What is an open movement?

I was asked by Vodes.net to write down a definition of an open movement, and created a specific wiki page for it.

For a broader context, see the entry on Openness, and for a different interpretation, see the people who have worked on defining Open Organizations in particular.

Readers are very welcome to propose comments or changes.

Here is the proposed definition:

1. An open movement is a movement which uses open inputs, both in terms of people and in terms of cultural material.

Being open to people means that an open organization welcomes the input of everyone, without a priori filtering of contributors. However, this openness may be qualified by the purpose of the organization, and appropriate anti-hijacking (against spamming, trolls, etc…) and netiquette-based rules.

Using open cultural material means that it uses content that is open for usage and modification, i.e. either material that is already using open licenses, or material that is newly created through such licenses.

2. An open movement uses open and transparent governance processes. Open movements use participatory governance structures and aim to lower the threshold of participation. The working of the organization are transparent and verifiable, including for aspects such as its accounting practices, its collective choice mechanisms, etc…

3. An open movement produces for the commons, and insures that its own production is open and free where possible. Where costs need to be recouped and income generated for its producers, it does so based on the principles of equity, both towards its own producers and towards the users of its products.

I was asked by Michel to write a summary concerning the artificial market, a concept developed by the Greek thinker Takis Fotopoulos. The current description can be also found at p2pfoundation.net/Artificial_Markets.

In Fotopoulos’ work both “the macro-economic decisions and the individual citizens decisions are envisaged as being implemented through a combination of democratic planning -which involves the creation of a feedback process between workplace assemblies, community assemblies and the confederal assembly- and an artificial market which secures real freedom of choice, without incurring the adverse effects associated with real markets”.

Fotopoulos bases his assumption on a voucher system. More concretely, “the allocation of economic resources is made first, on the basis of the citizens’ collective decisions, as expressed through the community and confederal plans, and second, on the basis of the citizens’ individual choices, as expressed through a voucher system”. ”The general criterion for the allocation of resources is not efficiency as it is currently defined, in narrow techno- economic terms. Efficiency should be redefined to mean effectiveness in satisfying human needs and not just money-backed wants”.

Regarding the meaning of needs he makes a distinction between basic and non-basic needs and a similar one between needs and satisfiers (the form or the means by which these needs are satisfied). The citizens themselves determine what constitutes a need –basic or otherwise- democratically. Then, “the level of need-satisfaction is determined collectively and implemented through a democratic planning mechanism, whereas the satisfiers for both basic and non-basic needs are determined through the revealed preferences of consumers, as expressed by the use of vouchers allocated to them in exchange for their basic and non-basic work.” For instance “let’s say that planners have estimated that everybody has to work three hours a day so that all basic needs are met. If somebody wants to work more than three hours, either in the same line of activity or in a different one, then he is rewarded for this with non-basic vouchers, which he can use to buy commodities – i.e. goods and services that are of non-basic nature.”

More concretely, the distinction between basic and non-basic vouchers:

“Basic vouchers (BVs–allocated in exchange for basic work, i.e. the number of hours of work required by each citizen in a job of his/her choice so that basic needs are met) are used for the satisfaction of basic needs. These vouchers -which are personal and issued on behalf of the confederation- entitle each citizen to a given level of satisfaction for each particular type of need which has been characterised (democratically) as basic, but do not specify the particular type of satisfier, so that choice may be secured.”

“Non-basic vouchers (NBVs allocated in exchange for non-basic work) are used for the satisfaction of non-basic needs (non-essential consumption) as well as for the satisfaction of basic needs beyond the level prescribed by the confederal assembly. NBVs, like BVs, are also personal but are issued on behalf of each community, rather than on behalf of the confederation. Work by citizens over and above the basic number of hours is voluntary and entitles them to NBVs, which can be used towards the satisfaction of non-essential needs.”

Hence “prices in this system, instead of reflecting scarcities relative to a skewed income and wealth pattern (as in the market economy system), function as rationing devices to match scarcities relative to citizens’ desires, i.e. as guides for a democratic allocation of resources. Therefore, prices, instead of being the cause of rationing, as in the market system, become the effect of it and are assigned the role of equating demand and supply in an artificial market that secures the sovereignty of both consumers and producers. The prices formed in this way, together with a complex index of desirability drawn on the basis of citizens’ preferences as to the type of work, which citizens wish to do, determine a subjective rate of remuneration for non-basic work, in place of the objective rate suggested by the labour theory of value.”

