https://draft.blogger.com/# transaction costs] among economic [[agents]]'''. We join other individuals into an arrangement, we join [[organizations]], if we have more to gain than operating independently.<br />
<br />
: The type of organizational arrangement depends on the type or the area of activity. Thus we can form private, public, cooperative (co-ops) and non profit [[organizations]]. We live in cities, build nation [[states]] and form international alliances. Today, we can also organize as global, [[transnational]] open networks. There is a blueprint for every type of [[organization]], which prescribes a set of relations or [[roles]], policies, methods and procedures, as well as capturing and redistribution mechanisms for [[valuables]]. People decide to restrict their individual autonomy by entering in relation with others according to an organizational blueprint, that is to join an [[organization]], to increase their collective capacity beyond the sum of their individual [[capacities]] and, in doing so, to [[benefit]] from their collective output. If they don't gain in [[capacity]] and [[benefits]], they will likely operate alone until a new form of [[organization]] that provides greater advantages emerges, if possible.<br />
<br />
The Internet with the recent p2p technologies ([[blockchain]] and others) that the [[open culture]] has built on top of it make open networks a new possible arrangement, where the cost / [[benefit]] ratios for a new type of global scale collaboration is favourable. Open networks do exist and some of them are highly innovative and very efficient in production and [[distribution]], or [[dissemination]], of their outputs. How can we understand this fact?<br />
<br />
: The [[open source]] movement has democratized 3D printing and [[DIY]] drones and has created [[blockchain]], which are some of the most disruptive technologies in the past two decades. Also, despite the negative press on [[Bitcoin]] related to its energy consumption, it only represents a small fraction of the energy consumption of the banking system. It is also the most secure exchange network that humanity has ever produced.<br />
<br />
[https://draft.blogger.com/# Yochay Benkler] identifies two reasons for understanding why open networks can outcompete traditional [[organizations]]. The first one is related to what economists call '''''information opportunity cost'''''. In essence, it says that open networks perform better in complex situations where a lot of information needs to be processed in order to seize opportunities and produce good responses to events. The second reason refers to what economists call the '''''resource allocation problem'''''. Open networks do better in matching skills to [[tasks]] and allocating [[resources]] to the right activity.<br />
<br />
Li and Seering (2019) also found that an open community reduces costs and shortens the time to market with five mechanisms: <br />
# OS community members can help '''decrease the risk of product failure''' by providing product testing feedback, <br />
# OS community developers can help '''reduce internal R&D costs''', <br />
# the OS community helps to r'''educe marketing and sales costs''' by introducing OS products to ideal potential customer pools, <br />
# the OS community represents a '''talent pool for recruitment''', which saves on recruiting costs, and <br />
# the OS community provides '''resources for product customer channels and partnerships'''. [https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2023-1-page-109.htm?ref=doi Reference paper].<br />
<br />
In ancient times, the tribe's socioeconomic structure was effective when the in-group was less than ~150 people, and one could remember reputation, debts and favours for each member of the tribe. This is called the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar number]. Since then, religions, nation-states, and corporations have all taken our ability to collaborate on shared goals to new levels of achievement. Today, [https://draft.blogger.com/# Michel Bauwens] speaks about peak hierarchy: horizontality is starting to trump verticality, it is becoming more competitive to be distributed, than to be (de)centralized. If we go back to Ronald Coase, hierarchies have higher costs due to excessive overhead for bureaucracy (an army of paper pushing middle men), a lack of [[transparency]], coherence, speed & efficiency. Open networks seem to be poised for domination.<br />
<br />
All these transformations are not just the desire of a group of individuals, they are not driven purely by ideology. They happen because the conditions are right, because a new potential exists and people all over the world respond to it, intuitively understanding the benefits that it offers. But disruptive changes are usually met with resistance. Sooner or later those who benefit from the status quo come to understand the threat that the change poses to their situation and they start to oppose it. A conflict takes shape between them and those who already benefit from the new potential. The church opposed the enlightenment by denigrating the scientific method and by banning the printing press, trying to stop the spread of new ideas. Monarchs opposed the shift to parliamentary democracy and free market economy fuelled by the industrial revolution. Today, states go after cryptocurrency which symbolizes the movement of decentralization. In all these cases, a technology was at the heart of the movement: the printing press for spreading non-dogmatic ideas, the steam engine for spreading new modes of production, the Internet for facilitating new ways of organizing. It is easier to crash a movement that is solely organized based on ideas. History shows that it is almost impossible to stop a diffused transformation based on a new potential.<br />
<br />
Fundamentally speaking, the new potential comes from disruptions in three key areas:<br />
* Communication: The Internet makes possible many-to-many [[communication]] at global scale, in a p2p way (i.e. non-intermediated).<br />
* Coordination: The Internet makes possible [[stigmergic]] coordination, allowing huge numbers of individuals to swarm into action like never before.<br />
* Collaboration: The Internet allows many minds to think together, many arms to swing together. In other words, it gives rise to [[social intelligence]], makes possible massive [[crowdsourcing]] and facilitates the deployment of complex activities based on [[stigmergy]].<br />
<br />
In sum, we are witnessing the emergence of a [[peer-to-peer society]], which has its own load of good and bad. On the good side of things, it strikes a [[balance between the individual and communities]]. It transfers power to the individual, allowing open access to participation in all socioeconomic processes, within the boundaries of community, or network, self-imposed rules.<br />
<br />
At the economic level, individuals in a [[p2p society]] have the ability to coordinate their efforts, transact among themselves, co-create and distribute their creations, while bypassing hierarchical and closed intermediary institutions, thus escaping the established [[power]] structure, which is designed to perpetuate economic dependence. We are witnessing the emergence of a new mode of production, [[commons-based peer production]] (or simply [[peer production]]), the formation of a [[p2p economy]].<br />
<br />
When it comes to material production, digital fabrication allows small groups of people to create local capacity for production at very low cost. [[Fablabs]] and [[makerspaces]] are local production units that go in that direction. This is coupled to access to global supply markets for key components. These small groups are interconnected via the Internet to coordinate innovation ([[open source]] development). <br />
<br />
<br />
The underlying economic model depends on the type of value network.<br />
<br />
<br />
Read also [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]<br />
<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Commons-based_peer_production&diff=139866Commons-based peer production2024-02-14T14:41:48Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Commons-Based Peer Production</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Commons-Based Peer Production]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=OVN&diff=139865OVN2024-02-14T14:40:45Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Open Value Network</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Open Value Network]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Open_Value_Network&diff=139864Open Value Network2024-02-14T14:38:59Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Definition */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
<br />
==Context==<br />
<br />
The '''[[Value Network]] definition''' from the Wikipedia at<br />
<br />
<br />
"'''Value networks (value webs), are complex sets of social and technical resources that work together via relationships to create value in the form of knowledge, intelligence, products, services or social good.''' Included in a company’s value networks are research, development, design, production, marketing, sales, and distribution - working interdependently to add to the overall worth of products and services. Companies also have external facing value networks where value is created from the relationships and interactions between organizations, its customers or recipients, intermediaries, stakeholders, complementors and suppliers. Value network principles apply equally well to public agencies, civil society organizations and other purposeful networks focused on creating economic or social good."<br />
<br />
([[Wikipedia:Value network]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Definition==<br />
<br />
'''1.''' From [http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork]:<br />
<br />
"'''Open Value Network(s) expand on Value Networks, by incorporating the possibility to open different processes and exchanges up to a broader base of volunteer, but reciprocated participants.''' <br />
<br />
The Value Network approach seeks to add value to all exchanges in a Value Chain. Including voluntary or traditionally non-compensated participants in Open projects related to business webs.<br />
<br />
The Open Value Network approach also seeks to create effective ways for many independent-actor and small group business ventures to create and use OpenValueNetwork models."<br />
<br />
(http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. OVN Wiki:'''<br />
<br />
[http://ovn.world http://ovn.world]<br />
<br />
"From a social perspective: an OVN is a complex form of social organization. Through interaction, values and rules as well as norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness are constantly emerging and being (or not) sustained.<br />
<br />
From an economic perspective: an OVN is a group of agents that collaborate openly and transparently to offer goods and services, expecting benefits in proportion to everyone’s contribution.<br />
<br />
An OVN is understood as a complex dynamical system, a living system, with an emergent structure (not imposed or predefined)... [with] initial conditions for such systems to exist and basic requirements for such systems to succeed in their mission, which are characterized as a Critical Path."<br />
<br />
See also<br />
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit Essay: comparison between DAO and OVN]<br />
* [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=DAO DAO on the OVN wiki]<br />
<br />
==Description==<br />
<br />
"The OVN model applies to open and decentralized networks. It makes these networks formidable economic agents. The Bitcoin network for example, can provide a stable and secure service of value exchange. It is an open (permissionless) network: anyone can join as a user, as a provider of infrastructure (as a miner), or as a developer (contributing to the Bitcoin open source software). The OVN model allows similar networks to offer more complex services and to produce and distribute material goods."<br />
<br />
<br />
'''1. [[Yasir Siddiqui]]:'''<br />
<br />
"An open value network (OVN) is a network of open-enterprises that can provide all functions of a corporation in an open-collaboration fashion. Recently, we have seen a rise in open-collaboration in the functions of marketing, communication, value creation, and so forth. Yet, there has never been an open collaboration model that can provide all the functions of a corporation. The structure of OVN framework provided in this paper outlines a model that could create a true open-collaboration enterprise that would follow the principles of open source.<br />
<br />
Open-source models present a tremendous opportunity to tackle social and environmental challenges. Nonetheless, open source models daunting financial and legal challenges since there are gaps in the business model. The open-enterprise framework provided in this paper could help resolve these challenges by providing the required open-legal and governance structures.<br />
<br />
From sustainability perspective, an OVN provides mechanisms of non-control and open-access while providing all the function of a corporation. Therefore, I conclude that open-enterprises can truly target social and environmental market needs in efficient way while creating and redistributing the value generated in an ethical fashion. Hence, the OVN model meets the Porter and Kramer’s (2011) criteria for scalable sustainability."<br />
<br />
[http://sensoricablog.blogspot.ca/2013/11/blog-post.html go to the source paper]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:'''<br />
<br />
"The OVN model proposes that each production process publishes all information about its internal functioning. That allows production methods to be copied. Provides accountability. Public view allows people to propose better solutions and to detect errors sooner. Moreover, ecological and other externalities are easily Identifiable.<br />
<br />
The OVN model also proposes that information about the supply chains be also visible. All production processes should provide information about their product and the requirements they have in tools, materials and human resources as well as the current suppliers and customers.<br />
<br />
The ability to search and analyze these data allows for different groups that were otherwise isolated and small to interconnect. This has the profound advantage that these small groups can cooperate, coproduce value and thus be able to compete with traditional companies with a higher number of capital assets. Moreover the information about the supply chains allows people to suggest more efficient supply chains and at the same time bypass the supply chain middlemen entirely."<br />
<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''3. Alex Pazaitis:''' <br />
<br />
"An OVN is a generic organizational and business model, which could possibly enhance and support commons-based peer production. As an organization it is highly adaptive, fully decentralized, and governed through distributed decision-making processes and resource allocation. As the name implies, it supports open participation, has very low barriers of entry, and is designed to empower permissionless individual action through open knowledge and transparent processes. <br />
<br />
The OVN is characterized by three fundamental principles: open membership, transparency, and variety of contributions. Open membership means that members can freely join or leave the network and form, join, or acquire enterprise entities. Also, members can be individuals of diverse backgrounds or organizations, including non-profits, government entities, enterprises, or even other OVNs. Transparency enables the open-source communities to gain access to information, knowledge, and processes, with certain restrictions regarding specific types of resources that may need to be handled exclusively by special expertise (e.g., dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists). Finally, a broad spectrum of contributions can take place, including material (e.g., resources, tools, consumables) and immaterial inputs (e.g., time, effort, information) or capital (e.g., financial investments, space, equipment, infrastructure).<br />
<br />
The aspiration of the OVN model is to create a viable structure that harnesses the advantages of open collaboration and sharing, while it addresses the challenges of open-source projects related to governance and sustainability." <br />
<br />
See full paper here: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm. <br />
<br />
<br />
'''4. David Bollier:'''<br />
<br />
"Most commons tightly limit or prohibit the sale of their resources to markets except on stipulated<br />
terms, lest market ambitions begin to unravel collective commitments. Open value networks have<br />
no reservations about engaging with markets, but they do take active steps to maintain their<br />
organizational and cultural integrity as commons-based peer producers. This means that OVNs<br />
insist upon open, horizontal and large-scale cooperation and coordination so that everyone knows<br />
what is going on. Using systems like Co-budget, OVNs seek to democratically manage shared<br />
wealth and assets while allowing individual access, use, authorship and ownership of resources,<br />
consistent with group needs. OVNs use a careful accounting of individual “inputs and outcomes”<br />
via a common ledger system, and distribute rewards to participants based on their individual<br />
contributions to the project.<br />
<br />
OVN stress that while they may be legally nonprofits or for-profits, they are not functionally either,<br />
in that they have no retained earnings or fixed assets. They instead function as “a flow-through<br />
entity which is as formless as possible,” but which functions as a trust for its members, as outlined<br />
by a “nondominium” agreement.<br />
<br />
While still fairly rudimentary, OVNs represent a fascinating new<br />
type of consensual governance/production regime, bound by contractual terms, that blends<br />
commons principles and market activity."<br />
<br />
([https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/transnational-republics-of-commoning-2-new-forms-of-network-based-governance/2016/09/16],<br />
[https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-09-19/new-forms-of-network-based-governance/])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Example==<br />
<br />
The OVN model originated within the [[Sensorica]] network/community<br />
<br />
===[[Tiberius Brastavicenau on the Open Value Networks Practice at Sensorica]]===<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"Since 2008 I have been involved in building infrastructure for commons-based peer production. In the open value network model that we propose, the economic activity of all the network affiliates operating in a peer production network is recorded, activities are compared and weighted against each others based on metrics that are agreed upon democratically. The redistribution of benefits is in part quantitative, turning someone's efforts into coins, which can represent equity or debt and can be later used to get tangible benefits. Qualitative characteristics of economic contributions and behavior are also taken into consideration, based on how the contribution is made, on different dimensions of reputation of the affiliate, etc. All this is packaged into an IT tool, a contribution accounting system and an algorithm for computing the redistribution of benefits that we call a value equation. This represents a social contract among affiliates, designed to generate a sense of fairness among them and to render the economic activity effective and efficient.<br />
<br />
This system for capturing, recording and comparing economic activity has been implemented in SENSORICA, the first open value network. The same system can also be applied to other types of organizations, more or less networked, more or less open (with respect to access to participation) or transparent (with respect to access to information).<br />
<br />
This system has profound consequences on how the global economy works. Let's enumerate a few of them.<br />
<br />
