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|
| Line 1: |
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| P2P as Intersubjective Process:
| | "Growth Within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe reveals that by adopting circular economy principles, Europe can take advantage of the impending technology revolution to create a net benefit of €1.8 trillion by 2030, or €0.9 trillion more than in the current linear development path. This would be accompanied by better societal outcomes including an increase of €3,000 in household income, a reduction in the cost of time lost to congestion by 16%, and a halving of carbon dioxide emissions compared with current levels.", via http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/news/circular-economy-would-increase-european-competitiveness-and-deliver-better-societal-outcomes-new-study-reveals |
| Definition
| |
| In this essay, the author will define “peer to peer” in
| |
| relational terms, i.e. as any system which allows
| |
| agents to freely and permissionlessly interact with
| |
| each other. Peer pro
| |
| duction is then any process
| |
| whereby people can freely aggregate around the
| |
| creation of common value. The interpretations
| |
| below are from the author only, but are based on a
| |
| continuous dialogue with the research community
| |
| through the P2P Foundation ecology o
| |
| f resources.
| |
| The R
| |
| elational
| |
| G
| |
| rammar of
| |
| P
| |
| eer
| |
| P
| |
| roduction
| |
| Helpful in analysing the type of relationality that
| |
| emerges in p2p systems is the Relational Typology
| |
| developed by the anthropologist Alan Page Fiske
| |
| 1
| |
| .
| |
| Below, I will attempt to match the four
| |
| relational
| |
| logics as described by Fiske, with my own observ
| |
| a-
| |
| tions.
| |
| Paraphrasing and shortening a longer quote from
| |
| Fiske, here are the four modes of intersubjectivity
| |
| that he recognizes, and which he claims, in his book
| |
| 'Structures of Social Life',
| |
| 2
| |
| are pr
| |
| esent in all cultures
| |
| and at all times (though some may appear later
| |
| than others in the development of social forms):
| |
| 1
| |
| Fiske, Alan P.: Human Sociality.
| |
| 2
| |
| Fiske
| |
| , Alan P: Structures of Social Life.
| |
|
| |
| Communal Sharing (CS) is a relationship in
| |
| which people treat some dyad or group as
| |
| equivalent and undifferentiated with respect
| |
| to the so
| |
| cial domain in question. (Example:
| |
| people using a commons.)
| |
|
| |
| In Authority Ranking (AR) people have
| |
| asymmetric positions in a linear hierarchy in
| |
| which subordinates defer, respect, and
| |
| (perhaps) obey, while superiors take
| |
| precedence and take pastoral respons
| |
| ibility
| |
| for subordinates. (Example: military | |
| hierarchies.)
| |
|
| |
| In Equality Matching (EM) relationships
| |
| people keep track of the balance or
| |
| difference among participants and know
| |
| what would be required to restore balance.
| |
| (Example: turn
| |
| -
| |
| taking.)
| |
|
| |
| Market Pricing
| |
| relationships are oriented to
| |
| socially meaningful ratios or rates such as
| |
| prices, wages, interest, rents, tithes, or
| |
| cost
| |
| -
| |
| benefit analyses (Example: property
| |
| that can be bought, sold, or treated as
| |
| investment capital).
| |
| 3
| |
| Though Fiske does not make such inf
| |
| erence himself,
| |
| it is possible to posit a historical succession of
| |
| modes of dominance. In such a hypothesis, it could
| |
| be argued that early tribal society starts with a
| |
| dominance of Communal Shareholding, augmented
| |
| with Equally Matching as soon as tribal so
| |
| ciety
| |
| becomes more complex, the subject of the well
| |
| -
| |
| known work of Marcel Mauss on the gift economy
| |
| 4
| |
| .
| |
| With the birth of class society comes the dominance
| |
| of Authority Ranking, while Market Pricing becomes
| |
| the dominant modality only under capitalism. The
| |
| P2P
| |
| Foundation's main hypothesis is that there is a
| |
| social evolution towards Communal Shareholding
| |
| but this is outside of the scope of this paper.