Summarising, in spite of the fact that artificial market does not transcend scarcity, it secures that all the basic needs of the citizens are satisfied. The freedom of choice and the constant flow of information are the foundation stones of this artificial market on which an economic democracy will be based.

Sources:
*http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/fotopoulos01_en.htm *http://revista-theomai.unq.edu.ar/numero10/artfotop-introd-10.htm
*Fotopoulos, T., (1997), Towards and Inclusive Democracy – the crisis of the growth economy and the need for a new liberatory project, translated in Greek by Voulgaris N., 1998, Kastaniotis.

I’m reproducing here my monthly column for the Amsterdam-based Center for the Experience Economy:

To avoid misunderstandings at the outset, let me clearly state that I distinguish markets from the system of infinite accumulation of capital that we call capitalism. Markets have always existed, and are a mechanism to deal with and allocate scarce rival resources through the mechanism of price. Under capitalism this mode of exchange has become dominant, but has also been coupled to something else, a system that is based on continuous growth.

This system is now facing serious barriers that are a function of the finiteness of the natural resource base that is our planet, and global warming is one example of it. One of the meanings of global warming, coupled with the general trend of globalization, is that our growth-system now covers the whole planet, there is no more outside. What this means is that the limits of an extensive development are being reached. If China and India would reach the current level of the West, we would need four planets instead of the two we are already using up, and this seems a logical impossibility.

This is no trivial affair, as the failure of extensive development is what brought down earlier civilizations and modes of production. For example, slavery was not only marked by low productivity, but could not extend this productivity as that would require making the slaves more autonomous, so slave-based empires had to grow in space, but at a certain point in that growth, the cost of expansion exceeded the benefits. This is why feudalism finally emerged, a system which refocused on the local, and allowed productivity growth as serfs had a self-interest in growing and ameliorating the tools of production.

The alternative to extensive development is intensive development, as happened in the transition from slavery to feudalism. But notice that to do this, the system had to change, the core logic was no longer the same. The dream of our current economy is therefore one of intensive development, to grow in the immaterial field, and this is basically what the experience economy means. The hope that it expresses is that business can simply continue to grow in the immaterial field of experience.

But is that really so? I have a set of arguments and observations that argue against that hope. First of all, in the field of the immaterial, we are no longer dealing with scarce goods, but with marginal reproduction costs and non-rival goods. With such goods, sharing does not diminish the enjoyment of the good, since all parties retain their ability to use them. The emergence of peer production shows a new form of creating value, that is in fundamental aspects ‘outside the market’. Typically, in commons-based production we have a common pool, accessible to everyone (Linux, Wikipedia), around which an ecology of business can form to create and sell scarcities (usually services and experiences). In sharing-oriented production (YouTube, Google documents), we have proprietary platforms that enable and empower the sharing, but at the same time, sell the aggregated attention (a scarcity), to the advertising market. Finally, in the third crowdsourcing mode, companies try to integrate participation in their own value chain and framework.

So the good news is that indeed business is possible. But I would like the readers to entertain the following proposition, nl. That:

1) The creation of non-monetary value is exponential

2) The monetization of such value is linear

In other words, we have a growing discrepancy between the direct creation of use value through social relationships and collective intelligence (open platforms create near infinite value through the operations of the laws of Metcalfe and Reed), but only a fraction of that value can actually be captured by business and money. Innovation is becoming social and diffuse, an emergent property of the networks rather than an internal R & D affair within corporations; capital is becoming an a posteriori intervention in the realization of innovation, rather than a condition for its occurrence; more and more positive externalizations are created from the social field.

What this announces is a crisis of value, most such value is ‘beyond measure’, but also essentially a crisis of accumulation of capital. Furthermore, we lack a mechanism for the existing institutional world to re-fund what it receives from the social world. So on top of all of that, we have a crisis of social reproduction: peer production is collective sustainable, but not individually.
For all of this, we will need new policies, major reforms and restructurations in our economy and society.