When I was in my teenage years, I worked on a farm situated a few kilometers north of Montreal, Canada, picking blueberries and strawberries. We were payed by the weight of fruit that we picked. Throughout the day, we would bring our fruit baskets to a tractor, where they were weighed, and a record was produced. At the end of the day, everyone was paid according to the total weight gathered (a metric for economic activity). Some were making a lot more than others. It was a purely meritocratic redistribution scheme for a simple economic activity, using a very simple metric. This is very different from the normal employment setting, where employees are paid a fixed, negotiated and agreed upon salary, formalized as a job contract. The employer agrees to pay a certain number of coins to an employee before even starting working. This requires some diligence from the employer, which comes in a form of a filter, a job interview. Moreover, this also requires constant monitoring of the employees' contribution to the company. Companies engage in time management and regular performance reviews. There are at least two important setbacks in this employment setting compared to the first one. For one, the managerial overhead for time management and performance monitoring. Second, the inability of the company to dynamically adjust its workforce and talent base, because of the heavy filtering mechanisms and the contractual agreements in place. We will expand on this below. In the raspberry picking case, the payment is proportional to the production, therefore the need to filter and for time management is less stringent. The reward is directly related to the production. This case presupposes the existence of means to evaluate contributions. The activity that doesn't result in a positive contribution, or that causes damage can be dealt with in various ways. For raspberry picking, the evaluation scheme is obvious: total weight of the picked fruit. The new information technology allows us to go far beyond this simple case, to deal with the complexity of numerous and various tasks involved in our normal workday. A contribution accounting system coupled to a value equation gives flexibility to organizations of all sorts and help them reduce costs.<br />
<br />
Another important consequence of this technology is that it allows an organization to tap into the world's massive human resources in a very dynamic way. At any given moment, there is someone on this planet that has the solution to your problem. Finding this individual or a group of individuals is one important hurdle. But once that hurdle is passed, we need to be able to effectively integrate this new talent into the stream of activities and its associated reward mechanisms. The possible contributor can be far away, which means hard to identify and authenticate, hard to monitor, hard to reprehend, … In these circumstances, the classical mode of employment is long, costly, and sometimes even impossible if we take into consideration all the geopolitical hurdles in place. These opportunities are lost most of the time, and the company is obliged to work with what it has. Different crowdsourcing platforms have emerged as an interface between companies and the crowd, but in my opinion their value proposition is not resonating well with the crowd. Crowd-based problem solving schemes work very well in open source projects and in projects with a great social impact, They are not performing well when only corporate interest is behind the problem. Companies can develop less exploitative and less alienating mechanisms for managing their own crowd-based activities. In order to do so, they must move away from contractual relationships and time management, to interface directly with the crowd by using tools for contribution accounting and evaluation.<br />
<br />
There are other important consequences that we can discuss here, but I think we should jump directly to the one that has, by far, the most disruptive effects on our global economic system. That is the possibility to put information about past economic activity back into the system of redistribution of resources. <br />
<br />
A dollar bill that you receive from someone doesn’t come with a description about how this individual acquired it, or about how this individual is seen by his peers in a context of work. It could have been earned honestly or dishonestly. <br />
<br />
The contribution accounting system and its value equation implemented in the SENSORICA open value network is used to reward participants based on past economic activity. This data accumulated for every affiliate can be distilled into a socioeconomic profile that can be consulted by anyone around the world. It is very dangerous to allow all this information to be gathered and controlled by private interests. These systems should not be deployed by organizations like Facebook or Google. They must be developed on top of p2p infrastructures like block chain for example. That is precisely what we are striving to do with the open value network infrastructure.<br />
<br />
Sensoricans designed and experimented with a system that allows redistribution of benefits and privileges, eliminating the problem of the classical monetary coin, for being detached from the role of the individual in society. This is very similar to the situation in my mother’s village. The system can be scaled and it is using digital technology instead of clay tablets, which makes it easy to gather, store, analyse and retrieve information about socio-economic activity in real time, with no spatial barriers. This is not a Big Brother situation if applied according to p2p principles. <br />
<br />
We are in the middle of a socioeconomic revolution. It is still unclear what the future will look like. In order to inform this transformation we need to revisit a fundamental concept that is used in all these approaches, value."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F19rvACy80_0k3p32dI2NReuVkmozRvDJceaQCuf8y0/edit#])<br />
<br />
<br />
===Directory===<br />
<br />
From Nathan Schneider:<br />
<br />
* [[Assembly]] - “Where we band together to build.”<br />
* [[Bioecon]] - “a peer to peer, growth sensitive, decentralized and self regulated economic agreement in which the means of exchange is produced by participants as a result of our activity”<br />
* [[Enspiral]]: Formally a cooperative, legally an LLC in New Zealand - “we hacked the constitution to make it cooperative-like”<br />
Also a number of Ventures within the structure ; Uses Loomio (which is an Enspiral Venture) for decision-making<br />
* [[Greener Acres Value Network]] - “a resource for entrepreneurs in for-profit and non-profit startups and operational expansions who want to take advantage of agricultural localization”<br />
* [[Metamaps]] - “a free and open source web platform for changemakers, innovators, educators and students. It enables individuals and communities to build and visualize their shared knowledge and unlock their collective intelligence.”<br />
<br />
(http://open.therowboat.com/commons/doku.php/enterprise)<br />
<br />
==History==<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastavicenau:<br />
<br />
"“The model was first proposed, developed and implemented by Sensorica affiliates. Sensorica was created in February 2011. Initially, the model evolved from the Discovery Network model proposed by Tibi between 2008 and 2010. In 2011, the model was developed in collaboration mainly by Tibi, Steve, Kurt, and Bayle, and drew from the work of Verna Allee, Yochai Benkler, Michel Bauwens, Clay Shirky, and others. After the summer of 2012, the network resource planning and contribution accounting system (NRP-CAS) was influenced by Bob Haugen who has been working on resource planning systems since 1995.<br />
<br />
Yasir joined Sensorica in 2013 and helped develop the framework for open value networks. The OVN model was extended to network of networks, in the context of the Open Alliance initiative also lead by Sensorica, an attempt to federate open organizations in Montreal. In 2016 the NOICE/Verdun project built on the Open Alliance initiative, as a second attempt to bring the OVN model at a larger scale.<br />
<br />
Other organizations have adopted a model similar to Sensorica: CoMakery, CollectiveOne, Scuttlebutt.” [OVN world wiki pages].<br />
<br />
Although rooted in earlier and ongoing traditions of open source and collaborative economies, OVN redresses the flaws of collaborative crowdsourcing in CBPP, notably the unsustainable capture of open source value by corporate private interest. The value that is captured by private interest can be captured by an OVN and shared internally bringing value to both contributors and the community. The emphasis thus far has been on FabLab type manufacturing, research intensive projects in a permissionless setting, but can apply to a variety of end uses. The OVN framework accomplishes this feat through a formal accounting of contributions and planning via (….) protocols: NRP (network resource planning), socialization of work, transparency, commoning, a Contribution Accounting System that includes localized cultural subjectivity, signalization, content, interaction, and logging contributions. An OVN also requires contribution accounting and exchange systems, a fair Reputation system, a Role system, a Feedback system, an Incentive system. The OVN framework structure is at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (inter-project level), network level (inter-enterprise level), and global level (inter-network level) [Yasir Siddiqui 2013]. This serves to trickle up network synergies to empower social and environmental demands at global network level. <br />
<br />
Organizationally, OVNs at project level are permissionless and flatter, less hierarchical than more traditional business models, relying on stigmergy to self-coordinate. OVN’s structure formalizes stigmergic patterns through patterns of actions/feedback and self documentation. OVNs like Sensorica are focused on prototyping , research with an eye to serial manufacturing. In practice, an OVN registers contributor contributions towards the value of a project/goods/product/service in a value cycle from value creation to value distribution via a value equation. <br />
<br />
The key idea behind the value equation is to reformulate the value distribution problem to a matching problem and disconnect money (or exchange value) from the process of value distribution. [Value cycle and value equation Yasir Siddiqui 2014 ]<br />
<br />
In effect, for the first time, an attribution system is integrated into the production workflow and supply chains. The first record keeping implementations were in the form of google spreadsheets, in development on blockchain and holochain alpha. Meanwhile DAOs and other protocols are rapidly converging on similar solutions."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Characteristics==<br />
<br />
"The open value network model departs from capitalism for 3 main reasons:<br />
<br />
* No economic cast, no division between owners and workers, between those who own the means of production and those who provide work. The commons takes care of that. <br />
* No clearly defined frontier between the system of design-production-distribution and the market, the system rewards every contributor to value creation in proportion to his/her contribution. The value accounting system takes care of that. <br />
* Reappropriation of labor. Active affiliates who are involved in value creation are not exchanging their labor for wages, they are in fact accumulating equity, which gives them rights to the future revenue generated by exchanging the value they create with the market. Thus the individual is always the owner of his work. <br />
<br />
The value accounting system allows value networks to go beyond the gift economy AND beyond the candy economy."<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
This section defines three fundamental characteristics of an OVN network: open-membership, transparency and open-access, and contributions and their governance.<br />
<br />
===Open Membership===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Open-membership is a major difference between a traditional enterprise and the OVN. In traditional organization, the contributors are employees who need permission to produce use-value, whereas, in an OVN, the employer-employee control relationships do not exist. Instead, an OVN is open, that is, anyone can join and/or leave the network and/or form, join and/or foreclose an open-enterprise at any point. Members can be individuals, or organizations (non-for-profits, governments, open-enterprises or other open-value networks); that is both the OVN and any open-enterprise thereof could consist of individuals, organizations, non-for-profit, government entity and OVNs. This open-membership permits OVN to engage with crowd and operate on a long-tail curve."<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
===Transparency and open-access===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Transparency is applied in the open source communities to provide access to information, knowledge, and processes. In addition to transparency, in an OVN, open access to participation is also critical to allow an equal opportunity for value creation. Nonetheless, certain contributions could be restricted due to the nature of the contribution. For example, dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists. Access to such contributions would be available provided that a certain level of expertise is attained (explained further under project custodian.)"<br />
<br />
===[[Contribution]]===<br />
<br />
"A contribution of a member can be any product, service, time spent on tasks or projects, physical space offered for activities, prototype, ideas, data, information, financial investment, social connection, manufacturing, distribution channels, sales, assuming liability of a product, providing insurance, certification, evaluation, and any other tangible and non-tangible input that a community member provides to satisfy a desire, want or need. In other words, any effort that is a part of the use value is a contribution. By allowing “contribution” to be defined in such a wide spectrum, an OVN does not differentiate between financial and non-financial contributions and therefore, all contributions are evaluated and rewarded as per the defined governance of the project and network.<br />
<br />
There are three types of contributions: project-contribution, network-contribution, and commons-contribution. Project-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the project; the governance of these contributions is defined at the project level. For instance, perishable or consumable materials could only be a part of the project. Network-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the network; the governance of these contributions is defined at the network level. For instance: a physical tool can be shared across projects. Commons-contributions are those contributions that are applicable across networks; the governance of these contributions is defined at the global governance level. For instance: use of standards, legal framework and knowledge."<br />
<br />
==Governance and structure==<br />
<br />
'''The OVN framework defines the structure at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (or inter-project level), network level (or inter-enterprise level), and global level (or inter-network level)'''. This hierarchical structure is design to create synergies among many open-value networks in a network of network environment (or a network of open-enterprise environment). These synergies can be leveraged to collaborate across open-value networks in order to rapidly address the social and environmental demands of the marketplace. In the next section, we will explain the aforementioned hierarchal structures: the project level structure, the open-enterprise level, the network level structure and the global level structure.<br />
<br />
===Project level structure===<br />
<br />
An OVN consists of many open-enterprises that may engage with many projects organized in a non-hierarchical fashion with each project acting as an emergent, self-governing and open structure. Due to the emergent nature, the structure of each project will be different. Nonetheless, there are certain guidelines that each project will need to adopt to enable collaboration at large-scale given under the Collaboration model.<br />
<br />
====Collaboration model====<br />
<br />
The collaboration model is the cornerstone of the OVN framework designed to support collaboration within projects. Similar to a traditional enterprise, an open-enterprise can undertake numerous projects. However, unlike a firm, both the open-enterprise and any projects thereof could be forked to achieve maximum flexibility (explained further under forking.) This collaboration model consists of two major components: value capture and distribution processes; and value creation and exchange processes.<br />
<br />
====Value capture and distribution processes====<br />
<br />
An OVN provides mechanisms to capture value by providing structure and infrastructure required to track each contribution within a project. Finally, once the project reaches maturity, any revenue generated from the project is redistributed based on the respective contributions. <br />
<br />
These mechanisms are achieved by implementing the following processes:<br />
<br />
* '''Initiation:''' A member or members of the network or an open-enterprise thereof can have an idea, which could come from personal interest, a scientific study, or a market study, for a product and/or service that they would like to develop and/or provide.<br />
* '''Agreement:''' Prior to engaging in a project, the initiators of a project agree on three aspects: first, a value equation, second, a governance equation; and third, decisionmaking process within the project. A value equation is a set of evaluation criteria used to evaluate members’ contributions; for example, labour market could provide an appropriate parameters for the initial value equation. A governance equation is a set of criteria that give access to contributors to decisionmaking processes. If and once there is an agreement on these matters, the project commences.<br />
* ''' Logging:''' Once the project commences, each member of the project logs his or her contribution during the course of the project. Logging contribution could be a role that a member can undertake for a project to make the process more efficient (explained further under project tasks and roles)<br />
* '''Referencing:''' Whenever a member uses a contribution of another member, he/she makes a reference in the original contribution. Failure to do so could end up in a bad reputation (explained further under reputation)<br />
* '''Fluid equity:''' Each member’s fluid equity in a project is updated frequently (or in real-time) based on the value equation and the members’ contributions. Since the contributions are logged and referenced, it is possible to calculate the fluid equity by re-tracing the contribution chain and applying the value equation to the contributions.<br />
* '''Reward distribution:''' Whenever members generate revenue (through a market exchange), they distribute it through the financial custodian (explained further under global custodian), who redistributes the revenues based on the fluid equity system.<br />
<br />
====Co-creation of value and exchange processes====<br />
<br />
While the processes to maximize coordination within a larger membership have been realized within the open source communities, the OVN structure provides additional guidelines on processes to ensure that there are synergies among the value creation and exchange processes, and value capture and distribution processes.<br />
<br />
'''1) Project tasks:''' A project task refers to an action that a member must perform to advance the development of a project. Each task is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. On the other hand, roles refer to a certain list of tasks that a person is required to perform and the decisions thereof.<br />
<br />
Each project will have a combination of tasks and roles. For example, producing a component of a product is a task; distribution, selling and repairing are all tasks that could be logged as contributions.<br />
On the other hand, roles consist of a list of tasks that a member assumes the responsibility of. For example, assuming the liability of a product is a role. Additional examples of roles include coordinators, strategists and/or community developer. Roles can be logged as contributions.<br />
Tasks and roles within projects are published for members to accept. Any member could be a part of the project by accepting a role of a task even if the role and/or task is currently under-taken by another member by “Forking” the project (explained further under forking.) Moreover, each task could undergo verification, which can further inform reputation mechanisms (explained further under reputation.)<br />
<br />
'''2) Verification:''' Once a contribution is logged, another member could evaluate the validity and quality of the contribution. Moreover, this verification could take place immediately or after a certain period of time during the course of the project. Verification could be a role within a project. <br />
<br />
'''3) Project custodian:''' Project custodian is a special role chosen through the decision making process of the project. For example, a project custodian could be responsible to ensure the proper use of an asset, such as fragile, complex or expensive equipment. At any point during the project, members can vote to select a different member as a project custodian. Similar to other roles, project custodianship is a contribution.<br />
<br />
'''4) Decision-making:''' Whereas members within the context of a task or a role undertake the task-based decisions, certain decisions such as the selection of a project custodian or a communication platform would require decision making across the project. Such decisions can be based on voting, meritocracy, consensus or executive decision (see more on the governance equation). On the other hand, on a disagreement, it would be possible to fork the project (explained further under forking) since the knowledge is open sourced.<br />
