Test2

Context

The P2P Foundation is part of the P2PValue research consortium and has recently been reminded of the availability of a research budget. This opportunity corresponds to a acute need for a new updated summary of the state of the commons economy today.

Three years ago, in 2012, the P2P Foundation published a report for Orange, The Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy, http://p2pfoundation.net/Synthetic_Overview_of_the_Collaborative_Economy, which outlined the orgins and developments of the Collaborative Economy, including one chapter on commons-based peer prodution, one chapter on distributed infrastructures, and one chapter on their business models. The documentation was based at that time on the at that time 10,000 articles available on the p2pfoundation wiki, a leading observatory in the field, supplemented by external material.

Given the rapid development and maturation of these practices and their institutional development, we feel the time is ripe for a new report that deals specifically with the value practices of the commons-oriented economy, with a focus on the (re)generative models, rather than the extractive models. With the extractive models, we refer to profit maximising entrerprises which tend to see humans and nature as resources; with generative models we refer to means of livelihood that consciously co-create commons resources means of livelihood by entities that are consciously co-created commons resources, along with business models that generate livelihoods for the participating commoners. A wide variety of experimentations has taken place, at various stages of maturation, that need to be documented and understood.

This work will also built on the empirical findings of the P2P Value project itself which will be summarized in a separate chapter.

Conditions of Work

It is proposed that this work will be led by Michel Bauwens, as was the previous report, with at least two full-time assistant researchers. The first assistant focuses on the internal research processes using the p2p foundation wiki; the second assistant focuses on supplemental external research.

The funding should cover the wages of these two (or three) researchers, as well as a budget for the process of producing a user-friendly publication, with the assistant of the Commons Transition website team.

The project will start on March 1, 2016, followed 5 months of active research and writing, with a final text submitted to the designer/publisher team at the end of July; and the final published version delivered at the end of August.

Summary of Research Aim

The aim is to document commons-based value creation practices, measuring practices, and distribution practices, based on the documentation from the observatory of the P2P Foundation, supplemented with external resources and with reference to the findings of the P2P Value research findings. However, it is meant to be complementary to the P2P Value research by focusing on the generative and ethical entrepreneurial coalitions that are not specifically covered by the P2P Value research. The report will be descriptive and aim to develop theoretical insights related to the theoretical work undertaken in the last ten years by the P2P Foundation. The aim is to produce a synthetic overview for the educated laypeople in civil society, business and government, in order to demonstrate the relative viability of the new model and acquaint potential participants in the wide variety of practices and solutions which have been developed over the last few years. The aim is to publish a readable and well designed report that will augment the findings and presentations of the earlier Synthetic Review mentioned above.

Contents

1. Commons-based peer production and its institutional reality, with a focus on the emergence of post-corporate entrepreneurial coalitions with generative practices

This chapter will describe the new institutional realities, and formulate a first hypothesis about the ‘circulation of the common’, i.e. the value circuit at work in the production of the commons; its general problem of existence and autonomy under the dominant political economy of capitalism; and introduce the generative practices and solutions that have been developed in order to create a more generative economy for the commons, particularly by a select number of new entrepreneurial coalitions. It looks at open cooperative models such as platform cooperativism, data coops and more.

2. Value measurement practices and developments in open and contributory value accounting

This chapter will look at the issue of potential rent extraction from contributory communities, and at attempts to solve or mitigate it through open and contributory accounting practices. It focuses on the internal value practices within productive communities and their entrepreneurial coalitions.

This chapter will also review a number of recent theories of value, such as the work of Adam Arvidsson, Christian Fuchs, the P2P Foundation, Dizzynomics and others.

3. Mutual coordination, open supply chains, cosmo-localization in the context of the necessary gains in thermo-dynamic efficiencies

This chapter looks at the potential of mutually coordinated production in the physical sphere, and its connection to environmental externalities. It looks at the potential of achieving stigmergic coordination through open supply chains, and technologies which could be useful in that context, such as the blockchain. It looks at the potential of peer production in all its aspects, for sustainability and thermo-dynamic efficiencies. It looks at the role of emerging platforms that aim to create networks of knowledge for sustainable production for housing and living, such as WikiSpeed and similar projects.

4. Commonfare and other emerging solidarity mechanisms

This chapter looks at the specific social situation of precarious knowledge workers and other participants of productive communities, when they cannot rely as well on the protections of the welfare state. We look at new solidarity mechanisms (commonfare) and new forms of mutual organization such as the ‘labor mutuals’ and freelancer unions. Potential solutions to integrate commonfare mechanisms in the welfare state model will also be examined.

5. New legal and policy regimes favourable to a commons economy

This chapter looks at the politics of the commons transition, at policy developments such as the Bologna Regulaton, and to legal and regulatory issues surrounding the emergence and development of a commons economy. This chapter also looks at the potential of incubators, reciprocity licenses as well as to territorial experiments to create participator value chains for the commons economy.

APPENDIX: Summary of the findings of the P2P Value research project