But one thing is sure: we will have markets, but the core logic of the emerging experience economy, operating as it does in the world of non-rival exchange, is unlikely to have capitalism as its core logic.

It can no longer grow extensively, but it cannot replace it by intensive growth. The history of slave empires and their transition to feudal structures is about to repeat itself, but in a different form.

GiveMeaning – online donation, online fundraising and creative fundraising ideas

An interesting idea, connecting news stories with Donation projects, and giving people ways to collectively rate and filter different dimensions, or propose their own way to solve the problem. “Problem spaces” are sorted through tags, and tag clouds show areas with higher activity.

Process Network building theory – P2P Foundation
Diagram

Stage 1: Discussion/Credibility establishment

Assuming the two groups decide they want to connect at all: The process starts out with discussion/conversation among the two groups. This is where the two groups both start to create shared understanding through dialogue, and mutually determine the level of credibility and knowledge of one another. This process is transparent, in order to encourage equitable interaction. Stage 1 could be:

* Conversation/reasoned discussion and debate
* Mutual peer review of each groups self-selected “highest insights” Peer review could be done through a semantic annotation process, that would semantically “tag” both an ontology, and a “rating/review” onto content (which would then make an RDF-exportable knowledge network map, that could be filtered and sorted via machine, based on peer-review, and/or ontology)
* Summary of conversation into Pattern language c2.com/cgi/wiki?PatternLanguage wiki pages, that help create mutual understanding

The groups can then stabilize into a conversation based relationship, which has value based mostly around feedback and loose connection. Or, the groups could decide to establish a “process network”, and collaborate together, to leverage the power of their numbers. if so, they move on to stage 2

Stage 2 Evaluate and Orchestrate

They mutually evaluate one another’s capability to accomplish the proposed work, and they decide which group will fill what role based on the capability assessment. Then they select individuals to act as “orchestrators” to help coordinate, and to make sure that reciprocation of value is reaching participants satisfactorily.

The “middle ground” that I proposed to create on Semantic wiki was to help facilitate stage 1.

Tools and Techniques

Examples of people summarizing discussion into wiki pages

This concept actually emerged from the first wiki. If you read the page of the inventor of wiki c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardCunningham you’ll see his description of how he goes about doing this. You can also see this in www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl? and communitywiki.org

All of those wikis are “CommunityOverContent” wikis, which means there is some very cutting edge thinking and discussion going on, but the purpose of the wiki is for a group of close collaborators to create a PatternLanguage, as opposed to creating pages for a publication. Readability is less important than evolution of mutual understanding, in those wikis.

When Wikipedia was founded, and when Media Wiki software was created, the purpose of the wiki in that case was ContentOverCommunity, the community was dedicated to content. So, the discussion was moved off of the content page, and to a talk page, and the content pages in Wikipedia were organized for maximum readability.

Most communities that use wiki are usually some degree of a hybrid of these two purposes. So, MediaWiki becomes a great tool for them to both try to develop a PatternLanguage (as you see happening at c2.com/cgi/wiki? and www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?), and trying to develop good quality readable content, like a Wikipedia-type encyclopedia site. P2P foundation falls under this category.

Sometimes, though, two groups that are trying to collaborate, when they are in “stage 1″ of the process described above, can use more of an open CommunityOverConent space, because it is more important to try and create a PatternLanguage at that stage (Shared understanding), and to build trust (through Shared Understanding, and through mutual equitable evaluation/review of existing knowledge bases). Stage 2 is when they will be able to join forces on the creation of refined content.

References

The Only Sustainable Edge John Hagel, JS Brown – Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005

Retrieved from “http://p2pfoundation.net/Process_Network_building_theory”

Dmytri Kleiner and the collective that brought us Dialstation is continuing to construct an alternative mode of owning and producing.

Here is their most recent announcement:

“On May 1st 2007, Telekommunisten launched it’s first consumer product, Dialstation, which allows inexpensive international telephone calls to be made from any normal or mobile telephone and includes a user-generated voucher system which enables any user to transfer credit to any user and thus create their own business or local gift economy.

We look forward to hearing from interested parties, please send questions and contribution offers to contribute@telekommunisten.net”

The full announcement gives an idea of what inspires the project:

“The existence of Capitalism has always been dependant on privilege granted by the State and enforced by violence, trans-local peer production has the potential to challenge State granted privilege.”