<br />
'''5) Conflict management:''' If there is a conflict among members during the course of the project, members can modify the value equation and the governance equation based on the parameters as per the prior agreement. However, if the conflicts are not resolved, the members can fork the project (explained further under forking.)<br />
<br />
'''6) Forking:''' During the course of the project, any member(s) can choose to fork a project for any reason. That is, take a different direction on the development of the project than the rest of the contributors to the project. In such an instance, the new project can choose different agreements on the value equation and the governance equation of the project from the time of the forking. However, all the contributions prior to the forking will utilize the agreements at the time of forking.<br />
<br />
'''7) Predictability:''' If the project is based on a market study or a customer demand, which are both contributions, then a mechanism could be implemented to predict the value received based on the expected input required to finish the task. This mechanism would improve efficiency of the project by attracting the appropriate level of contributions by guiding the development of value equation. For example, a market study could entice financial contribution, which would be evaluated as per the value equation.<br />
<br />
'''8) Reputation:''' Reputation refers to the detailed track record of a member; for example, tasks delivered and not delivered. During the course of the membership, any member can evaluate another member, which would be visible to all the members. The reputation system could be designed by skill set to create a comprehensive knowledge, skill and attribute profile. Evaluation for reputation could be a role within a project. If coupled to the calculation of fluid equity, the reputation system becomes a very powerful mechanisms for self-regulation.<br />
<br />
===Open-enterprise level structure===<br />
<br />
There are two types of open-enterprises within an OVN: brand-based and liability-based.<br />
<br />
'''Brand-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a new brand and market any of the products through this brand trademarks. This brand trademark could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the brand trademarks could be privately owned, a brand charter would dictate the use of the brand trademarks. The brand trademarks could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the brand charter; for example, product quality and standards. The management of the brand use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of brand trademarks is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the governance of the project.<br />
<br />
'''Liability-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a legal entity to assume the liability of the product including the appropriate use of brand trademarks. This liability could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the legal entity could be privately owned, a liability charter would dictate the use of the legal entity name for contractual obligation and liability purposes. This liability entity could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the liability charter; for example, product verification. The management of the liability entity use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of liability entity is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the value equation of the project.<br />
<br />
===Network level structure===<br />
<br />
Network-level structure defines the structure across all projects of the open-enterprise. The guidelines in the network-level structure supersede the guidelines in the project structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the network-level structure are pertinent only to the network commons. For example, the misuse of the network will have negative consequences for all the members. In addition, since any project can fork, the network governance needs mechanism to resolve any conflicts. Hence, it is pertinent to establish a structure for the network commons. <br />
<br />
The OVN framework identifies the commons of the network and then provides guidelines for the governance for the network.<br />
<br />
====Network commons====<br />
<br />
OVN framework identifies five commons with the network: Network Brand, Infrastructure, Contribution-commons, Reputation and Solidarity mechanisms. In addition, any network-contributions are also a part of the network commons.<br />
<br />
'''1) Network Brand:''' provides value to all the projects by providing trust relationship among the collaborators and potential collaborators of the network. Therefore, it is pertinent to protect the network brand in order to maintain an advantage in the marketplace since the brand value could decrease if misused by a member.<br />
<br />
'''2) Infrastructure:''' Infrastructure provides the tools to produce, store, transfer, exchange and modify information within and outside of network. Therefore, changes in the infrastructure could impact all projects. In addition, tangible tools could also be part of the network that would be governed as per the network governance.<br />
<br />
'''3) Reputation:''' Reputation of a member in a given project is carried forward to other projects. Thus, reputation is a part of the network commons in order to main trust among members.<br />
<br />
'''4) Solidarity mechanisms:''' Solidarity mechanisms are part of the open-value network to ensure two unique aspects: compassion and distribution of risk. Compassion is an important part of human-collaboration and therefore, the network provides insurance mechanism for its members based on the members’ reputation. In addition to compassion, solidarity mechanisms are used to partially reward for unavoidable failures in order to create higher levels of trust and knowledge base within the network; these failures include: process inadequacy, task challenge, process complexity, uncertainty, hypothesis testing, and exploratory testing.<br />
<br />
The network governance determines the decisions on the implementation of solidarity mechanisms.<br />
<br />
====Network governance:====<br />
<br />
Similar to the project governance, the network governance requires decision-making processes and mechanisms to change the decision-making processes. In addition to decision-making, the network requires roles or network custodians to ensure continuity and compliances. Moreover, network requires mechanism to respond to non-compliances to the decisions. Lastly, network needs to be able to recuperate costs in order to self-sustain.<br />
<br />
'''1) Liquid democracy for voting:''' Whereas the democracy relies on choosing a representative for a fixed term, liquid democracy allows a member to delegate a trusted peer to vote on the member’s behalf on certain or all decisions. The trust delegate could apply the same principle. This creates a trust-based decision network that can be applied to take network level decisions efficiently and to maintain high level of satisfaction since getting involved in all decisions can lead to stress and dissatisfaction.[53] Moreover, to avoid biases, an individual member can directly cast their vote on a decision if the member does not agree with the decision outcome within a fixed period of the outcome. Lastly, the number of votes delegate to a member is hidden from the delegate to avoid any possibilities of corruption, power and favoritism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Conflicts during the forking of the project:''' Value equation developed at the time of the forking of the project has to account for the previous contributions at the time of the forking. Failure to reach an agreement at the time of the forking could result in a conflict that could be arbitrated using the liquid democracy mechanism for a faster turn-around.<br />
<br />
'''3) Accountability and Non-compliance:''' It is possible that a member may not comply with the OVN framework. For example, a member may choose a task but not deliver that causes grievances or worse, a member sells a product and keeps the rewards rather than redistributing it. In such instances, the member may get bad reputation, which will be visible to the members across networks.<br />
<br />
'''4) Low-reputation and retribution:''' A member with low reputation will be less likely to find collaborators in any OVN since the reputation is shared across networks (explained further under global structure.) Therefore, a member with low reputation will be unable to benefit from the advantages of the OVN model (explained further under the OVN advantages.) Nevertheless, it is important to create mechanisms to encourage members to regain the lost reputation rather than banishing the members with low reputation since it could increase hostility against the networks, which could lead to intentional attacks. Yet, any decisions on banishment could be taken based on liquid democracy.<br />
<br />
'''5) Network costs:''' All efforts related to the network are considered as projects; for example, the development of the network IT infrastructure is a project. Therefore, the contributions to the network level projects are equally divided among all the projects as contributions to the projects.<br />
<br />
'''6) Network custodians.''' The network custodians are chosen using liquid democracy process and can be responsible for network-commons: brand, infrastructure, and network-contributions. Similarly, network custodians can take the role strategists for the brand and infrastructure; these roles would be selected through liquid democracy but can the responsibility on any and/or all of the decisions could be revoked at any time.<br />
<br />
===Global level structure===<br />
<br />
Global level structure defines the structure across all open-enterprises or networks within an OVN. The guidelines in the global level structure supersede the guidelines in the network structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the global level structure are pertinent only to the global commons. For example: the flow of information across networks. Hence, it is crucial to establish global governance and a legal structure for the global commons.<br />
<br />
====Global governance====<br />
<br />
Global governance of OVN will provide decision-making guidelines for the change in legal constitution of the OVN including the selection of the custodian of the global OVN constitution. This selection could be done through liquid democracy process, as previously described, with participants across OVN.<br />
<br />
'''Legal framework'''<br />
<br />
Legal framework of OVN would consist of global structure, network structure, and enterprise structures. The purpose of the legal structure at the network level is to create a platform for open-innovation. For example, Airbnb provides a platform where the crowd can rent their homes to strangers. Similarly, the OVN provides an ethical and legal framework to create a platform for open source based innovation. Hence, an OVN acts as a platform that consists of many open-enterprises, supported through legal structure at the enterprise level for both brand-based and liability-based entities. In other words, the OVN network provides a platform for the Peer-to-Peer (p2p) liability structure to create a many-to-many relationship between brand owners and liability owners.<br />
<br />
In addition to collaboration within an OVN, the legal structure also provides support for many platforms or open-value networks to co-exist. This is accomplished by sharing reputation, value and knowledge across networks while safeguarding the infrastructure and brand of the network.<br />
<br />
====Permanent global legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Global OVN Constitution custodian:''' will serve as the umbrella organization for the legal framework and will hold the Global OVN constitution. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities and voting mechanisms on how to change the constitution and any of the custodians including global custodian, as per the governance defined in the constitution. Further the constitution defines that each custodian must have its own decision-making mechanism and policies on how to change its decision-making mechanism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Personnel Information custodian:''' will be responsible for the information infrastructure including holder of private information to keep records of the reputation across OVNs. This custodian will have an agreement to share information required for reputation purposes within and outside of the Open-Value Network with the holder of the constitutions as per the rules of the constitution.<br />
<br />
'''3) Standards custodian:''' will hold the global standards in order to ensure the flow of information, contribution, value and reputation across the OVN.<br />
<br />
====Network level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Network custodian:''' would be responsible to hold the constitution of the network. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities within the network and voting mechanisms on how to change the network constitution and any of the custodians within the network including the network custodian, as per the governance defined in the network constitution. In addition to the network constitution, the network custodian will have an agreement with holder of the global constitutions as per the rules of the global constitution.<br />
<br />
In addition to the constitution, the network custodian may hold the brand of the network as well as the responsibility of the any physical and virtual infrastructure, although, these function could be assigned to a separate custodian. For example, one network brand custodian for the network brand, one virtual infrastructure custodian for the virtual infrastructure, and several physical infrastructure custodians for each or some of the local physical hub.<br />
<br />
'''2) Contract holder custodian:''' will be responsible to hold the contract among all enterprise level legal entities (elaborated under enterprise-level legal structures). This custodian will have an agreement with the network custodian as per the rules of the constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
'''3) Financial custodian:''' will be responsible to conduct all financial transaction across the OVN. This custodian will have an agreement with holder of the network custodian as per the rules of the network constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
====Enterprise level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Brand custodian:''' Any member(s) that wishes to form a brand could initiate an open-enterprise within the network with its unique brand name and provides a charter for the brand use. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. For example, the open-enterprise can use the services of the network as long as it allows for peer-based audits to ensure transparency and ethical behavior as defined in the network constitution.<br />
<br />
'''2) Liability custodian:''' Any member that wishes to assume the liability of a product can form a legal entity. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. Thereafter, any member that abides by the terms and conditions of the liability custodian would be able to transact directly with the market while forwarding the liability to the custodian."<br />
<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
The above material is mostly sourced from the document under construction: '''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. Authors: [[Yasir Siddiqui]] (main author), [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].'''<br />
<br />
Creative Commons (BY NC CA) licence granted by the authors. First published on December 25th, 2013<br />
<br />
See also the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page Open Value Network wiki]<br />
<br />
See also the paper titled: [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica] by Alex Pazaitis.<br />
<br />
==Discussion==<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"What we see in the case of OSHW is a greater integration between a commercial entity and its market. Traditional commercial entities maintain provider-consumer type of relations with their markets: some "smart" individuals within the firm study what consumers might need, pass that to a team of engineers to make it, and put it for sale with a team of marketing wizards who will make almost anything look like the perfect fit. If the firm was right about the need, which is not always the case, customers pay for it and take it, and ask for service if needed. Service is provided by the commercial entity in exchange of customer loyalty. In this approach, the consumer is educated about what he needs and wants, after the "smart guys" have made the market study, decided on the general need, and offered a one-fit-all solution. This is obviously the extreme case, or what was widely practiced 20-15 years ago. Today, traditional corporations build communities around their brands, and they try to absorb more feedback from their consumers. In the case of OSHW, individual consumers drive design and development.<br />
<br />
This integration between the commercial entity and the market in the prevalent OSHW models is made possible by the internet technology. But as we saw above, there is still a clear distinction between the commercial entity and the community. For example, a community member who proposes a new design that becomes commercially successful is not rewarded with a fair share of the profits made by the commercial entity. I call this the "candy economy", meaning that the members of the community around a OSHW company stick with it and contribute mostly for intrinsic motivations, and a small present (a candy) or a token of recognition from time to time.<br />
<br />
Is this division between the commercial entity and the community necessary? Or is it an impediment for a better arrangement?<br />
<br />
The open value network model abolishes the distinction between <br />
the commercial entity and the community!<br />
<br />
The open value network is a model for commons-based peer production. <br />
<br />
See graphic via http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fp3YPAw6icQ/UWsYwdnoYeI/AAAAAAAAGDw/GTexHmVUkgY/s1600/organizational+structure.JPG<br />
<br />
The diagram above depicts the structure of a value network. The physical and the virtual infrastructure, as well as the tools and the equipment used in R&D and in production are part of a pool of shareables, legally owned by a custodian, which is bound by a contract to act in the interest of the community, obeying a set of predefined rules set by the community. All the information and the knowledge generated by the value network become part of the commons (there is no intellectual property). Affiliates (agents) rely on their know how to create value (products), using these resources. This value (products) is exchanged on the market for some form of revenue. The revenue is redistributed among all affiliates in proportion to their contributions, using a value accounting system. The barrier to participation to value creation processes is very low. In that sense, the value network is open. Value creation is so widely defined that it encompasses activities usually performed by members of the commercial entity and the community, in the prevalent OSHW model cited above. Therefore, the two structures, the community and the commercial entity are merged together at the level of value creation.<br />
<br />
The open value network model distinguishes between different types of agents, based on their degree of involvement/participation. Thus, we can distinguish between active affiliates (those who take part in value creation) and unaffiliated observers (those who know what's going on in the value network). If we go back to the prevalent OSHW model cited above, we can say that the owners and the employees of the commercial entity, as well as the community members who provide feedback and new design ideas, or who actively propagate information about products are ALL active affiliates.<br />
<br />
We also need to note that active affiliates are those individuals who participate in value creation AND who decide to log their contributions within the value accounting system. Participation in the value accounting system is NOT mandatory. Someone can elect to contribute to the value network without expecting something in return. Thus, the open value network integrates a gift economy with a market-oriented economy. <br />
<br />
That is all fine on the value production side, but what about the distribution side, or the market side?<br />
All the transactional logistics (for the exchanges between the value producing network and its market) and the legal aspects associated with it are moved into what sencoricans call the "Exchange firm", which can be embodied as a non-profit, with the sole purpose of serving the value network.<br />
<br />
So why is the open value network a menace to current OSHW business models? Because by abolishing the distinction between the commercial entity and the community, value networks like SENSORICA threaten to drain these communities associated with OSHW-based firms of their talent!"<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