| |
| It is important to state that all the different intersu
| |
| b-
| |
| jective modalties co
| |
| -
| |
| exist at any given time, but that
| |
| t
| |
| hey are generally influenced by the dominant
| |
| mode. An interesting take on the co
| |
| -
| |
| existence of
| |
| various modalities under capitalism is the work of
| |
| the neo
| |
| -
| |
| institutional school.
| |
| 5
| |
| The crucial debate is
| |
| 3
| |
| Fiske,
| |
| Alan
| |
| P: Human sociality.
| |
| 4
| |
| Mauss
| |
| , M: The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in
| |
| archaic societies.
| |
| 5
| |
| For example, Colin Crouch writes:
| |
| “ ... a firm embedded in
| |
| community within a market economy is not engaged in a
| |
| subsistence economy, but reaches out through its community
| |
| IRIE
| |
| International Review of Information Ethics
| |
| Vol.
| |
| 15 (09/2011)
| |
| Michel Bauwens:
| |
| Understanding Peer to Peer as a Relational Dynamics
| |
| 43
| |
| whether Communal Shareholding, now existing
| |
| within the bro
| |
| ader institutional framework of the
| |
| capitalist economy, can only be subsumed to the
| |
| dominance of Market Pricing, or whether it can
| |
| become an autonomous and eventually even a
| |
| dominant mode, which can eventually subsume
| |
| Market Pricing at some future point in
| |
| time.
| |
| My own views on the possible subsumption of
| |
| Market Pricing under a regime of Communal Shar
| |
| e-
| |
| holding are expressed in the founding essay of the
| |
| P2P Foundation.
| |
| 6
| |
| A critical perspective on the incorporation of Co
| |
| m-
| |
| munal Shareholding under capitalism is o
| |
| ffered in
| |
| the work of Christian Fuchs.
| |
| For example, Fuchs writes that:
| |
| "
| |
| Wikinomics
| |
| shows how mass collaboration and
| |
| digital gifts can be subsumed under capitalist
| |
| logic. The difference between my own approach
| |
| and the authors’ is that the latter welcomes this
| |
| development, whereas I consider it from a neo
| |
| -
| |
| Marxist perspective as the extens
| |
| ion and intens
| |
| i-
| |
| fication of alienation and exploitation , yet I re
| |
| c-
| |
| ognize that, at the same time, it bears certain
| |
| potentials for alternative developments.”
| |
| 7
| |
| This complex debate about the 'immanent' (within
| |
| the system) vs. transcendent (beyond the system) | |
| aspects of Communal Shareholding and commons
| |
| -
| |
| based peer production provides a crucial context for
| |
| any hypothesis about the present and future i
| |
| m-
| |
| portance of Communal Shareholding within the
| |
| relational mix. One of the aims of the first part of
| |
| the essay is t
| |
| o allow the readers to make a more
| |
| informed judgment about this issue by looking in
| |
| some more detail into the relational mix.
| |
| The Ethics
| |
| A
| |
| ssociated with P2P
| |
| 8
| |
| Each of the above intersubjective dynamics has its
| |
| own relational ethics. In Communal Shareholdin
| |
| g,
| |
| to a marke
| |
| t.“
| |
| Crouch, Colin:
| |
| Capi
| |
| talist Diversity and Change:
| |
| Recombinant Governance and Institutional Entrepreneurs.
| |
| 121
| |
| 6
| |
| Bauwens, Michel: The Political Economy of Peer Production.
| |
| 7
| |
| Fuchs, Christian: Wikinomics. See in particular his concept of
| |
| the Gift Commodity Internet Economy, at
| |
| http://p2pfoundation.net/Gift_Commodity_Internet_Economy
| |
| ,
| |
| retrieved July 25, 2011.
| |
| 8 | |
| Himanen, P. The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Info
| |
| r-
| |
| mation Age.