David Laibman’s Deep History, which has already inspired me to a previous editorial comparing the peer to peer transition to that from slavery to feudalism, offers an innovative interpretation into the stadial (= by stages) evolution of capitalism. It is an abstract theory, but compatible with the historical record. I will first describe his vision, then inquire into its compatibility with our vision on the peer to peer transformation.

I urge anyone interested in peer to peer theory to read the following carefully, as I see it as a major new integrative moment and achievement in the understanding of the change dynamics of the coming era.

David Laibman’s theory goes like this, and my apologies for the simplifications.

He distinguishes two axes with each two polarities, which gives four quandrants. The logic of evolution, goes per column, from the top down (this gives: top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right).

The vertical axis divides up diffusion vs. accumulation. Accumulation is the well-known process of adding up capital through intensive development, i.e. “locally”. Diffusion is the lesser known process of the extensive spread of capitalist relations in a precapitalist environment, say the McDonaldisation of the Third World.

The horizontal access divides internally oriented phases, from external oriented phases. This gives four quadrants, i.e. four phases, and three transitions between them.

DL also importantly distinguishes low-interventionist ‘passive states’ and ‘high-interventionist’ active state forms.

He also introduces ‘long cycles of balance of social power’, with an upswing of workers power, and a long period of downswing. I’ll leave this mostly out of the picture, but it is not difficult to see the downswing starting in the 1980’s and picking up speed after 1989.

I. Explaining the phases of capitalism

Let’s start.

Phase 1: internal diffusion of capitalist relations.

This is the first mercantile phase of capitalism, marked by the enclosures and forced proletarianisation of the English peasants, and outside the process was fed through the colonial expansion, slave trade, etc… The era is marked by active absolutist monarchies.

Transition I: nation-state start to coalesce, and passive states emerge.

Phase 2: internal accumulation with passive state: the liberal era of the 19th century.

Intensive but ‘spontaneous’ accumulation within nation states, is combined with a fairly passive “laisser faire” state approach.

Transition II: capital starts to transgress national boundaries, but national capital starts demanding protection from their states, while emerging social movements start making their demands.

Phase 3: external diffusion, active national states

The imperialist era which is marked by a formation of a world market, and the hardening of strong states, both for international competition, and for internal regulation and responding to the demands of social movements. DL divides up this ‘long 20th’ century, into a pre-Soviet era of classic imperialism; 2) the Soviet interregnum period marked by American hegemony; 3) the post Soviet era marked by an erosion of that central power of the U.S. and increasing problems leading to a transition to the fourth stage of globalism.

Transition III: capital starts transcending national boundaries but in a way that can no longer be contained by nation-states; diffusion completes but at the same times also fails to go very deep, causing deep cultural strains in the developing world; lack of global state power renders inoperable any solution to deep social divisions

Phase 4: external accumulation with a global passive state

(of course in this stage, external becomes internal, because it becomes the whole world, or in other words, the internal/external distinction looses currency)

This phase of globalism, of which we are already observing many signs in this transition period, would mean a full realization of global accumulation on a world scale; the key problem of a global passive state is that there is no internal/external contradiction that can create a “we”, and therefore, says DL, it will be marked by a hole in the hegemony layer.

In other words, we are now in a dysfunctional ‘transitional’ phase of proto-globalism, and need to transit to a full-blown form which needs its own state form.

II. Comments

A few initial comments:

1) I think this scenario is believable on the whole, and one of its implications is that capitalism has not yet fulfilled its full role, that it still has to initiate and complete this full fourth cycle. Concluding to its obsoleteness or even ‘death’ may be premature.

2) In his story, though I’m still missing the last chapters of the book, there is very little recognition of the key role of ecological disasters, and resource depletion; he also ignores everything we are talking about in our blog. (that of course doesn’t mean the author ignores these but they are not very prominent in the book at all).

What kind of problems does his vision create for peer to peer theory:

1) His theory highlights the question of timing. Before we may see a shift to a successor civilization that is geared around the peer to peer logic, we may first expect a global strengthening of the capitalist system on a world scale

2) It poses the question of what kinds of structural reforms are needed to achieve this fourth stage

According to DL it is only this fourth stage that will create a global abstract citizenry with a global consciousness. (as a socialist he calls this a global proletariat).