"We need to make the distinction between co-creation of value and value exchange. These are two important processes but very distinct ones. Sensoricans are working hard to solve the value accounting problem, which is meant to support large scale co-creation of value. The value accounting is a way to capture individual contributions that blend into a unique product, to evaluate these contributions, and to compute equity in the end product, a % for every member.<br />
<br />
NOTE the value accounting system is NOT a system that objectifies value and it is not a bean counting system! It is a contract, a method to which all contributors adhere to reassure every contributor about how the future revenue will be redistributed. That's it! It preserves the subjective nature of value, it can take, in theory, into consideration all types of value, tangible and intangible.<br />
<br />
Once the product is made it is exchanged, and this is where you need currencies, or systems of value exchange.<br />
<br />
Again, value accounting for co-creation of value and value exchange are two different things in my mind. These two systems must interact with each other, but we need to see them as separate. One is designed to manage the amalgamation of value from different agents into one product, the other one is designed to facilitate value exchange between different agents, with no value added in the process."<br />
<br />
<br />
===The current infrastructure on which the first OVNs rely is too centralized===<br />
<br />
Joseph Brown:<br />
<br />
"Currently, OVN relies on a traditional relational database system, which requires a server that represents a central point of failure that cannot be considered resilient. Likewise, the user interface of OVN is a traditional webserver-based application. Technologies already exist that can replace these traditional client-server (or cloud) models, which I will try to cover in sufficent detail.<br />
<br />
Two modern technologies are required to replace the conventional centralized structure of OVN: <br />
<br />
Firstly, in a single-page application (SPA) such as Node.js, MeteorJS, Amber Smalltalk or PharoJS frameworks provide, the entire application runs in the browser and asynchronous messaging between peers or datastores is transparently handled. No web application server is necessary. I will elaborate in another document why I argue for a smalltalk that compiles to JavaScript (and ES6) as the better transitional technology over JavaScript. <br />
https://medium.com/smalltalk-talk/smalltalk-vs-javascript-f35e8bcc5ef4<br />
<br />
Secondly, the data repostitory can be replaced with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). This is a very ingenious peer-to-peer protocol that replicates versioned data among a distributed network of nodes, guaranteeing availability and migrating data accross the IPFS network where demand is highest to reduce latency and bottlenecks. <br />
<br />
Everything in it is content addressed, so it is self-authenticating and can't be confused with with another apparently very similar file - not even different by a dot or a space. It also means it can never disapper behind a broken link and can't vanish into a gone server or memory hole. No particular server need always be online but the file is always online. <br />
<br />
Also, data can be cryptographically authenticated and signed and redundant data is removed and replaced with a locable reference (much like zip or other compression), so it has the good properties of a blockchain without the large waste of storage. The version history repository, like Git, ensures that all changes are completely auditable. <br />
<br />
In fact, a shared virtual file system (via FUSE) probably means that the JSON messaging between OVN nodes would be redundant. JSON messages would probably still be used for IPFS searches. The system could present itself as a seamless interface to a unified data repository, but as impossible to disrupt or corrupt as bittorrent.<br />
<br />
IPFS stores version differences in a kind binary tree structure (Merkel Directed Acyclical Graph) and thus has a tremendous efficiency advantage over blockchains, which have to be fully copied to every node. The bitcoin blockchain size is already 45 Gigabytes and will never cease growing, making blockchains impractical or impossible for mobile applications, reducing the degree of decentralization."<br />
(https://hackpad.com/Omnilocal-Resource-Based-Economy-ORBE-OixTKH54JY3)<br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN, Ethereum and IPFS===<br />
<br />
[http://www.sensorica.co/home/about-us/jim-anastassiou Jim Anastassiou] from [http://www.sensorica.co/home SENSORICA] has done some work for transitioning the OVN's infrastructure, the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/NRP-CAS NRP-CAS], or network resource planning and contribution accounting system, on truly p2p infrastructures. SENSORICA affiliates are looking at [https://www.ethereum.org/ Ethereum] for the governance of OVNs and to IPFS for data and information storage. <br />
On the governance side, Jim has identified three main modules that can be implemented on Ethereum: The [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Governance_equation Governance Equation], the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/The_Value_Equation Value Equation], and the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Resource_Type Resource management system]. <br />
<br />
* '''Governance Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the access to decision making to network affiliates, based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Value Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the redistribution of benefits to all participants in an open venture based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Resource management systems''' are bundles of virtual representations of resources with smart contracts associated with them, that govern access to resources and their use. <br />
<br />
Other people work on building '''process management''', '''reputation systems''', etc. on Ehtereum. <br />
<br />
Recently, sensoricans have looked into [https://holochain.org/ Holochain] as an alternative to Blockchain, as backbone technology for resource and process management applications. <br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN's vs DAOs===<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastaviceanu et al. :<br />
<br />
“An Open Value Network (OVN) is primarily an organizational framework designed to support commons-based peer production” ; structure comes first. But not in the same way as DAOs. DAOs are more an engineering approach, designing a game with the goal to incentivize people to behave in a certain way, geared towards collaborative production. OVNs provide a frame, without prescribing a specific game for open ventures. Open ventures can start from a template game, remix a template or create an entirely new game. An OVN is seen as an ecosystem. Ventures within the network interconnect at a very intimate level as valuables flow freely between them. In DAOs there is no real discussion about flow of resources between them other than cryptographic tokens. Nevertheless, DAOs do have an underlying ecosystem of libraries of smart contracts and DAO2DAO protocols, AMM (Automatic Market Makers) for tokens, TheGraph to provide interoperability between DAOs. The underlying blockchain provides basic connectivity. But no real structure exists for DAOs to perform the level of sophisticated project management, division of labor, accounting methodology that OVN embed in their framework to get things done and that legacy organizations have benefited from for centuries."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
<br />
===What does radical openness mean?===<br />
<br />
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:<br />
<br />
"Radical openness means that any person is able to join a production process. The only constrains are there to protect the shared resources, the commons. This has a profound effect on the way the production process works.<br />
<br />
From an economic point of view, radical openness and radical transparency allows engagement to the production processes by a great number of people that can produce value in amounts that could have never before being conceived(wikipedia, wikispeed).<br />
<br />
From an ethical point of view, the production process tries to maximize product value rather than profits. At the same time revenue is distributed to a greater number of people. Because everyone is free to join and cocreate value, in an open and democratic way, people love to work, they work on things they like or are good at."<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/ April 2015)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
* See the related entry on [[Open Value Metrics]].<br />
* see [[Value Networks]] ; by [[Verna Allee]]<br />
<br />
'''Introductory links''':<br />
<br />
# [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page See more on the OVN wiki]<br />
# [http://www.sensorica.co/ sensorica website]<br />
# [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Sensorica Case Study]<br />
<br />
More:<br />
<br />
* [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page OVN wiki]<br />
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. [[Yasir Siddiqui]], [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].<br />
* [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica]<br />
* [https://open.coop/2016/06/15/open-value-networks/ Open Value Networks] introducing TEDx talk by [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Business]]<br />
[[Category:Encyclopedia]]<br />
[[Category:Open_Company_Formats]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Accounting]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Open]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Open_Value_Network&diff=139863Open Value Network2024-02-14T14:36:28Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Definition */</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
<br />
==Context==<br />
<br />
The '''[[Value Network]] definition''' from the Wikipedia at<br />
<br />
<br />
"'''Value networks (value webs), are complex sets of social and technical resources that work together via relationships to create value in the form of knowledge, intelligence, products, services or social good.''' Included in a company’s value networks are research, development, design, production, marketing, sales, and distribution - working interdependently to add to the overall worth of products and services. Companies also have external facing value networks where value is created from the relationships and interactions between organizations, its customers or recipients, intermediaries, stakeholders, complementors and suppliers. Value network principles apply equally well to public agencies, civil society organizations and other purposeful networks focused on creating economic or social good."<br />
<br />
([[Wikipedia:Value network]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Definition==<br />
<br />
'''1.''' From [http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork]:<br />
<br />
"'''Open Value Network(s) expand on Value Networks, by incorporating the possibility to open different processes and exchanges up to a broader base of volunteer, but reciprocated participants.''' <br />
<br />
The Value Network approach seeks to add value to all exchanges in a Value Chain. Including voluntary or traditionally non-compensated participants in Open projects related to business webs.<br />
<br />
The Open Value Network approach also seeks to create effective ways for many independent-actor and small group business ventures to create and use OpenValueNetwork models."<br />
<br />
(http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. OVN Wiki:'''<br />
<br />
[http://ovn.world http://ovn.world]<br />
<br />
"From a social perspective: an OVN is a complex form of social organization. Through interaction, values and rules as well as norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness are constantly emerging and being (or not) sustained.<br />
<br />
From an economic perspective: an OVN is a group of agents that collaborate openly and transparently to offer goods and services, expecting benefits in proportion to everyone’s contribution.<br />
<br />
An OVN is understood as a complex dynamical system, a living system, with an emergent structure (not imposed or predefined)... [with] initial conditions for such systems to exist and basic requirements for such systems to succeed in their mission, which are characterized as a Critical Path."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit)]<br />
<br />
==Description==<br />
<br />
"The OVN model applies to open and decentralized networks. It makes these networks formidable economic agents. The Bitcoin network for example, can provide a stable and secure service of value exchange. It is an open (permissionless) network: anyone can join as a user, as a provider of infrastructure (as a miner), or as a developer (contributing to the Bitcoin open source software). The OVN model allows similar networks to offer more complex services and to produce and distribute material goods."<br />
<br />
<br />
'''1. [[Yasir Siddiqui]]:'''<br />
<br />
"An open value network (OVN) is a network of open-enterprises that can provide all functions of a corporation in an open-collaboration fashion. Recently, we have seen a rise in open-collaboration in the functions of marketing, communication, value creation, and so forth. Yet, there has never been an open collaboration model that can provide all the functions of a corporation. The structure of OVN framework provided in this paper outlines a model that could create a true open-collaboration enterprise that would follow the principles of open source.<br />
<br />
Open-source models present a tremendous opportunity to tackle social and environmental challenges. Nonetheless, open source models daunting financial and legal challenges since there are gaps in the business model. The open-enterprise framework provided in this paper could help resolve these challenges by providing the required open-legal and governance structures.<br />
<br />
From sustainability perspective, an OVN provides mechanisms of non-control and open-access while providing all the function of a corporation. Therefore, I conclude that open-enterprises can truly target social and environmental market needs in efficient way while creating and redistributing the value generated in an ethical fashion. Hence, the OVN model meets the Porter and Kramer’s (2011) criteria for scalable sustainability."<br />
<br />
[http://sensoricablog.blogspot.ca/2013/11/blog-post.html go to the source paper]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''2. Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:'''<br />
<br />
"The OVN model proposes that each production process publishes all information about its internal functioning. That allows production methods to be copied. Provides accountability. Public view allows people to propose better solutions and to detect errors sooner. Moreover, ecological and other externalities are easily Identifiable.<br />
<br />
The OVN model also proposes that information about the supply chains be also visible. All production processes should provide information about their product and the requirements they have in tools, materials and human resources as well as the current suppliers and customers.<br />
<br />
The ability to search and analyze these data allows for different groups that were otherwise isolated and small to interconnect. This has the profound advantage that these small groups can cooperate, coproduce value and thus be able to compete with traditional companies with a higher number of capital assets. Moreover the information about the supply chains allows people to suggest more efficient supply chains and at the same time bypass the supply chain middlemen entirely."<br />
<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/)<br />
<br />
<br />
'''3. Alex Pazaitis:''' <br />
<br />
"An OVN is a generic organizational and business model, which could possibly enhance and support commons-based peer production. As an organization it is highly adaptive, fully decentralized, and governed through distributed decision-making processes and resource allocation. As the name implies, it supports open participation, has very low barriers of entry, and is designed to empower permissionless individual action through open knowledge and transparent processes. <br />
<br />
The OVN is characterized by three fundamental principles: open membership, transparency, and variety of contributions. Open membership means that members can freely join or leave the network and form, join, or acquire enterprise entities. Also, members can be individuals of diverse backgrounds or organizations, including non-profits, government entities, enterprises, or even other OVNs. Transparency enables the open-source communities to gain access to information, knowledge, and processes, with certain restrictions regarding specific types of resources that may need to be handled exclusively by special expertise (e.g., dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists). Finally, a broad spectrum of contributions can take place, including material (e.g., resources, tools, consumables) and immaterial inputs (e.g., time, effort, information) or capital (e.g., financial investments, space, equipment, infrastructure).<br />
<br />
The aspiration of the OVN model is to create a viable structure that harnesses the advantages of open collaboration and sharing, while it addresses the challenges of open-source projects related to governance and sustainability." <br />
<br />
See full paper here: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm. <br />
<br />
<br />
'''4. David Bollier:'''<br />
<br />
"Most commons tightly limit or prohibit the sale of their resources to markets except on stipulated<br />
terms, lest market ambitions begin to unravel collective commitments. Open value networks have<br />
no reservations about engaging with markets, but they do take active steps to maintain their<br />
organizational and cultural integrity as commons-based peer producers. This means that OVNs<br />
insist upon open, horizontal and large-scale cooperation and coordination so that everyone knows<br />
what is going on. Using systems like Co-budget, OVNs seek to democratically manage shared<br />
wealth and assets while allowing individual access, use, authorship and ownership of resources,<br />
consistent with group needs. OVNs use a careful accounting of individual “inputs and outcomes”<br />
via a common ledger system, and distribute rewards to participants based on their individual<br />
contributions to the project.<br />
<br />
OVN stress that while they may be legally nonprofits or for-profits, they are not functionally either,<br />
in that they have no retained earnings or fixed assets. They instead function as “a flow-through<br />
entity which is as formless as possible,” but which functions as a trust for its members, as outlined<br />
by a “nondominium” agreement.<br />
<br />
While still fairly rudimentary, OVNs represent a fascinating new<br />
type of consensual governance/production regime, bound by contractual terms, that blends<br />
commons principles and market activity."<br />
<br />
([https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/transnational-republics-of-commoning-2-new-forms-of-network-based-governance/2016/09/16],<br />
[https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-09-19/new-forms-of-network-based-governance/])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Example==<br />
<br />
The OVN model originated within the [[Sensorica]] network/community<br />
<br />
===[[Tiberius Brastavicenau on the Open Value Networks Practice at Sensorica]]===<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"Since 2008 I have been involved in building infrastructure for commons-based peer production. In the open value network model that we propose, the economic activity of all the network affiliates operating in a peer production network is recorded, activities are compared and weighted against each others based on metrics that are agreed upon democratically. The redistribution of benefits is in part quantitative, turning someone's efforts into coins, which can represent equity or debt and can be later used to get tangible benefits. Qualitative characteristics of economic contributions and behavior are also taken into consideration, based on how the contribution is made, on different dimensions of reputation of the affiliate, etc. All this is packaged into an IT tool, a contribution accounting system and an algorithm for computing the redistribution of benefits that we call a value equation. This represents a social contract among affiliates, designed to generate a sense of fairness among them and to render the economic activity effective and efficient.<br />
<br />
