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“Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons” – Interview with Michel Bauwens

October 30, 2019

“Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons” – Interview with Michel Bauwens

The commons are nothing new. Historically citizens always came together to pool resources and manage them collectively and autonomously. It is the responsibility of cities and states to identify, connect and support them. Today the commons appear as a choice of society in a world at the end of its lifespan. A society where economic and productive systems will finally be compatible with the major planetary balances.

‍We increasingly speak of commons. “Common goods”, “creative commons”, “commonalities”…  What exactly are the commons about?

Michel Bauwens: The commons are three things at the same time: a resource (shared), a community (which maintains them) and precise principles of autonomous governance (to regulate them). These are very concrete things, which do not exist naturally but are the result of alliances between several parties. “There is no commons without commoning”. Examples are renewable energy cooperatives,  shared mobility projects, entities of shared knowledge, food cooperatives… 

In fact, we all have and create commons without knowing it, and have always done so… following more or less intense cycles of mutualization.

In fact, we all have and create commons without knowing it, and have always done so… following more or less intense cycles of mutualization.

If commoning follows cycles, where are we today?

M. B. : There are long, civilizational cycles and short, economic cycles. Regarding the former, every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons. Because when class societies disintegrate, when resources are overexploited and run out, pooling resources makes more and more sense. Today, we face a global environmental crisis that is giving rise to a resurgence of the commons. Yesterday it was the end of the Roman Empire, the crisis in Japan in the 12th century or in China in the 15th century… 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rethinking the balance between equality and hierarchy: 2) New insights into the evolution of hierarchy and inequality throughout the ages

March 16, 2018

Rethinking the balance between equality and hierarchy: 2) New insights into the evolution of hierarchy and inequality throughout the ages

This is a follow up on our earlier article on finding techniques for ‘reverse dominance’, i.e. avoiding the concentration of power.

More indications of how to restore a new balance towards egalitarian (or rather ‘equipotential’) outcomes come from David Graeber, who wrote a very important article summarizing the last 3 decades of findings from archaeology and anthropology, which have overturned many of our insights:

1) In the excerpt on Seasonal Reversals of Hierarchical Structures‎‎ he shows several examples of tribes and societies which combined more egalitarian and more hierarchical arrangements, according to context.

2) In the excerpt on the Transition from Foraging to Farming Societies‎‎, he shows that this was by no means a universal transition towards more hierarchy ; in fact, many agricultural societies and their cities had deep democratic structures (sometimes more egalitarian than their earlier tribal forms)

3) Finally in the last one, Top-Down Structures of Rule Are Not the Necessary Consequence of Large-Scale Organization, he gives several examples showing ‘size does not matter’

All this should give us hope, that the evolution towards the current hierarchical models are not written in stone, and that societies can be more flexible than they appear.

Seasonal Reversals of Hierarchical Structures

David Graeber: “From the very beginning, human beings were self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities. Anthropologists describe societies of this sort as possessing a ‘double morphology’. Marcel Mauss, writing in the early twentieth century, observed that the circumpolar Inuit, ‘and likewise many other societies . . . have two social structures, one in summer and one in winter, and that in parallel they have two systems of law and religion’. In the summer months, Inuit dispersed into small patriarchal bands in pursuit of freshwater fish, caribou, and reindeer, each under the authority of a single male elder. Property was possessively marked and patriarchs exercised coercive, sometimes even tyrannical power over their kin. But in the long winter months, when seals and walrus flocked to the Arctic shore, another social structure entirely took over as Inuit gathered together to build great meeting houses of wood, whale-rib, and stone. Within them, the virtues of equality, altruism, and collective life prevailed; wealth was shared; husbands and wives exchanged partners under the aegis of Sedna, the Goddess of the Seals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

What the P2P Foundation is about: shifting from Generative Adversarial Networks to Generative Cooperative Networks

January 30, 2018

What the P2P Foundation is about: shifting from Generative Adversarial Networks to Generative Cooperative Networks

What are we really trying to do at the P2P Foundation, along with many other similar movements ?

One of the best ways to express our underlying philosophy is here very well expressed by John Ringland, who, using complexity theory insights, distinguishes ‘generative cooperative networks’ from ‘generative adversarial networks’.

We recommend reading the following text carefully, for an understanding of these dynamics.

From GAN’s, via GHN’s, to GCN’s?

John Ringland: It is no accident that as a civilisation the sophistication of our adversarial capacities far exceeds the sophistication of our cooperative capacities. Our historical path and current situation have made it this way, but the balance is changing.

There are two main generative processes underlying biological and cultural evolution and more broadly the evolution of any population of interacting adaptive agents.

A GAN (generative adversarial network) generates more sophisticated means of coercing and exploiting each other; based on the capacity to control. E.g. a nationalist arms race generating advanced military-industrial-media complexes, and all that comes with these.

A GCN (generative cooperative network) generates more sophisticated means of understanding and supporting each other; based on the capacity to nurture. E.g. a peaceful society generating harmonious networks of unified groups aligned around common needs and goals, and all that comes with these.

  • GAN → power over, held together by competitive interactions.
  • GCN → power with, held together by common needs and goals.

Real world systems are a complex mixture of these two principles. For instance, in a forest each multi-cellular organism is a highly refined GCN comprised of trillions of cells. Advanced organisms also live in complex family or social groups which are also GCNs but less tightly integrated. There may also be weak inter-species cooperative networks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Michel Bauwens: The Transition Will Not Be Smooth Sailing

June 16, 2015

Michel Bauwens: The Transition Will Not Be Smooth Sailing

Michel Bauwens is one of the pioneers of the peer-to-peer movement. Theoretician, activist, and public speaker, he founded the P2P Foundation in 2005. His work, both rich and complex, is built around the concepts of networks and commons, and lays the conceptual foundations of a production system that would serve as an alternative to industrial capitalism. I had the opportunity to meet him at the French release of his latest book, Saving the World: Towards a Post-Capitalist Society with Peer-to-Peer (published by “Les Liens qui Libèrent”).

Michel, Save the World, your last book, is the translation of a series of talks with Jean Lievens published two years ago. What happened between then? Do you have the impression that the transition you talk about has accelerated?

In this regard, one should make haste slowly. It is clear that the transition to a post-capitalist, sustainable economy will not happen overnight, or even in a few years. It is a long process. Some projects which seemed to work well according to a peer-to-peer logic one or two years ago have since become purely capitalistic. This enables them to grow faster. It contrasts with other more open and truly collaborative projects that have chosen to grow more slowly.

When one has no money, one takes on “solidarity dynamics”. So yes, it can give an impression of a relative stagnation, but I do not worry too much. For this is a major crisis, ecological, social and economic, looming on the horizon. The challenge is to be ready when it breaks out, probably around 2030. FairCoop, WikiSpeed… These kinds of projects are still small and yes, too few. In the coming years, those who are still only the seeds of this transition will have to develop a stable ecosystem, in order to initiate a real movement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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