| |
| the individual is both receiving and gifting with a
| |
| community and he/she is judged by the level of
| |
| contributions to the common project, as well as
| |
| assistance to the maintenance and social reprodu
| |
| c-
| |
| tion of the project as a whole. In Authority Ranking,
| |
| a k
| |
| ey value is obedience and respect for authority as
| |
| the 'giver' of benefits, on which the individual is
| |
| dependent and the individual must ideally be seen
| |
| as showing loyalty. Market Pricing favours 'neutral'
| |
| human relationships, but nevertheless, values both
| |
| personal and impersonal trustworthiness. The key
| |
| value of Equality Matching is the capacity for rec
| |
| i-
| |
| procity.
| |
| Is it possible to posit any ethical hierarchy of prefe
| |
| r-
| |
| ence in these different modalities
| |
| —
| |
| a question also
| |
| asked by Benkler and Nissenbaum
| |
| 9 | |
| and by
| |
| Julian
| |
| Fox
| |
| 10
| |
| ? Among the more popular answers to this
| |
| question are the ‘Emergent, Cyclical, Levels of
| |
| Existence’ point of view of Clare W. Graves
| |
| 11
| |
| , and its
| |
| popularisation in the system of Spiral Dynamics
| |
| 12
| |
| . | |
| Such a hierarchical and preferential ordering of
| |
| di
| |
| fferent ethical modalities would be consistent from
| |
| an increasing flow of literature interpreting the | |
| history of nature and human civilisation as one
| |
| marked by increased levels of cooperation (Bar
| |
| -
| |
| Yam
| |
| 13
| |
| ; Stewart
| |
| 14
| |
| ) as well as with those proposing a
| |
| neurologi
| |
| cal (Olson
| |
| 15
| |
| ; de Waal
| |
| 16
| |
| ) or cultural
| |
| -
| |
| evolutionary basis (Henrich
| |
| 17
| |
| ).
| |
| Here is the argument and hypothesis that we use to
| |
| justify the preferential attention to peer to peer
| |
| dynamics:
| |
|
| |
| Authority Ranking is a win
| |
| -
| |
| lose exchange,
| |
| since the lower in the hierarchy, th
| |
| e less
| |
| you receive in the interaction with someone
| |
| higher up. Inequality is the highest in the
| |
| AR mode. However, it is assumed to operate
| |
| 9
| |
| Benkler, Yochai. and Niss
| |
| enbaum, Helen: Commons
| |
| -
| |
| based
| |
| Peer Production and Virtue.
| |
| 10
| |
| Fox, Julian: Virtue.
| |
| 11
| |
| General documentation at
| |
| http://www.clarewgraves.com/
| |
| ;
| |
| retrieved July 25, 2011
| |
| 12
| |
| General documentation at
| |
| http://www.clarewgraves.com/
| |
| ;
| |
| Retrieved July 25, 2011
| |
| 13
| |
| Bar
| |
| -
| |
| Yam, Y. Complexity Rising.
| |
| 14
| |
| Stewart, John.: The Future Evolution of Consciousness.
| |
| 15
| |
| Olson, Gary: We Empathize, Therefore We Are.
| |
| 16
| |
| de Waal. The Age of Empathy.
| |
| 17
| |
| Henrich, Natalie and Joseph: Why Humans Cooperate.
| |
| IRIE
| |
| International Review of Information Ethics
| |
| Vol.
| |
| 15 (09/2011)
| |
| Michel Bauwens:
| |
| Understanding Peer to Peer
| |
| as a Relational Dynamics
| |
| 44
| |
| for the greater good, as hierarchy is
| |
| spiritually justified.
| |
| 18
| |
|
| |
| In the Market Pricing Mode, there is at least
| |
| in theory | |
| a win
| |
| -
| |
| win model, since the
| |
| exchange is presumed to be one of equal
| |
| value. However, individuals engaged in MP
| |
| do not take into account the wider
| |
| community, exchanges are impersonal, and
| |
| at least under capitalism, are assumed to be
| |
| motivated by self
| |
| -
| |
| interest
| |
|
| |
| In the Equality Matching mode, there is a
| |
| stronger reciprocity, as well as generally
| |
| speaking a motivation that takes into
| |
| account the wider community, in the
| |
| context of a culture based on widespread
| |
| reciprocity. Self
| |
| -
| |
| interest is not culturally
| |
| assumed.