This system for capturing, recording and comparing economic activity has been implemented in SENSORICA, the first open value network. The same system can also be applied to other types of organizations, more or less networked, more or less open (with respect to access to participation) or transparent (with respect to access to information).<br />
<br />
This system has profound consequences on how the global economy works. Let's enumerate a few of them.<br />
<br />
When I was in my teenage years, I worked on a farm situated a few kilometers north of Montreal, Canada, picking blueberries and strawberries. We were payed by the weight of fruit that we picked. Throughout the day, we would bring our fruit baskets to a tractor, where they were weighed, and a record was produced. At the end of the day, everyone was paid according to the total weight gathered (a metric for economic activity). Some were making a lot more than others. It was a purely meritocratic redistribution scheme for a simple economic activity, using a very simple metric. This is very different from the normal employment setting, where employees are paid a fixed, negotiated and agreed upon salary, formalized as a job contract. The employer agrees to pay a certain number of coins to an employee before even starting working. This requires some diligence from the employer, which comes in a form of a filter, a job interview. Moreover, this also requires constant monitoring of the employees' contribution to the company. Companies engage in time management and regular performance reviews. There are at least two important setbacks in this employment setting compared to the first one. For one, the managerial overhead for time management and performance monitoring. Second, the inability of the company to dynamically adjust its workforce and talent base, because of the heavy filtering mechanisms and the contractual agreements in place. We will expand on this below. In the raspberry picking case, the payment is proportional to the production, therefore the need to filter and for time management is less stringent. The reward is directly related to the production. This case presupposes the existence of means to evaluate contributions. The activity that doesn't result in a positive contribution, or that causes damage can be dealt with in various ways. For raspberry picking, the evaluation scheme is obvious: total weight of the picked fruit. The new information technology allows us to go far beyond this simple case, to deal with the complexity of numerous and various tasks involved in our normal workday. A contribution accounting system coupled to a value equation gives flexibility to organizations of all sorts and help them reduce costs.<br />
<br />
Another important consequence of this technology is that it allows an organization to tap into the world's massive human resources in a very dynamic way. At any given moment, there is someone on this planet that has the solution to your problem. Finding this individual or a group of individuals is one important hurdle. But once that hurdle is passed, we need to be able to effectively integrate this new talent into the stream of activities and its associated reward mechanisms. The possible contributor can be far away, which means hard to identify and authenticate, hard to monitor, hard to reprehend, … In these circumstances, the classical mode of employment is long, costly, and sometimes even impossible if we take into consideration all the geopolitical hurdles in place. These opportunities are lost most of the time, and the company is obliged to work with what it has. Different crowdsourcing platforms have emerged as an interface between companies and the crowd, but in my opinion their value proposition is not resonating well with the crowd. Crowd-based problem solving schemes work very well in open source projects and in projects with a great social impact, They are not performing well when only corporate interest is behind the problem. Companies can develop less exploitative and less alienating mechanisms for managing their own crowd-based activities. In order to do so, they must move away from contractual relationships and time management, to interface directly with the crowd by using tools for contribution accounting and evaluation.<br />
<br />
There are other important consequences that we can discuss here, but I think we should jump directly to the one that has, by far, the most disruptive effects on our global economic system. That is the possibility to put information about past economic activity back into the system of redistribution of resources. <br />
<br />
A dollar bill that you receive from someone doesn’t come with a description about how this individual acquired it, or about how this individual is seen by his peers in a context of work. It could have been earned honestly or dishonestly. <br />
<br />
The contribution accounting system and its value equation implemented in the SENSORICA open value network is used to reward participants based on past economic activity. This data accumulated for every affiliate can be distilled into a socioeconomic profile that can be consulted by anyone around the world. It is very dangerous to allow all this information to be gathered and controlled by private interests. These systems should not be deployed by organizations like Facebook or Google. They must be developed on top of p2p infrastructures like block chain for example. That is precisely what we are striving to do with the open value network infrastructure.<br />
<br />
Sensoricans designed and experimented with a system that allows redistribution of benefits and privileges, eliminating the problem of the classical monetary coin, for being detached from the role of the individual in society. This is very similar to the situation in my mother’s village. The system can be scaled and it is using digital technology instead of clay tablets, which makes it easy to gather, store, analyse and retrieve information about socio-economic activity in real time, with no spatial barriers. This is not a Big Brother situation if applied according to p2p principles. <br />
<br />
We are in the middle of a socioeconomic revolution. It is still unclear what the future will look like. In order to inform this transformation we need to revisit a fundamental concept that is used in all these approaches, value."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F19rvACy80_0k3p32dI2NReuVkmozRvDJceaQCuf8y0/edit#])<br />
<br />
<br />
===Directory===<br />
<br />
From Nathan Schneider:<br />
<br />
* [[Assembly]] - “Where we band together to build.”<br />
* [[Bioecon]] - “a peer to peer, growth sensitive, decentralized and self regulated economic agreement in which the means of exchange is produced by participants as a result of our activity”<br />
* [[Enspiral]]: Formally a cooperative, legally an LLC in New Zealand - “we hacked the constitution to make it cooperative-like”<br />
Also a number of Ventures within the structure ; Uses Loomio (which is an Enspiral Venture) for decision-making<br />
* [[Greener Acres Value Network]] - “a resource for entrepreneurs in for-profit and non-profit startups and operational expansions who want to take advantage of agricultural localization”<br />
* [[Metamaps]] - “a free and open source web platform for changemakers, innovators, educators and students. It enables individuals and communities to build and visualize their shared knowledge and unlock their collective intelligence.”<br />
<br />
(http://open.therowboat.com/commons/doku.php/enterprise)<br />
<br />
==History==<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastavicenau:<br />
<br />
"“The model was first proposed, developed and implemented by Sensorica affiliates. Sensorica was created in February 2011. Initially, the model evolved from the Discovery Network model proposed by Tibi between 2008 and 2010. In 2011, the model was developed in collaboration mainly by Tibi, Steve, Kurt, and Bayle, and drew from the work of Verna Allee, Yochai Benkler, Michel Bauwens, Clay Shirky, and others. After the summer of 2012, the network resource planning and contribution accounting system (NRP-CAS) was influenced by Bob Haugen who has been working on resource planning systems since 1995.<br />
<br />
Yasir joined Sensorica in 2013 and helped develop the framework for open value networks. The OVN model was extended to network of networks, in the context of the Open Alliance initiative also lead by Sensorica, an attempt to federate open organizations in Montreal. In 2016 the NOICE/Verdun project built on the Open Alliance initiative, as a second attempt to bring the OVN model at a larger scale.<br />
<br />
Other organizations have adopted a model similar to Sensorica: CoMakery, CollectiveOne, Scuttlebutt.” [OVN world wiki pages].<br />
<br />
Although rooted in earlier and ongoing traditions of open source and collaborative economies, OVN redresses the flaws of collaborative crowdsourcing in CBPP, notably the unsustainable capture of open source value by corporate private interest. The value that is captured by private interest can be captured by an OVN and shared internally bringing value to both contributors and the community. The emphasis thus far has been on FabLab type manufacturing, research intensive projects in a permissionless setting, but can apply to a variety of end uses. The OVN framework accomplishes this feat through a formal accounting of contributions and planning via (….) protocols: NRP (network resource planning), socialization of work, transparency, commoning, a Contribution Accounting System that includes localized cultural subjectivity, signalization, content, interaction, and logging contributions. An OVN also requires contribution accounting and exchange systems, a fair Reputation system, a Role system, a Feedback system, an Incentive system. The OVN framework structure is at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (inter-project level), network level (inter-enterprise level), and global level (inter-network level) [Yasir Siddiqui 2013]. This serves to trickle up network synergies to empower social and environmental demands at global network level. <br />
<br />
Organizationally, OVNs at project level are permissionless and flatter, less hierarchical than more traditional business models, relying on stigmergy to self-coordinate. OVN’s structure formalizes stigmergic patterns through patterns of actions/feedback and self documentation. OVNs like Sensorica are focused on prototyping , research with an eye to serial manufacturing. In practice, an OVN registers contributor contributions towards the value of a project/goods/product/service in a value cycle from value creation to value distribution via a value equation. <br />
<br />
The key idea behind the value equation is to reformulate the value distribution problem to a matching problem and disconnect money (or exchange value) from the process of value distribution. [Value cycle and value equation Yasir Siddiqui 2014 ]<br />
<br />
In effect, for the first time, an attribution system is integrated into the production workflow and supply chains. The first record keeping implementations were in the form of google spreadsheets, in development on blockchain and holochain alpha. Meanwhile DAOs and other protocols are rapidly converging on similar solutions."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Characteristics==<br />
<br />
"The open value network model departs from capitalism for 3 main reasons:<br />
<br />
* No economic cast, no division between owners and workers, between those who own the means of production and those who provide work. The commons takes care of that. <br />
* No clearly defined frontier between the system of design-production-distribution and the market, the system rewards every contributor to value creation in proportion to his/her contribution. The value accounting system takes care of that. <br />
* Reappropriation of labor. Active affiliates who are involved in value creation are not exchanging their labor for wages, they are in fact accumulating equity, which gives them rights to the future revenue generated by exchanging the value they create with the market. Thus the individual is always the owner of his work. <br />
<br />
The value accounting system allows value networks to go beyond the gift economy AND beyond the candy economy."<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
This section defines three fundamental characteristics of an OVN network: open-membership, transparency and open-access, and contributions and their governance.<br />
<br />
===Open Membership===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Open-membership is a major difference between a traditional enterprise and the OVN. In traditional organization, the contributors are employees who need permission to produce use-value, whereas, in an OVN, the employer-employee control relationships do not exist. Instead, an OVN is open, that is, anyone can join and/or leave the network and/or form, join and/or foreclose an open-enterprise at any point. Members can be individuals, or organizations (non-for-profits, governments, open-enterprises or other open-value networks); that is both the OVN and any open-enterprise thereof could consist of individuals, organizations, non-for-profit, government entity and OVNs. This open-membership permits OVN to engage with crowd and operate on a long-tail curve."<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
===Transparency and open-access===<br />
<br />
[[Yasir Siddiqui]]:<br />
<br />
"Transparency is applied in the open source communities to provide access to information, knowledge, and processes. In addition to transparency, in an OVN, open access to participation is also critical to allow an equal opportunity for value creation. Nonetheless, certain contributions could be restricted due to the nature of the contribution. For example, dangerous chemicals may be restricted to chemists. Access to such contributions would be available provided that a certain level of expertise is attained (explained further under project custodian.)"<br />
<br />
===[[Contribution]]===<br />
<br />
"A contribution of a member can be any product, service, time spent on tasks or projects, physical space offered for activities, prototype, ideas, data, information, financial investment, social connection, manufacturing, distribution channels, sales, assuming liability of a product, providing insurance, certification, evaluation, and any other tangible and non-tangible input that a community member provides to satisfy a desire, want or need. In other words, any effort that is a part of the use value is a contribution. By allowing “contribution” to be defined in such a wide spectrum, an OVN does not differentiate between financial and non-financial contributions and therefore, all contributions are evaluated and rewarded as per the defined governance of the project and network.<br />
<br />
There are three types of contributions: project-contribution, network-contribution, and commons-contribution. Project-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the project; the governance of these contributions is defined at the project level. For instance, perishable or consumable materials could only be a part of the project. Network-contributions are those contributions that are applicable to the scope of the network; the governance of these contributions is defined at the network level. For instance: a physical tool can be shared across projects. Commons-contributions are those contributions that are applicable across networks; the governance of these contributions is defined at the global governance level. For instance: use of standards, legal framework and knowledge."<br />
<br />
==Governance and structure==<br />
<br />
'''The OVN framework defines the structure at four different levels: project-level, open-enterprise level (or inter-project level), network level (or inter-enterprise level), and global level (or inter-network level)'''. This hierarchical structure is design to create synergies among many open-value networks in a network of network environment (or a network of open-enterprise environment). These synergies can be leveraged to collaborate across open-value networks in order to rapidly address the social and environmental demands of the marketplace. In the next section, we will explain the aforementioned hierarchal structures: the project level structure, the open-enterprise level, the network level structure and the global level structure.<br />
<br />
===Project level structure===<br />
<br />
An OVN consists of many open-enterprises that may engage with many projects organized in a non-hierarchical fashion with each project acting as an emergent, self-governing and open structure. Due to the emergent nature, the structure of each project will be different. Nonetheless, there are certain guidelines that each project will need to adopt to enable collaboration at large-scale given under the Collaboration model.<br />
<br />
====Collaboration model====<br />
<br />
The collaboration model is the cornerstone of the OVN framework designed to support collaboration within projects. Similar to a traditional enterprise, an open-enterprise can undertake numerous projects. However, unlike a firm, both the open-enterprise and any projects thereof could be forked to achieve maximum flexibility (explained further under forking.) This collaboration model consists of two major components: value capture and distribution processes; and value creation and exchange processes.<br />
<br />
====Value capture and distribution processes====<br />
<br />
An OVN provides mechanisms to capture value by providing structure and infrastructure required to track each contribution within a project. Finally, once the project reaches maturity, any revenue generated from the project is redistributed based on the respective contributions. <br />
<br />
These mechanisms are achieved by implementing the following processes:<br />
<br />
* '''Initiation:''' A member or members of the network or an open-enterprise thereof can have an idea, which could come from personal interest, a scientific study, or a market study, for a product and/or service that they would like to develop and/or provide.<br />
* '''Agreement:''' Prior to engaging in a project, the initiators of a project agree on three aspects: first, a value equation, second, a governance equation; and third, decisionmaking process within the project. A value equation is a set of evaluation criteria used to evaluate members’ contributions; for example, labour market could provide an appropriate parameters for the initial value equation. A governance equation is a set of criteria that give access to contributors to decisionmaking processes. If and once there is an agreement on these matters, the project commences.<br />
* ''' Logging:''' Once the project commences, each member of the project logs his or her contribution during the course of the project. Logging contribution could be a role that a member can undertake for a project to make the process more efficient (explained further under project tasks and roles)<br />
* '''Referencing:''' Whenever a member uses a contribution of another member, he/she makes a reference in the original contribution. Failure to do so could end up in a bad reputation (explained further under reputation)<br />
* '''Fluid equity:''' Each member’s fluid equity in a project is updated frequently (or in real-time) based on the value equation and the members’ contributions. Since the contributions are logged and referenced, it is possible to calculate the fluid equity by re-tracing the contribution chain and applying the value equation to the contributions.<br />
* '''Reward distribution:''' Whenever members generate revenue (through a market exchange), they distribute it through the financial custodian (explained further under global custodian), who redistributes the revenues based on the fluid equity system.<br />
<br />
====Co-creation of value and exchange processes====<br />
<br />
While the processes to maximize coordination within a larger membership have been realized within the open source communities, the OVN structure provides additional guidelines on processes to ensure that there are synergies among the value creation and exchange processes, and value capture and distribution processes.<br />
<br />
'''1) Project tasks:''' A project task refers to an action that a member must perform to advance the development of a project. Each task is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. On the other hand, roles refer to a certain list of tasks that a person is required to perform and the decisions thereof.<br />
<br />
Each project will have a combination of tasks and roles. For example, producing a component of a product is a task; distribution, selling and repairing are all tasks that could be logged as contributions.<br />
On the other hand, roles consist of a list of tasks that a member assumes the responsibility of. For example, assuming the liability of a product is a role. Additional examples of roles include coordinators, strategists and/or community developer. Roles can be logged as contributions.<br />
Tasks and roles within projects are published for members to accept. Any member could be a part of the project by accepting a role of a task even if the role and/or task is currently under-taken by another member by “Forking” the project (explained further under forking.) Moreover, each task could undergo verification, which can further inform reputation mechanisms (explained further under reputation.)<br />
