Reacting To Parecon
First of all, thanks for restating and actualizing your Parecon philosophy and proposals in the context of this debate with peer to peer philosophy.
But though there is a lot to agree with in term of principles and aspirations, before I start tackling any details, I want to explain how our approaches are fundamentally different, and why I find yours problematical to a certain extent.
My own approach is like yours, born out of a critical analysis of reality, and of the failures of the alternatives, such as 20th century socialism.
My analysis of change dynamics is quite different. I do not think the human mind can capture the full complexity of social life, and that any approach that starts from ethical principles and then seeks a world that mirrors them, can be successful. I'm not suggesting that we abandon our ethical principles, but that we hold them, look at reality, and seek out all the patterns that go in the direction of those ethics. By identifying these patterns, seeking to combine and enrich them, we can eventually start to discern the seeds of the new system in the old. We also need to see which social forces can bring such a phase change forward. My reading is that all deep and transformative social change, i.e. phase changes from one system of life to another, have always been the result of both longstanding new social practices, born out of a different structure of desire of new human groups, and a congruent change both from the top and the bottom. For example, for slavery to change to feudalism, both slave owners needed to convert to domain holders, and slaves to serfs; similarly, for the successful transition from feudalism to capitalism, serfs needed to become workers, and sections of the nobility needed to convert to capitalism. It is only after a long process of mutual and congruent transformation, that the phase change can occur. So for p2p theory, I have identified the patterns, am documenting the multiple social practices exemplifying them, and trying to inter-relate them through a common platform, so that partial patterns can converge to form the seeds of an alternative system, while observing the change from industrial working to peer producing, and the congruent transformation of sectors of capital into netarchical capitalist practices.
It seems to me that your approach proceeds from a very different premise, i.e. an idealized utopia based on ethical principles, which it then seeks to carry out in a recalcitrant reality. This is the bias from which I proceed, when reading your contribution.
Let's start with your four ethical principles, i.e. your aim.
First let's note that there are many ethical principles in the world, most religiously inspired, and that they differ in different degrees from your own, many of them in very sharp and fundamental ways. So, this already means that either you offer them for the minority that is ready, so it becomes a solution for intentional communities sharing your value set, or you would have to coerce the world in following your solution.
Personally for example, I agree with your first principle, but disagree with your second one. Applying your second principle for example, which is the method of social exchange called socialism by Marx (the first phase of post-capitalism that he described, communism or non-reciprocal exchange being the second, the latter corresponding to the peer to peer exchanges of already existing peer production), actually excludes the second, and would for example make peer production, which is based on such non-reciprocal exchange, impossible.
So, while I would favour a pluralist economy that enables both your choices and mine, you seem to offer only a monological choice. Of course, if it is freely chosen by intentional communities, I have no problem with it, since these people would have voluntarily accepted your proposed rules.
I share your third value, but like Marx, I do not think the world is ready to change into a classless society (which would not function on your conditional second principle, but on the principle of non-reciprocal sharing) directly or any time soon, and in fact may never attain that ideal state, but rather, will move through transitional stages (which may last forever).
I then move to your sections with more concrete proposals. I note that you say "Parecon delivers", but does it really do that. Can you point to substantial realizations, or are you rather just proposing, that if applied, it may deliver these points. I indeed believe you mean the latter.
Let me note that I do support self-management, but do not necessarily favour a monological system that runs the whole of society, but rather pluralist forms of economic production and governance.
Next, I really appreciate your concept of the coordinator class, which makes a lot of sense to me and indeed explains for example the situation that developed in the
But here is also where I see a problem. For example, how would you achieve balanced job complexes? Most of us are loathe to do certain jobs, and would not do them without coercion. Again, apart from intentional communities, how would you achieve it? This means that those currently doing the most abject work (I mean of course the work that most people consider abject, as most of these tasks are actually necessary and dignified) would have to take power, against the coordinator class itself. I find such a class movement unlikely, because of the very organization of a transformative social movement requires its own coordinating leadership. So any social movement would for me entail a necessary alliance between many different layers, making a victory of the lowest rungs alone unlikely, and therefore, a coercion of balanced job complexes unlikely.
Let me summarize the p2p approach as an alternative. We see today emerging a new set of social practices, where people are self aggregating for the creation of common value through highly complex social artefacts. They are doing this in a way that is hyperproductive in economic terms, in political terms (achieving self-governance in production), and in terms of universal availability of the results (equality in output). These practices are moving from knowledge production, via complex free software, to open designs for physical products.
But the problem is, because these dynamics only work for non-rival immaterial products, and material production needs cost-recovery mechanisms, they are obliged to compose with capitalist production of the physical products.
This however, is only a temporary historical necessity. As distributed infrastructures emerge for energy, money, and machinery, self-aggregation becomes increasingly possible in the physical field. In such a context, it becomes possible for peer producers to create alternative governance structures for physical production, one of them which could be parecon "companies". If Parecon proves a successful pattern in that context, it could perhaps become more important, but I personally suspect it will be one of the plural forms emerging in that field, along with cooperatives, open capital partnerships, and many more possibilities.
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By B./r./o./d./i./e, P./a./u./l at May 07, 2009 18:55 PM
Bauwens wrote:
I do not think the human mind can capture the full complexity of social life, and that any approach that starts from ethical principles and then seeks a world that mirrors them, can be successful.I'm not suggesting that we abandon our ethical principles, but that we hold them, look at reality, and seek out all the patterns that go in the direction of those ethics. By identifying these patterns, seeking to combine and enrich them, we can eventually start to discern the seeds of the new system in the old.