| |
| Furthermore, it is based on an
| |
| ethic of giving, actually a competition of
| |
| givers, in which prestige is obtained through
| |
| the gift.
| |
|
| |
| In the Communal Shareholding mode, the
| |
| individual gives to a whole, and indirectly
| |
| receives from the whole; independently of
| |
| t
| |
| he motivation of the individual, which may
| |
| be
| |
| selfish, the 'commons' itself makes this a
| |
| win
| |
| -
| |
| win
| |
| -
| |
| win mode of reciprocity, since the
| |
| commons is assumed to be of universal
| |
| benefit (the third win) in a direct way. It
| |
| could be argued that giving without the
| |
| ex
| |
| pectation of a clear and direct return, is
| |
| ethically superior to the three other
| |
| modalities. CS, as expressed in the
| |
| emerging digital commons based on peer
| |
| production, is a mode that aligns individual
| |
| and collective purpose towards mutual
| |
| alignment. See th
| |
| e contribution on the latter
| |
| by Atlee
| |
| 19
| |
| and Zubizaretta
| |
| 20
| |
| .
| |
| I conclude from the above that while there may not
| |
| be a universally agreed way to hierarchize the ethics
| |
| of the various modes, there is an argument that can
| |
| be made for the free engagement around com
| |
| mon
| |
| value, to be of a high ethical value, and that the CS
| |
| 18
| |
| A good explanation of such spiritual justifications is provided
| |
| by the 'primordial debt' theories, summarized at
| |
| http://p2pfoundation.net/ | |
| Primordial_Debt_Theory
| |
| . The e
| |
| x-
| |
| cerpts are from the draft manuscript of a forthcoming book
| |
| by David Graeber: Debt, The First 5,000 Years.
| |
| 19
| |
| Atlee, Tom: Strategic synergy between individual and
| |
| collective.
| |
| 20
| |
| Zubizarreta, Rosa: Primary vs
| |
| Secondary Individual
| |
| - | |
| Group
| |
| Mentality.
| |
| mode is therefore worthy to be at least considered
| |
| as a preferable variant of human action.
| |
| P2P as P
| |
| rimarily
| |
| D
| |
| efined by
| |
| Communal Shareholding
| |
| What dynamic is at play in peer production?
| |
| Nick Dyer
| |
| - | |
| Whiteford's definition of the cycle of
| |
| accumulation in peer production
| |
| 21
| |
| is useful here (he
| |
| calls it the Circulation of the Common by analogy
| |
| with the Circulation of Capital). He distinguishes an
| |
| input phase necessitating freely given contributions
| |
| through
| |
| open and free raw material; participatory
| |
| governance which is the result of free association;
| |
| and a commons
| |
| - | |
| oriented output which guarantees
| |
| the continuation of the process by constituting open
| |
| and free raw material to be used in next iterations.
| |
| The domin
| |
| ant process active in peer production is
| |
| undoubtedly what Fiske describes as Communal
| |
| Shareholding. Indeed, many of the licenses used by
| |
| the production of open knowledge, free software,
| |
| and shared design (i.e. the three main forms of peer
| |
| production), such
| |
| as the GNU General Public L
| |
| i-
| |
| cense, ensure that anybody who respects the l
| |
| i-
| |
| cense can contribute knowledge, code and design to
| |
| the common project. On the input side, an individual
| |
| that contributes to such a common project, does not
| |
| exchange with a particula
| |
| r other person, does not
| |
| work in a command and control hierarchy, but adds
| |
| his/her contribution to the whole. Because of the
| |
| obligations imposed by the sharing license, once the
| |
| code is released, it can be used freely by other
| |
| users, even those who did not
| |
| contribute to the
| |
| project. This would certainly be the case in projects
| |
| that are entirely run by volunteer contributors.
| |
| However, in reality, the situation is a bit more
| |
| complicated.
| |
| Let's look on the input side.