<br />
'''2) Verification:''' Once a contribution is logged, another member could evaluate the validity and quality of the contribution. Moreover, this verification could take place immediately or after a certain period of time during the course of the project. Verification could be a role within a project. <br />
<br />
'''3) Project custodian:''' Project custodian is a special role chosen through the decision making process of the project. For example, a project custodian could be responsible to ensure the proper use of an asset, such as fragile, complex or expensive equipment. At any point during the project, members can vote to select a different member as a project custodian. Similar to other roles, project custodianship is a contribution.<br />
<br />
'''4) Decision-making:''' Whereas members within the context of a task or a role undertake the task-based decisions, certain decisions such as the selection of a project custodian or a communication platform would require decision making across the project. Such decisions can be based on voting, meritocracy, consensus or executive decision (see more on the governance equation). On the other hand, on a disagreement, it would be possible to fork the project (explained further under forking) since the knowledge is open sourced.<br />
<br />
'''5) Conflict management:''' If there is a conflict among members during the course of the project, members can modify the value equation and the governance equation based on the parameters as per the prior agreement. However, if the conflicts are not resolved, the members can fork the project (explained further under forking.)<br />
<br />
'''6) Forking:''' During the course of the project, any member(s) can choose to fork a project for any reason. That is, take a different direction on the development of the project than the rest of the contributors to the project. In such an instance, the new project can choose different agreements on the value equation and the governance equation of the project from the time of the forking. However, all the contributions prior to the forking will utilize the agreements at the time of forking.<br />
<br />
'''7) Predictability:''' If the project is based on a market study or a customer demand, which are both contributions, then a mechanism could be implemented to predict the value received based on the expected input required to finish the task. This mechanism would improve efficiency of the project by attracting the appropriate level of contributions by guiding the development of value equation. For example, a market study could entice financial contribution, which would be evaluated as per the value equation.<br />
<br />
'''8) Reputation:''' Reputation refers to the detailed track record of a member; for example, tasks delivered and not delivered. During the course of the membership, any member can evaluate another member, which would be visible to all the members. The reputation system could be designed by skill set to create a comprehensive knowledge, skill and attribute profile. Evaluation for reputation could be a role within a project. If coupled to the calculation of fluid equity, the reputation system becomes a very powerful mechanisms for self-regulation.<br />
<br />
===Open-enterprise level structure===<br />
<br />
There are two types of open-enterprises within an OVN: brand-based and liability-based.<br />
<br />
'''Brand-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a new brand and market any of the products through this brand trademarks. This brand trademark could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the brand trademarks could be privately owned, a brand charter would dictate the use of the brand trademarks. The brand trademarks could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the brand charter; for example, product quality and standards. The management of the brand use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of brand trademarks is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the governance of the project.<br />
<br />
'''Liability-based:''' Any member(s) within the OVN can create a legal entity to assume the liability of the product including the appropriate use of brand trademarks. This liability could have any legal structure from a private ownership to a cooperative-ownership. Whereas the legal entity could be privately owned, a liability charter would dictate the use of the legal entity name for contractual obligation and liability purposes. This liability entity could be open for use so long as the members abide by the terms and conditions dictated in the liability charter; for example, product verification. The management of the liability entity use is further discussed under the legal framework. Nevertheless, access to the use of liability entity is a contribution to a specific project and would be evaluated as per the value equation of the project.<br />
<br />
===Network level structure===<br />
<br />
Network-level structure defines the structure across all projects of the open-enterprise. The guidelines in the network-level structure supersede the guidelines in the project structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the network-level structure are pertinent only to the network commons. For example, the misuse of the network will have negative consequences for all the members. In addition, since any project can fork, the network governance needs mechanism to resolve any conflicts. Hence, it is pertinent to establish a structure for the network commons. <br />
<br />
The OVN framework identifies the commons of the network and then provides guidelines for the governance for the network.<br />
<br />
====Network commons====<br />
<br />
OVN framework identifies five commons with the network: Network Brand, Infrastructure, Contribution-commons, Reputation and Solidarity mechanisms. In addition, any network-contributions are also a part of the network commons.<br />
<br />
'''1) Network Brand:''' provides value to all the projects by providing trust relationship among the collaborators and potential collaborators of the network. Therefore, it is pertinent to protect the network brand in order to maintain an advantage in the marketplace since the brand value could decrease if misused by a member.<br />
<br />
'''2) Infrastructure:''' Infrastructure provides the tools to produce, store, transfer, exchange and modify information within and outside of network. Therefore, changes in the infrastructure could impact all projects. In addition, tangible tools could also be part of the network that would be governed as per the network governance.<br />
<br />
'''3) Reputation:''' Reputation of a member in a given project is carried forward to other projects. Thus, reputation is a part of the network commons in order to main trust among members.<br />
<br />
'''4) Solidarity mechanisms:''' Solidarity mechanisms are part of the open-value network to ensure two unique aspects: compassion and distribution of risk. Compassion is an important part of human-collaboration and therefore, the network provides insurance mechanism for its members based on the members’ reputation. In addition to compassion, solidarity mechanisms are used to partially reward for unavoidable failures in order to create higher levels of trust and knowledge base within the network; these failures include: process inadequacy, task challenge, process complexity, uncertainty, hypothesis testing, and exploratory testing.<br />
<br />
The network governance determines the decisions on the implementation of solidarity mechanisms.<br />
<br />
====Network governance:====<br />
<br />
Similar to the project governance, the network governance requires decision-making processes and mechanisms to change the decision-making processes. In addition to decision-making, the network requires roles or network custodians to ensure continuity and compliances. Moreover, network requires mechanism to respond to non-compliances to the decisions. Lastly, network needs to be able to recuperate costs in order to self-sustain.<br />
<br />
'''1) Liquid democracy for voting:''' Whereas the democracy relies on choosing a representative for a fixed term, liquid democracy allows a member to delegate a trusted peer to vote on the member’s behalf on certain or all decisions. The trust delegate could apply the same principle. This creates a trust-based decision network that can be applied to take network level decisions efficiently and to maintain high level of satisfaction since getting involved in all decisions can lead to stress and dissatisfaction.[53] Moreover, to avoid biases, an individual member can directly cast their vote on a decision if the member does not agree with the decision outcome within a fixed period of the outcome. Lastly, the number of votes delegate to a member is hidden from the delegate to avoid any possibilities of corruption, power and favoritism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Conflicts during the forking of the project:''' Value equation developed at the time of the forking of the project has to account for the previous contributions at the time of the forking. Failure to reach an agreement at the time of the forking could result in a conflict that could be arbitrated using the liquid democracy mechanism for a faster turn-around.<br />
<br />
'''3) Accountability and Non-compliance:''' It is possible that a member may not comply with the OVN framework. For example, a member may choose a task but not deliver that causes grievances or worse, a member sells a product and keeps the rewards rather than redistributing it. In such instances, the member may get bad reputation, which will be visible to the members across networks.<br />
<br />
'''4) Low-reputation and retribution:''' A member with low reputation will be less likely to find collaborators in any OVN since the reputation is shared across networks (explained further under global structure.) Therefore, a member with low reputation will be unable to benefit from the advantages of the OVN model (explained further under the OVN advantages.) Nevertheless, it is important to create mechanisms to encourage members to regain the lost reputation rather than banishing the members with low reputation since it could increase hostility against the networks, which could lead to intentional attacks. Yet, any decisions on banishment could be taken based on liquid democracy.<br />
<br />
'''5) Network costs:''' All efforts related to the network are considered as projects; for example, the development of the network IT infrastructure is a project. Therefore, the contributions to the network level projects are equally divided among all the projects as contributions to the projects.<br />
<br />
'''6) Network custodians.''' The network custodians are chosen using liquid democracy process and can be responsible for network-commons: brand, infrastructure, and network-contributions. Similarly, network custodians can take the role strategists for the brand and infrastructure; these roles would be selected through liquid democracy but can the responsibility on any and/or all of the decisions could be revoked at any time.<br />
<br />
===Global level structure===<br />
<br />
Global level structure defines the structure across all open-enterprises or networks within an OVN. The guidelines in the global level structure supersede the guidelines in the network structure. However, in order to minimize control and maximize collaboration, the guidelines within the global level structure are pertinent only to the global commons. For example: the flow of information across networks. Hence, it is crucial to establish global governance and a legal structure for the global commons.<br />
<br />
====Global governance====<br />
<br />
Global governance of OVN will provide decision-making guidelines for the change in legal constitution of the OVN including the selection of the custodian of the global OVN constitution. This selection could be done through liquid democracy process, as previously described, with participants across OVN.<br />
<br />
'''Legal framework'''<br />
<br />
Legal framework of OVN would consist of global structure, network structure, and enterprise structures. The purpose of the legal structure at the network level is to create a platform for open-innovation. For example, Airbnb provides a platform where the crowd can rent their homes to strangers. Similarly, the OVN provides an ethical and legal framework to create a platform for open source based innovation. Hence, an OVN acts as a platform that consists of many open-enterprises, supported through legal structure at the enterprise level for both brand-based and liability-based entities. In other words, the OVN network provides a platform for the Peer-to-Peer (p2p) liability structure to create a many-to-many relationship between brand owners and liability owners.<br />
<br />
In addition to collaboration within an OVN, the legal structure also provides support for many platforms or open-value networks to co-exist. This is accomplished by sharing reputation, value and knowledge across networks while safeguarding the infrastructure and brand of the network.<br />
<br />
====Permanent global legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Global OVN Constitution custodian:''' will serve as the umbrella organization for the legal framework and will hold the Global OVN constitution. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities and voting mechanisms on how to change the constitution and any of the custodians including global custodian, as per the governance defined in the constitution. Further the constitution defines that each custodian must have its own decision-making mechanism and policies on how to change its decision-making mechanism.<br />
<br />
'''2) Personnel Information custodian:''' will be responsible for the information infrastructure including holder of private information to keep records of the reputation across OVNs. This custodian will have an agreement to share information required for reputation purposes within and outside of the Open-Value Network with the holder of the constitutions as per the rules of the constitution.<br />
<br />
'''3) Standards custodian:''' will hold the global standards in order to ensure the flow of information, contribution, value and reputation across the OVN.<br />
<br />
====Network level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Network custodian:''' would be responsible to hold the constitution of the network. This constitution will provide guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of the other legal entities within the network and voting mechanisms on how to change the network constitution and any of the custodians within the network including the network custodian, as per the governance defined in the network constitution. In addition to the network constitution, the network custodian will have an agreement with holder of the global constitutions as per the rules of the global constitution.<br />
<br />
In addition to the constitution, the network custodian may hold the brand of the network as well as the responsibility of the any physical and virtual infrastructure, although, these function could be assigned to a separate custodian. For example, one network brand custodian for the network brand, one virtual infrastructure custodian for the virtual infrastructure, and several physical infrastructure custodians for each or some of the local physical hub.<br />
<br />
'''2) Contract holder custodian:''' will be responsible to hold the contract among all enterprise level legal entities (elaborated under enterprise-level legal structures). This custodian will have an agreement with the network custodian as per the rules of the constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
'''3) Financial custodian:''' will be responsible to conduct all financial transaction across the OVN. This custodian will have an agreement with holder of the network custodian as per the rules of the network constitution. A network may choose to merge this role with the network custodian.<br />
<br />
====Enterprise level legal structures:====<br />
<br />
'''1) Brand custodian:''' Any member(s) that wishes to form a brand could initiate an open-enterprise within the network with its unique brand name and provides a charter for the brand use. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. For example, the open-enterprise can use the services of the network as long as it allows for peer-based audits to ensure transparency and ethical behavior as defined in the network constitution.<br />
<br />
'''2) Liability custodian:''' Any member that wishes to assume the liability of a product can form a legal entity. This custodian will have an agreement with the contract holder of the network as per the rules of the network constitution. Thereafter, any member that abides by the terms and conditions of the liability custodian would be able to transact directly with the market while forwarding the liability to the custodian."<br />
<br />
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s)<br />
<br />
==Sources==<br />
<br />
The above material is mostly sourced from the document under construction: '''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub#h.xr8z2tjzus2s Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. Authors: [[Yasir Siddiqui]] (main author), [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].'''<br />
<br />
Creative Commons (BY NC CA) licence granted by the authors. First published on December 25th, 2013<br />
<br />
See also the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page Open Value Network wiki]<br />
<br />
See also the paper titled: [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica] by Alex Pazaitis.<br />
<br />
==Discussion==<br />
<br />
[[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]:<br />
<br />
"What we see in the case of OSHW is a greater integration between a commercial entity and its market. Traditional commercial entities maintain provider-consumer type of relations with their markets: some "smart" individuals within the firm study what consumers might need, pass that to a team of engineers to make it, and put it for sale with a team of marketing wizards who will make almost anything look like the perfect fit. If the firm was right about the need, which is not always the case, customers pay for it and take it, and ask for service if needed. Service is provided by the commercial entity in exchange of customer loyalty. In this approach, the consumer is educated about what he needs and wants, after the "smart guys" have made the market study, decided on the general need, and offered a one-fit-all solution. This is obviously the extreme case, or what was widely practiced 20-15 years ago. Today, traditional corporations build communities around their brands, and they try to absorb more feedback from their consumers. In the case of OSHW, individual consumers drive design and development.<br />
<br />
This integration between the commercial entity and the market in the prevalent OSHW models is made possible by the internet technology. But as we saw above, there is still a clear distinction between the commercial entity and the community. For example, a community member who proposes a new design that becomes commercially successful is not rewarded with a fair share of the profits made by the commercial entity. I call this the "candy economy", meaning that the members of the community around a OSHW company stick with it and contribute mostly for intrinsic motivations, and a small present (a candy) or a token of recognition from time to time.<br />
<br />
Is this division between the commercial entity and the community necessary? Or is it an impediment for a better arrangement?<br />
<br />
The open value network model abolishes the distinction between <br />
the commercial entity and the community!<br />
<br />
The open value network is a model for commons-based peer production. <br />
<br />
See graphic via http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fp3YPAw6icQ/UWsYwdnoYeI/AAAAAAAAGDw/GTexHmVUkgY/s1600/organizational+structure.JPG<br />
<br />
The diagram above depicts the structure of a value network. The physical and the virtual infrastructure, as well as the tools and the equipment used in R&D and in production are part of a pool of shareables, legally owned by a custodian, which is bound by a contract to act in the interest of the community, obeying a set of predefined rules set by the community. All the information and the knowledge generated by the value network become part of the commons (there is no intellectual property). Affiliates (agents) rely on their know how to create value (products), using these resources. This value (products) is exchanged on the market for some form of revenue. The revenue is redistributed among all affiliates in proportion to their contributions, using a value accounting system. The barrier to participation to value creation processes is very low. In that sense, the value network is open. Value creation is so widely defined that it encompasses activities usually performed by members of the commercial entity and the community, in the prevalent OSHW model cited above. Therefore, the two structures, the community and the commercial entity are merged together at the level of value creation.<br />