Some possible conclusions:

1) Many of the peer to peer developments that we describe and try to integrate in our theory are indeed emergent and small, they will take decades to play out, especially the expansion to the physical field

2) Carrying out the reforms that the rise of p2p-participatory movements (openness, commons-orientation) and the sustainability movements suggests are part of the key reforms which may make such a transformation to globalism possible; it is pretty clear that neither neoliberalism nor neoconservatism can successfully solve the transition problems

3) It gives sense to many of the reforms-within-capitalism movement that we see arising such as sustainability, social entrepreneurship, base-of-the-pyramid approaches, blended value; indeed, we see at present no serious social force calling for its abolition, while at the same time many of its main principles are contested. I suspect that the new social compact will have elements of a kind of global Keynesianism as proposed by Soros, and also reflect many participative developments; what we describe as the forces of netarchical capitalism may play a great role in it. Note that a key issue in this transition is solving the ecology/sustainability issues without which the transition is not possible.

A global passive state might appear strong compared to the weak global institutions that are operating now, but it is correct to call it passive as it would have relatively limited powers.

4) But this emergent globalism will then itself set the stage for a further transition to a full peer to peer mode, as more and more world citizens have the skills and consciousness and access to technology that makes a peer to peer style of social relationship a natural thing to do. The present minority of peer-ready knowledge workers need to become a massive social phenomena in the whole world.

So the above gives us a clear view of the ….

III. The Stadiality of Peer to Peer

Crucial is the question of timing: do we have the time to go through two such transitions (the global and the P2P one), before the ecological “sh..t” hits the fan? It is likely that we do as all of the different problems and trends will take several decades to fully play out.

This gives us the following stadiality for peer to peer:

1) The current emergent phase, where all new realities are emerging as seeds

2) The phase were participation becomes a highly visible part of a new global compact. The society is capitalist, but it has integrated the major reforms without which it cannot endure

3) This allows participation to become mainstream and to become the main alternative solution for a system which cannot structurally solve the problems of nature and equity.

Again we find the double and contradictory conclusion that P2P is both immanent and transcendent to the present system. It is the very condition of its survival and reform, and it is the seed of its overcoming, AT THE SAME TIME.

(for comparison purposes: the absolutist monarchy was needed for the next stage of what was still in many ways a precapitalist regime, combining both mercantile-capitalist and strong feudal elements, but at the same time, it planted the seeds for its own overcoming by parliamentary democracies in the hands of the new emerging class which it allowed to strengthen; similarly, the new global regime will be capitalist, but with very strong participative features that are the seed of a new dominant production/governance and property mode that will eventually overcome it)

Christian Siefkes announces the publication of an important book about the “peer economy” which focuses on the sphere of the production of physical goods:

Text of announcement:

“The big text I was working on for the last nine months is ready. It is about the question of the potential of peer production — the way free software is produced. We know that this new mode of production is of great importance when it is about free software — success stories like GNU/Linux, Apache or Wikipedia speak for themselves.

However, is this mode of production only relevant for information goods? Or is there a potential for more, maybe a revolution of the entire societal production?

The results of my considerations are now published having the title “From Exchange to Contributions: Generalizing Peer Production
into the Physical World”. Initially It was intended to be a long article, but due to the complexity of the topic it became a book!

A new mode of production has emerged in the areas of software and content production. This mode, which is based on sharing and cooperation, has spawned whole mature operating systems such as GNU/Linux as well as innumerable other free software applications; giant knowledge bases such as the Wikipedia; a large free culture movement; and a new, wholly decentralized medium for spreading, analyzing and discussing news and knowledge, the so-called blogosphere.

So far, this new mode of production–peer production–has been limited to certain niches of production, such as information goods. This book discusses whether this limitation is necessary or whether the potential of peer production extends farther. In other words.

Is a society possible in which peer production is the primary mode of production? If so, how could such a society be organized?

Is a society possible where production is driven by demand and not by profit? Where there is no need to sell anything and hence no unemployment? Where competition is more a game than a struggle for survival? Where there is no distinction between people with capital and those without? A society where it would be silly to keep your ideas and knowledge secret instead of sharing them; and where scarcity is no longer a precondition of economic success, but a problem to be worked around?