| |
|
| |
| Contributors may be paid employees of a
| |
| co
| |
| rporation, in an Authority Ranking (AR)
| |
| relationship with their corporate hierarchy,
| |
| who may be giving them directives
| |
| concerning their contributions
| |
|
| |
| Contributors may be freelancers, who have
| |
| sold their work, and are therefore in a
| |
| Market Pricing (MP) rela
| |
| tionship with their
| |
| clients.
| |
| 21
| |
| Dyer
| |
| - | |
| Witheford Nick: The Circulation of the Common.
| |
| IRIE
| |
| International Review of Information Ethics
| |
| Vol.
| |
| 15 (09/2011)
| |
| Michel Bauwens:
| |
| Understanding Peer to Peer as a Relational Dynamics
| |
| 45
| |
|
| |
| Some contributors may have an obligation
| |
| to other participants in the community, and
| |
| see their contribution in a Equality Matching
| |
| (EM) context towards them. Indeed, within
| |
| the core group of contributors, i.e. the
| |
| people who kn
| |
| ow each other and who judge
| |
| each other partially through their
| |
| contributions, interpersonal relations market
| |
| by Equality Matching dynamics are
| |
| important. For example, within the P2P
| |
| Foundation's own experience of building a
| |
| knowledge commons, the fact of a
| |
| ssisting
| |
| people often creates some type of ethical
| |
| obligation to return the favour by some
| |
| other contribution.
| |
|
| |
| The essential freedom to contribute may be
| |
| tempered by AR dynamics; for example, in
| |
| Linux, maintainers control the acceptance of
| |
| patches to the o
| |
| fficial version of Linux; in
| |
| Debian, there is a process of socialization
| |
| into the community, led by the more
| |
| experienced developers already active in the
| |
| community.
| |
| However, this hybridity does not in fact violate the
| |
| core logic of Communal Shareholding, a
| |
| s the license
| |
| does ensure that the contributions by both waged
| |
| employees and freelancers are still added to the
| |
| common code base and are available for general
| |
| usage. Similarly neither the AR nor the EM aspects
| |
| of the hybrid participatory peer governance pr
| |
| o-
| |
| cesses undoe the constituted commons.
| |
| On the output side, it is true that corporations can
| |
| sell the software itself (which in theory, could also
| |
| be freely copied, but perhaps without all the added
| |
| services and guarantees added by open source
| |
| companies). C
| |
| ompanies generally sell services that
| |
| enhance the common code base, and further insure
| |
| its workability in the enterprise. More often, the
| |
| associated corporations sell goods and services on
| |
| top of the commons. The greatest dangers to the
| |
| commons would be th
| |
| e enclosure and privatisation
| |
| of commonly produced material. However, such
| |
| total enclosure would also kill future value creation
| |
| by the commons.
| |
| There is real tension here between the rules and
| |
| norms of the community, motivated by a defense of
| |
| the common p
| |
| roduction, and the desire of corpor
| |
| a-
| |
| tions to enclose and capture value. However, in the
| |
| context of free software, full enclosures and privat
| |
| i-
| |
| sation's of previous code commons are quite rare;
| |
| rather, corporations create added layers of privately
| |
| produced an
| |
| d protected software, which may in
| |
| time make simple usage of the 'pure' commons
| |
| version of the code base problematic. But such
| |
| moves are always contested and fought by free
| |
| software communities.
| |
| Despite these contradictions and tensions, from the
| |
| point of
| |
| view of the common resource and its parti
| |
| c-
| |
| ipants, it can be said that all contributions, even by
| |
| people in an AR relationship within their emplo
| |
| y-
| |
| ment, are seen as voluntary and freely shared, as
| |
| enforced by the license rules. I could say that the
| |
| commoner
| |
| s 'are agnostic' on how precisely common
| |
| code has been added.
| |
| In conclusion, I would argue that the core value
| |
| creation takes place in the commons, i.e. by adding
| |
| to the common knowledge/code/design base, but
| |
| that both use and exchange value can be enhance
| |
| d
| |
| (but also 'exploited') by market
| |
| - | |
| oriented products
| |
| and services.
| |