<br />
The open value network model distinguishes between different types of agents, based on their degree of involvement/participation. Thus, we can distinguish between active affiliates (those who take part in value creation) and unaffiliated observers (those who know what's going on in the value network). If we go back to the prevalent OSHW model cited above, we can say that the owners and the employees of the commercial entity, as well as the community members who provide feedback and new design ideas, or who actively propagate information about products are ALL active affiliates.<br />
<br />
We also need to note that active affiliates are those individuals who participate in value creation AND who decide to log their contributions within the value accounting system. Participation in the value accounting system is NOT mandatory. Someone can elect to contribute to the value network without expecting something in return. Thus, the open value network integrates a gift economy with a market-oriented economy. <br />
<br />
That is all fine on the value production side, but what about the distribution side, or the market side?<br />
All the transactional logistics (for the exchanges between the value producing network and its market) and the legal aspects associated with it are moved into what sencoricans call the "Exchange firm", which can be embodied as a non-profit, with the sole purpose of serving the value network.<br />
<br />
So why is the open value network a menace to current OSHW business models? Because by abolishing the distinction between the commercial entity and the community, value networks like SENSORICA threaten to drain these communities associated with OSHW-based firms of their talent!"<br />
(http://multitudeproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/open-source-hardware-meets-p2p-economy.html)<br />
<br />
"We need to make the distinction between co-creation of value and value exchange. These are two important processes but very distinct ones. Sensoricans are working hard to solve the value accounting problem, which is meant to support large scale co-creation of value. The value accounting is a way to capture individual contributions that blend into a unique product, to evaluate these contributions, and to compute equity in the end product, a % for every member.<br />
<br />
NOTE the value accounting system is NOT a system that objectifies value and it is not a bean counting system! It is a contract, a method to which all contributors adhere to reassure every contributor about how the future revenue will be redistributed. That's it! It preserves the subjective nature of value, it can take, in theory, into consideration all types of value, tangible and intangible.<br />
<br />
Once the product is made it is exchanged, and this is where you need currencies, or systems of value exchange.<br />
<br />
Again, value accounting for co-creation of value and value exchange are two different things in my mind. These two systems must interact with each other, but we need to see them as separate. One is designed to manage the amalgamation of value from different agents into one product, the other one is designed to facilitate value exchange between different agents, with no value added in the process."<br />
<br />
<br />
===The current infrastructure on which the first OVNs rely is too centralized===<br />
<br />
Joseph Brown:<br />
<br />
"Currently, OVN relies on a traditional relational database system, which requires a server that represents a central point of failure that cannot be considered resilient. Likewise, the user interface of OVN is a traditional webserver-based application. Technologies already exist that can replace these traditional client-server (or cloud) models, which I will try to cover in sufficent detail.<br />
<br />
Two modern technologies are required to replace the conventional centralized structure of OVN: <br />
<br />
Firstly, in a single-page application (SPA) such as Node.js, MeteorJS, Amber Smalltalk or PharoJS frameworks provide, the entire application runs in the browser and asynchronous messaging between peers or datastores is transparently handled. No web application server is necessary. I will elaborate in another document why I argue for a smalltalk that compiles to JavaScript (and ES6) as the better transitional technology over JavaScript. <br />
https://medium.com/smalltalk-talk/smalltalk-vs-javascript-f35e8bcc5ef4<br />
<br />
Secondly, the data repostitory can be replaced with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). This is a very ingenious peer-to-peer protocol that replicates versioned data among a distributed network of nodes, guaranteeing availability and migrating data accross the IPFS network where demand is highest to reduce latency and bottlenecks. <br />
<br />
Everything in it is content addressed, so it is self-authenticating and can't be confused with with another apparently very similar file - not even different by a dot or a space. It also means it can never disapper behind a broken link and can't vanish into a gone server or memory hole. No particular server need always be online but the file is always online. <br />
<br />
Also, data can be cryptographically authenticated and signed and redundant data is removed and replaced with a locable reference (much like zip or other compression), so it has the good properties of a blockchain without the large waste of storage. The version history repository, like Git, ensures that all changes are completely auditable. <br />
<br />
In fact, a shared virtual file system (via FUSE) probably means that the JSON messaging between OVN nodes would be redundant. JSON messages would probably still be used for IPFS searches. The system could present itself as a seamless interface to a unified data repository, but as impossible to disrupt or corrupt as bittorrent.<br />
<br />
IPFS stores version differences in a kind binary tree structure (Merkel Directed Acyclical Graph) and thus has a tremendous efficiency advantage over blockchains, which have to be fully copied to every node. The bitcoin blockchain size is already 45 Gigabytes and will never cease growing, making blockchains impractical or impossible for mobile applications, reducing the degree of decentralization."<br />
(https://hackpad.com/Omnilocal-Resource-Based-Economy-ORBE-OixTKH54JY3)<br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN, Ethereum and IPFS===<br />
<br />
[http://www.sensorica.co/home/about-us/jim-anastassiou Jim Anastassiou] from [http://www.sensorica.co/home SENSORICA] has done some work for transitioning the OVN's infrastructure, the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/NRP-CAS NRP-CAS], or network resource planning and contribution accounting system, on truly p2p infrastructures. SENSORICA affiliates are looking at [https://www.ethereum.org/ Ethereum] for the governance of OVNs and to IPFS for data and information storage. <br />
On the governance side, Jim has identified three main modules that can be implemented on Ethereum: The [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Governance_equation Governance Equation], the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/The_Value_Equation Value Equation], and the [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Resource_Type Resource management system]. <br />
<br />
* '''Governance Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the access to decision making to network affiliates, based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Value Equations''' are algorithms that can also be seen as smart contracts, that govern the redistribution of benefits to all participants in an open venture based on their economic contributions. <br />
* '''Resource management systems''' are bundles of virtual representations of resources with smart contracts associated with them, that govern access to resources and their use. <br />
<br />
Other people work on building '''process management''', '''reputation systems''', etc. on Ehtereum. <br />
<br />
Recently, sensoricans have looked into [https://holochain.org/ Holochain] as an alternative to Blockchain, as backbone technology for resource and process management applications. <br />
<br />
<br />
===OVN's vs DAOs===<br />
<br />
Tiberius Brastaviceanu et al. :<br />
<br />
“An Open Value Network (OVN) is primarily an organizational framework designed to support commons-based peer production” ; structure comes first. But not in the same way as DAOs. DAOs are more an engineering approach, designing a game with the goal to incentivize people to behave in a certain way, geared towards collaborative production. OVNs provide a frame, without prescribing a specific game for open ventures. Open ventures can start from a template game, remix a template or create an entirely new game. An OVN is seen as an ecosystem. Ventures within the network interconnect at a very intimate level as valuables flow freely between them. In DAOs there is no real discussion about flow of resources between them other than cryptographic tokens. Nevertheless, DAOs do have an underlying ecosystem of libraries of smart contracts and DAO2DAO protocols, AMM (Automatic Market Makers) for tokens, TheGraph to provide interoperability between DAOs. The underlying blockchain provides basic connectivity. But no real structure exists for DAOs to perform the level of sophisticated project management, division of labor, accounting methodology that OVN embed in their framework to get things done and that legacy organizations have benefited from for centuries."<br />
<br />
([https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lG0vM1f9uNTwJTLOJqqpIns0QbObAaG4VhDy1dZEOE/edit])<br />
<br />
<br />
===What does radical openness mean?===<br />
<br />
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis:<br />
<br />
"Radical openness means that any person is able to join a production process. The only constrains are there to protect the shared resources, the commons. This has a profound effect on the way the production process works.<br />
<br />
From an economic point of view, radical openness and radical transparency allows engagement to the production processes by a great number of people that can produce value in amounts that could have never before being conceived(wikipedia, wikispeed).<br />
<br />
From an ethical point of view, the production process tries to maximize product value rather than profits. At the same time revenue is distributed to a greater number of people. Because everyone is free to join and cocreate value, in an open and democratic way, people love to work, they work on things they like or are good at."<br />
(http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/ April 2015)<br />
<br />
==More Information==<br />
<br />
* See the related entry on [[Open Value Metrics]].<br />
* see [[Value Networks]] ; by [[Verna Allee]]<br />
<br />
'''Introductory links''':<br />
<br />
# [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page See more on the OVN wiki]<br />
# [http://www.sensorica.co/ sensorica website]<br />
# [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Sensorica Case Study]<br />
<br />
More:<br />
<br />
* [http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page OVN wiki]<br />
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwQz5SSw2Bsi_T41018E3TkPD-guRCAhAeP9xMdS2fI/pub Open Value Network: A framework for many-to-many innovation]. [[Yasir Siddiqui]], [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]].<br />
* [https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/104/htm Breaking the chains of open innovation: Post-blockchain and the case of Sensorica]<br />
* [https://open.coop/2016/06/15/open-value-networks/ Open Value Networks] introducing TEDx talk by [[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Business]]<br />
[[Category:Encyclopedia]]<br />
[[Category:Open_Company_Formats]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Accounting]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Open]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Fablabs&diff=139862Fablabs2024-02-14T14:34:02Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Fablab</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Fablab]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Peer_production&diff=139861Peer production2024-02-14T14:32:50Z<p>TiberiusB: Redirected page to Peer Production</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Peer Production]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139853Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:28:21Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to the point of disrupting. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around 3D printers and drones.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores.<br />
But most importantly, peer production is largely dependent on the mainstream economic system to reproduce itself, as it cannot feed al the agents that engage in it. Thus, most agents involved gain their subsistence from gobs in companies. This is also about to change and the leading tendencies are in web3. First, people created cryptocurrencies and tied them to specific processes to give them value. They in turn used these cryptocurrencies to fund their own activities, which constitutes a bootstrapping ability via new monetary currencies that are entirely under the control of these communities. Although this constitutes a good start, it still relies largely on markets and monetary currency, which is still under the logic of the industrial capitalist economy. More creatively, we've seen the use of the same blockchain technology to create tokens that represent no-monetary currencies, that can code for credentials, entitlements, access to services and processes (governance for example). All these new forms of currencies provide new channels for access and are able to incentivize economic activity while bypassing markets and the monetary system. We are seeing here the beginning of a complete detachment of peer production from the dominant economic logic. In our opinion, it may take another decade or two before peer production can reproduce itself, independently from the current economy, which building and implementing its own social support structures, institutions and social governance.<br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity, versatility and especially for the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139852Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:23:15Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to the point of disrupting. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around 3D printers and drones.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores.<br />
But most importantly, peer production is largely dependent on the mainstream economic system to reproduce itself, as it cannot feed al the agents that engage in it. Thus, most agents involved gain their subsistence from gobs in companies. This is also about to change and the leading tendencies are in web3. First, people created cryptocurrencies and tied them to specific processes to give them value. They in turn used these cryptocurrencies to fund their own activities, which constitutes a bootstrapping ability via new monetary currencies that are entirely under the control of these communities. Although this constitutes a good start, it still relies largely on markets and monetary currency, which is still under the logic of the industrial capitalist economy. More creatively, we've seen the use of the same blockchain technology to create tokens that represent no-monetary currencies, that can code for credentials, entitlements, access to services and processes (governance for example). All these new forms of currencies provide new channels for access and are able to incentivize economic activity while bypassing markets and the monetary system. We are seeing here the beginning of a complete detachment of peer production from the dominant economic logic. In our opinion, it may take another decade or two before peer production can reproduce itself, independently from the current economy, which building and implementing its own social support structures, institutions and social governance.<br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139851Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:11:46Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to the point of disrupting. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around 3D printers and drones.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores. <br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139850Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:09:15Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer and in collaboration mediated by the Internet, and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to to point of disruption. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around these technologies.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores. <br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139849Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:06:39Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design & prototyping, with iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer in collaboration mediated by the Internet and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to to point of disruption. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around these technologies.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores. <br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139848Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T04:04:23Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for material peer production that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design and prototyping, which iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer in collaboration mediated by the Internet and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to to point of disruption. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around these technologies.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores. <br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139847Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T03:59:33Z<p>TiberiusB: /* Sensorica's OVN response */</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for long tail peer production (of hardware) that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital [[peer production]]'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design and prototyping, which iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online collaborative repositories of models (represented as CAD files), with version management capabilities (and more). Prototyping is often done by individual contributors using their own means (basement labs with minimal electronics and mechanical prototyping equipment, 3D printing) or in [[makerspaces]], [[fablabs]] or [[hackerspaces]]. These physical collaborative spaces are products of the same [[open culture]] that has produced these methodologies for open source development, first for software and after after for hardware. These spaces can be considered as part of the physical infrastructure of (material) [[peer production]]. They are open access, similar to online open source projects, and horizontally governed, they encourage collaboration among members, they encourage transparency by providing public access to their projects and processes, they do not emphasize profit-making activities while encouraging commons-driven activities. These physical spaces can also act as local fabrication facilities. <br />
<br />
We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer in collaboration mediated by the Internet and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.''<br />
This is true for digital peer production, open source software for example. Once the practice was structured it spread into other areas such as publications (Wikipedia), digital services (Bitcoin), etc. When this new open and collaborative mode of production spread to hardware, it did it with 3D printing (RepRap online community) and shortly after with drones (DIY Drones online community), two bleeding edge and disruptive technologies. These technologies already existed, they were protected by patents and were prohibitively expensive, but meanwhile other support technologies had evolved to to point of disruption. Once the patents expired, engineers and hobbyists that embraced the open culture seized the opportunity and designed consumer grade machines at only a fraction of the cost, generating hype around these technologies.<br />
<br />
* ''A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.''<br />
I guess here we can cite the phenomena of ''alienation''. People are looking for a meaningful work, purpose, they want to belong to a real community, not just be an employee in a company, they want to be in control of their creation, etc. This creates a capacity of innovation and production outside of industrial production, which floods into peer production, including material peer production. Thus, people engage in open source hardware development and DIY production for the same reasons they engage in open source software projects. <br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself''.<br />