It is, and this book describes how.

The entire text of the book can be downloaded as PDF (125 pages)

A smaller 2-up version (2 Pages on one page, 62 pages) is also available

The text can be modified and copied following the condition of the Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike-Licence.

A paperback print shall be released in some days an will cost 9 Euro — recommendable for all, who want to do their eyes, their printer, or simply me a favour:-)

Since then I will be happy about feedback, critics, and inspired debates. If my book leads to a reflection, that a post-capitalist
economy is no longer utopian as it seems to be, then its ends are achieved.

I missed this great post by the Anomalous Presumptions blog, which also focuses on peer production.

It argues that: In peer production, the interests of capitalists and entrepreneurs are no longer aligned.

Because it is so central to our concerns, I’m taking a very large excerpt, the text below is from the original author:

1. On the difference between capitalists and entrepreneurs

The author argues that “incentives of entrepreneurs (whether they work for free, get consulting fees, or go public and become billionaires) and capitalists (who want to get a return on something they own) diverge in situations that are mainly coordinated through non-monetary incentives.”

For example, Linus Torvalds is a great entrepreneur, and his management of the Linux community has been a key factor in the success of Linux. Success to an entrepreneur is coordinating social activity to create a new, self-sustaining social process. Entrepreneurship is essential to peer production, and successful entrepreneurs become “rock stars” in the peer production world.
A capitalist, by contrast, wants to get a return on something they own, such as money, a domain name, a patent, or a catalog of copyrighted works. A pure capitalist wants to maximize their return while minimizing the complexity of their actual business; in a pure capitalist scenario, coordination, production and thus entrepreneurship is overhead. Ideally, as a pure capitalist you just get income on an asset without having to manage a business.

The problem for capitalists in peer production is that typically there is no way to get a return on ownership. Linus Torvalds doesn’t own the Linux source code, Jimmy Wales doesn’t own the text of Wikipedia, etc. These are not just an incidental facts, they are at the core of the social phenomenon of peer production. A capitalist may benefit indirectly, for a while, from peer production, but the whole trend of the process is against returns on ownership per se.”

2. On the difference between for profit and for benefit

“Historically, entrepreneurship is associated with creating a profitable enterprise. In peer production, the idea of profit also splits into two concepts that are fairly independent, and are sometimes opposed to each other.

The classical idea of profit is monetary and is closely associated with the rate of (monetary) return on assets. This is obviously very much aligned with capitalist incentives. Entrepreneurs operating within this scenario create something valuable (typically a new business), own at least a large share of it, and profit from their return on the business as an asset.

The peer production equivalent of profit is creating a self-sustaining social entity that delivers value to participants. Typically the means are the same as those used by any classical entrepreneur: creating a product, publicizing the product, recruiting contributors, acquiring resources, generating support from larger organizations (legal, political, and sometimes financial), etc.
Before widespread peer production, the entrepreneur’s and capitalist’s definitions of success were typically congruent, because growing a business required capital, and gaining access to capital required providing a competitive return. So classical profit was usually required to build a self-sustaining business entity.

The change that enables widespread peer production is that today, an entity can become self-sustaining, and even grow explosively, with very small amounts of capital. As a result it doesn’t need to trade ownership for capital, and so it doesn’t need to provide any return on investment.

There are examples where a dying business becomes a successful peer-production entity. The transformation of Netscape’s dying browser business into the successful Mozilla open source project is perhaps the clearest case. Note that while Netscape could not make enough profit from its browser to satisfy its owners, the Mozilla foundation is able to generate more than enough income to sustain its work and even fund other projects. However this income could not make Mozilla a (classically) profitable business, because wouldn’t come close to paying for all the contributions made by volunteers and other companies. “

3. Conclusion

“Historically many benefits of entrepreneurship have been used to justify capitalism. However, we are beginning to see that in some cases we can have the benefits of a free market and entrepreneurship, while avoiding the social costs imposed by ensuring returns to property owners. The current battles over intellectual property rights are just the beginning of a much larger conflict about how to handle a broad shift from centralized, high capital production to decentralized, low capital production.”