This is true for material peer production. <br />
First, the most important skills are acquired in academia, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. But increasingly we see self-thought individuals engaging in very complex open source hardware projects. They acquire technical skills online or by collaborating with peers in makerspaces, fablabd and hackerspaces. These physical spaces, as we mentioned earlier are loci of prototyping and local fabrication, also play an important role in education. In fact, during the early days of 3D printing colleges and universities were at least 3 years behind makerspaces in educational programs. University students were coming to the Sensorica lab to learn: [https://sensoricaevents.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-entrepreneurship-co.html event at Concordia University, Daniel (self-thought from Sensorica) teaching about 3D printing]. <br />
Second, most basic components used in open source hardware are produced by companies, industrial manufacturing. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more DIY basic components. For example, it is possible today to build an electric motor from scratch by using 3D printed parts, magnets and coupe wire. Moreover, in order to run a makerspace one needs to pay rent to a landlord which operates under the mainstream economic model, and purchase instruments and equipment from hardware stores. <br />
<br />
* ''The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows''.<br />
Open source DIY hardware has a place in the current economy for goods destined for use in remote areas or during disasters. For example, during COVID when industrial production was paralyzed, material peer production was pushed to the front stage, as it was the only viable mode of production. NGOs who serve the developing world have recently prized open source DIY hardware for its low cost, modularity and versatility and especially the low technical skills required to maintain/repair or upgrade. Thus, although open source hardware can lower the costs and disrupt certain industries (ex. 3D printing), there is a niche for material peer production, especially in areas where industrial manufacturing cannot reach, such as remote areas, disaster areas, low income areas or in very low volume markets.<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old''.<br />
The new mode of production is building its own infrastructure that reduces costs while boosting creativity. Corporations are increasingly tempted to use these new tools and in doing so they adopt the new methods proposed by the open culture. For example many companies are now using platforms like Github for managing their software production. While doing that, they also get the benefit from existing code, which comes under open licenses, forcing them to open their code as well. Thus, private companies get "infected" by open source and get infused with values (sharing, transparency and openness) and methods (agile development, collaborative work) from the open culture. The same tools that have been developed for online collaboration on software development have their equivalent for collaborative hardware development. <br />
Moreover, it turns out that disruptive innovation is more likely to come from the open source culture than from academia and private R&D labs. Today, every serious tech company has an open innovation strategy, which is borrowed from the open source culture. Moreover, every serious high tech company has built infrastructure to support open communities, to involve the crowd ([[crowdsourcing]]) in various processes. In other words, companies are opening up their processes. <br />
<br />
* ''At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot''.<br />
The new mode of production, i.e. material peer production as described by the [[OVN]] model, is global by nature, capable to address global problems. More precisely, it is ''g''local, which means that it connects very well the global scale with the local scale. Hardware artifacts are designed as abstractions by delocalized online communities, using modular architectures (proper to the open culture), shared standards and ubiquitous materials, easy to modify, upgrade and adapt. These models are then customized by local makers, who further share their adaptations with the global community, for others to reuse or remix. This stands in contrast with industrial mass production, one-size-fits-all. Therefore, with less efforts global problems can be addressed with efficient local action, which provides us with the ability to address global concerns such as pollution, natural catastrophes or pandemics.<br />
When it comes to response time, in a dynamic modern world, as we've seen during COVID, makers were the first to respond with PPE equipment fabricated in local makerspaces, before the global supply chain could be repurposed for the need. <br />
Thus, material peer production seems to be better suited for a global and dynamic society.<br />
<br />
<br />
* ''The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate.'' <br />
Evidently peer production is spreading into finance (Bitcoin), and all type of digital services. <br />
Moreover, for the past decade we've seen peer production in biotech, as genes production and gene therapy planning has become computer assisted, almost like 3D printing. Biohacking labs have emerged in this area, in parallel to makerspaces and fablabs. <br />
In the area of services, it is just a matter of time for platforms like Uber to be replaced with dApps on blockchain infrastructure. <br />
One just needs to survey the ecosystem of [[DAO]]s, which are applied today to almost all spheres of human activities.<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
<br />
excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
<br />
[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Can_Peer_Production_Make_Washing_Machines%3F&diff=139846Can Peer Production Make Washing Machines?2024-02-14T02:29:24Z<p>TiberiusB: Added some new developments in material peer production.</p>
<hr />
<div>Large excerpt from a key essay by Graham Seaman.<br />
<br />
Original title: '''The Two Economies Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question'''<br />
<br />
URL = http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman [http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html]:<br />
<br />
"Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:<br />
<br />
* by people working for a wage<br />
* for others who own the means of production<br />
* in order to create profit<br />
* by selling the product<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market, using price (money) as a signalling mechanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by people:<br />
<br />
* working because they chose to<br />
* using their own means of production<br />
* in order to create something useful or pleasurable<br />
* which anyone can use<br />
<br />
The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by technology.<br />
<br />
In traditional Marxist terms, two societies described like this would have different modes of production. But in this case there is only one society, and while almost the whole of society produces in the first way, only a tiny, though growing, part produces in the second.<br />
<br />
: Note: The mode of production described above for free software was studied by [[Yochai Benkler]] and was named [[commons-based peer production]].<br />
<br />
This is not an unusual situation: there have been few times in history when a 'pure' mode of production, unmixed with fragments of other modes, existed. Some of these fragments are remnants of the past: personal slavery in parts of Northern Europe during the middle ages, or villages with communally allocated and rotated land in isolated parts of Southern Europe today. These fragments can often survive for long periods, integrated into the overall system and partially changed from their original form, but stable. Others are abortive glimpses of a future believed possible which turns out not to be so, such as the numerous experiments in communal working and living from the nineteenth century to the 60s and 70s of the last century, again often surviving for long periods. But the most interesting possibility is the fragment which turns out to be the replacement for the dominant mode of production.<br />
<br />
This leads to two major groups of questions:<br />
<br />
Firstly, what are the effects of the coexistence of two modes of production now? How does the dependence of free software producers on the capitalist economy affect free software production? And what effect, if any, does free software production have on the surrounding capitalist mode of production?<br />
<br />
Secondly, is it possible for the free software mode of production to be generalised to the whole of society? And if so, how?<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are questions without definitive answers. Even those parts of the question which are purely empirical would need a major research program to answer properly. But that doesn't mean that it is pointless to try to suggest possible answers. One possible starting point is to look to the past, to one of the best documented changes: the break-up of the feudal system in pre-revolutionary England.<br />
<br />
<br />
=The End of the Guilds=<br />
<br />
Manufacturing in late mediaeval society was contained within the guild system, and organised through the hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen and masters. To have a trade it was necessary to have been an apprentice; once apprenticeship had been completed (normally after 7 years) an apprentice could expect his master to register him as a full guild member, with the freedom to practise the trade as an independent journeyman. Naturally journeymen would expect to become masters in their turn. Knowledge of the trade was part of the mystery of the guild, shared vertically within the guild but kept a secret from outsiders, and guild boundaries were rigourously enforced. Guild inspectors would check not only the quality of the goods produced but also adherence to proper employment procedures and encroachment on the territory of other guilds: a shoemaker in the shoemakers guild should not encroach on the work of cobblers, who repaired old shoes, nor should he tan his own leather, the mystery of the tanners' guild. The system was intended to maintain the maximum possible quality of the output: the quality of tanned leather was guaranteed by the tanners' own inspectors, the true experts on tanning, and a shoemaker who set himself up as an amateur tanner as well had no such expertise.<br />
<br />
By the late 16th century this system was still firmly in place. To some extent it was cross-cut by the patents of monopoly granted by the state, which effectively gave guild privileges to small groups of individuals (though even these were limited to 7 years, the time for a group of apprentices to pass through the system and potentially be able to set up a new guild); but the right of the state to grant such patents was fiercely (and often successfully) resisted by the guilds.<br />
<br />
What the guilds could not do was cope with the increasing number of journeymen with no hope of becoming masters in their own guilds. In the big cities desperate journeymen began to abandon their own trades and set up as small manufacturers. These small manufacturers, though persecuted, managed to survive outside the guild system and the mediaeval hierarchy of rights and obligations, and in spite of the many caught by guild inspectors and fined or even imprisoned, by the mid-17th century parts of London were dominated by them. Since they were outside the guild system their employees were not apprentices in the old sense, but workers for a wage: this was already a fragment of a new mode of production.<br />
<br />
Now two systems co-existed: one still dominant, the other small and struggling, and blocked at every turn by the regulations of the old system. John Lilburne, one of the leading spokesmen for the Levellers, the Republican left-wing, was a typical example: originally apprenticed as a clothier, he became a Protestant. Book publishing and distribution was a monopoly of the Stationers', and when he attempted to bring in Protestant texts from Holland he was caught by inspectors for the Stationers' Company and imprisoned. Once freed, he became a successful small brewer until the outbreak of the Civil War. After two and a half year's fighting, he attempted to use his knowledge of cloth as a cloth-exporter; but the monopoly on cloth export belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, not the clothiers themselves. Abandoning this, he became a soap-maker ... Just to survive, people like John Lilburne were forced to work outside, and against, the guilds.<br />
<br />
Other Leveller supporters worked in brewing, tanning, glass-making, felt-making, hat-making, sack-cloth and linen-weaving, dyeing, silk-spinning, soap-boiling, nearly all embroiled in continual struggles with the guilds. It was natural that their watchword became 'freedom': freedom from the guilds, freedom from the state-imposed monopolies, freedom for trade, freedom of conscience.<br />
<br />
So we have a first requirement: the new mode of production is not something arbitrary, willed into existence, but a product of the old system: in this case the guild system which was structurally unable to provide positions for all its apprentices.<br />
<br />
Next, the new system began to infect the old. Here the route was simple: for the new mode of production to expand, it needed capital, and capital was already available. Merchant trading was a normal part of the mediaeval economy; once again, monopolised by merchant guilds. But given new possible sources of profit why should they care whether the products they traded had been produced under normal guild regulations or not? From reselling non-guild products it was a small step to financing their production, although in the end the restrictions on doing this on a large scale were too great, and the major new capitalist industries were not based on the original ones in the warrens of London, but in the North, away from any guild control at all. Once these large-scale industries had become established, the guild system was effectively doomed: the number of apprentices who could be integrated into the guild system with it's progression of stages was tiny compared with the mass of labourers required for the new manufactories. Some in the old system attempted to compete by taking on large numbers of apprentices against their own rules, or by employing journeymen who had not completed apprenticeships, but the result was that the guilds simply became empty ceremonial shells of their former selves, gradually to disappear over the next two centuries.<br />
<br />
It is noticeable that the change from guild production to capitalist production was in its early stages not driven by technological change, but by the inability of the guild system to cope with expanding markets. The changes, and the causes of the spread of the new system, were social. New technologies - in particular the use of steam-power in production - only became important a century later.<br />
<br />
All this suggests some possible properties needed for a new mode of production to spread: <br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
The statement that 'free software is the kernel of a new mode of production' often leads to the question 'how can you make washing-machines in the same way'? This depends on your assumptions about what that way consists of: is the primary fact technological, the fact that reduced costs for computers have made software effectively a public good; or is it social, and the fact that people are working together in a new way that is primary?<br />
<br />
If it is the first, then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible.<br />
<br />
If the second, then it is possible to give a more optimistic answer: once working by free software principles has spread far enough throughout the economy that it reaches the people who make washing machines, they will know how to do it. In every revolution of the last hundred years, people have begun to take control of their own work. If the revolution has been defeated, their control has been taken away. If the revolution has won, their control has been taken away. But the possibility is there, and has been shown repeatedly, even though it rarely appears in history books. What free software has proved that is new is the possibility of this style of work on a large scale, sustained over a long period of time.<br />
<br />
But in either case, to expect a solution to the 'washing machine question' now would require magic; a sudden jump, whether technological or social, which is not likely to happen."<br />
(http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html)<br />
<br />
<br />
=More=<br />
<br />
Continue this essay at http://second.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Seaman.html<br />
<br />
=Sensorica's OVN response=<br />
See more about the [http://ovn.world/index.php?title=Main_Page Open Value Network (OVN) model]. [[Sensorica]] is a pilot project for long tail peer production (of hardware) that uses the OVN model.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graham Seaman provides a good historical example of how new modes of production get established. He also provides a good synthesis of conditions required for a new mode of production to replace the old. Graham's conclusion is wrong, in our opinion, which is based on 12 years of experience practising material peer production within the [[Sensorica]] OVN. <br />
<br />
Graham states that a new mode of production can be introduced by <br />
* a new technology - change in means of production, reduced costs of production<br />
* a new cultural aspect - social, people are working together in a new way<br />
<br />
In reality, it is both at the same time, in the sense that new means of production are introduced by a new technology and these means are first put into practice by people who already share some fringe cultural aspects.<br />
<br />
Graham is skeptical of the first, concluding that in order to apply the free software way of production, which we now call ''digital peer production'', <br />
: "''then production of material goods in the same way needs them to be 'dematerialized': we must wait for the invention of matter transmitters before it becomes possible''".<br />
If we analyze open source hardware production, we can distinguish between 3 phases, design and prototyping, which iterations between the two, and fabrication (of the artifact that has reached maturity in design). Nowadays, open source hardware is deigned with [[DIY]] (do-it-yourslef) in mind, i.e. lowering the technical barriers for fabrication while making use of digital fabrication technologies, such as CNC and 3D printing. The design phase can be virtualized, using collaborative CAD programs and online repositories the models, with version management capabilities (and more). We are not too far from the "matter transmitter", since most of the work is done on a computer in collaboration mediated by the Internet and the fabrication can be done almost magically from a CAD file, using digital fabrication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Let's now address Graham's conditions for material peer production to replace industrial manufacturing<br />
<br />
* A new mode of production appears in a leading part of the economy, which may not be the main basis for the old system: here, manufacture, not agriculture.<br />
* A new mode of production is not purely willed into existence, but is a natural outgrowth of the old.<br />
* The new mode of production initially depends on the old one, firstly as a source of knowledge and skills, and secondly as the source of all goods which it cannot create itself.<br />
* The two modes of production must be able to coexist while the new one grows. <br />
* The new mode of production must be able to infect and weaken the old.<br />
* At a certain point the new mode of production must be able to offer possibilities which the old one cannot.<br />
* The new mode of production must be able to spread to all important fields, but this does not need to be immediate -- full integration of agriculture within capitalism is still an ongoing process in most countries.<br />
<br />
<br />
=Open Source Washing Machine=<br />
<br />
Note : Perhaps the following added link misses the point of the essay above, or maybe it answers it :<br />
<br />
http://www.oswash.org/<br />
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excerpt :<br />
<br />
''The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects.''<br />
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[[Category:3D_Printing]]<br />
[[Category:P2P_Hardware]]<br />
[[Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Peerproduction]]<br />
[[Category:Economics]]<br />
[[Category:Manufacturing]]<br />
[[Category:Articles]]</div>TiberiusB