Society is complex, and there is the possibility that in seeking to implement better institutions in the economy there could be unforeseen effects that might arise in other areas of society, or have unknown effects on our psychology, for example. But is this possibility so huge, with risks that are so high, that we should reject envisioning better structures altogether? Indeed, wouldn't one would think that in implementing markedly better economic institutions, the unforeseen effects that result would tend to be positive rather than negative? The complexity argument just doesn't seem to add up.
And depending on what you mean by patterns, I don't see how this is very different to the parecon approach you reject. In Parecon, we have a set of values that we want an economy to function with, and then we ask what institutions could plausibly fulfill these values. So we 'seek out patterns (institutions) that 'go in the direction of our ethics (values).
Bauwens:
It seems to me that your approach proceeds from a very different premise, i.e. an idealized utopia based on ethical principles, which it then seeks to carry out in a recalcitrant reality. This is the bias from which I proceed, when reading your contribution.
First let's note that there are many ethical principles in the world, most religiously inspired, and that they differ in different degrees from your own, many of them in very sharp and fundamental ways. So, this already means that either you offer them for the minority that is ready, so it becomes a solution for intentional communities sharing your value set, or you would have to coerce the world in following your solution.
Firstly, you could mean a few things by 'idealized utopia based on ehtical prinicples'. Is Parecon an idealized utopia? If you mean is it a set of economic institutions we can envision that would have markedly better characteristics than present alternatives, then yes. If you mean it is an economic system with such lofty expectations and values that no people, let alone institutions, could ever expect to fulfill them - then I would disagree. If your argument is the latter, I would ask that you explain why that is so.
You seem to be arguing that parecon's values are in conflict with values that many people in the world hold today, e.g., through religion, and that as such, the only way to implement Parecon's values and institutions is through force, or from above, by a minority. I think we need to make a distinction here between personal values and institutional values. Parecon doesn't entail forcing people to hold certain values, only that economic institutions function in line with good values solidarity, equity, etc instead of worse values like greed and competition. So yes, for people who would prefer institutional values of greed, competition, thuggishness, it's just too bad - that person might feel coerced by the fact that he/she has to abide by participatory planning instead of a market place. But the degree to which this would actually occur would be far less than it is now, in which people are coerced to abide by instittutions with horrible values while trying to maintain positive values in their personal life.
But here is also where I see a problem. For example, how would you achieve balanced job complexes? Most of us are loathe to do certain jobs, and would not do them without coercion.
You mean loathe to do relatively disempowering, repetitive work per se? You're right, most people don't like this sort of work, which is why it needs to be shared equally so that some group of people doesn't end up with the burden of doing all the bad, unenjoyable work, while another group monopolises all the enjoyable, creative work. If you mean people are loathe to work in some industries in particular, that's true as well, people have different preferences for where they'd like to work. They won't be forced to work in areas they don't like, but as mentioned, they won't be allowed to take a greater share of empowering work than they are entitled to. Again, I don't see the problem you seem to be pointing to here.
I find such a class movement unlikely, because of the very organization of a transformative social movement requires its own coordinating leadership. So any social movement would for me entail a necessary alliance between many different layers, making a victory of the lowest rungs alone unlikely, and therefore, a coercion of balanced job complexes unlikely.
That's simply assertion. We can choose to have a movement that embodies co-ordinator/worker divisions or we can choose to have movement which embodies real classlessness. If we want to implement a classless economy, we shouldn't have a class-divided movement.
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Classist?
By Gabrenya, Matt at May 07, 2009 18:18 PM
"This means that those currently doing the most abject work... would have to take power, against the coordinator class itself. I find such a class movement unlikely, because of the very organization of a transformative social movement requires its own coordinating leadership."
Why, may I ask, does a social movment "require" a rule by the coodinator class? This seems pretty overtly classist to me. Unless you accept the premise that working people are incapable of running organizations, you cannot accept the idea that somehow such organizations must sumbit to rule by the coordinator class.
I hope I misunderstood you. You might mean that organizations working to transform society require people working in leadership positions and thus folks who are "coordinating" the movement. Thankfully though, parecon is not as leninist as you seem to think, and Albert (among others) call (explicitly, over and over again) for democratic self-managed movements. That is, our organizations which make up the "embryo" of our future society must emoby the values and structures (to the greatest extent possible) of the society we which to attain. Basically, this means that any "transformative social movement" would not be led by any coordinating central committee imposing illegitimate hierarchic relations. But instead would, to the greatest extent possible, implement self-managment.
-Matt
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some thoughts
By Emersberger, Joe at May 07, 2009 10:35 AM
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replying to various comments
By Bauwens, Michel at May 18, 2009 09:16 AM
REPLYING TO VARIOUS COMMENTS
Before replying to Michael Albert, I will be going through some comments that have appeared so far.
Regarding my first article explaining peer to peer. Though peer to peer is clearly defined, the responses by Michael and Matt show that it is not understood by these readers. Rather than being angry, I would invite them to make an effort and for example read the Political Economy of Peer Production, at http://www.paecon.net/
This is a new area of investigation and social practice, which does require some extra effort to understand. In general I am quite surprised that so many responders seems marked by such quick reactions and so little willingness to being informed first. Thanks a lot to Justin to have a different attitude.
I’ll summarize again saying that peer production is based on voluntary contributions as the input process, participatory development/production processes, and universal availability of the output. To give what you want and receive what you need was in fact the description of Marx for the last stage of human society.
Under my reply to Albert’s first reaction, at
Joe writes: “I can kind of see the possibility that p2p devolves into shut-oif clubs for coordinators”.
It is important to know that peer production is based on voluntary contributions, which does set serious constraints to leadership. Peer governance practices can be widely divergent, but most of them follow a number of congruent practices, which I’m listing here, along with some documentation. These principles have a significant democratic potential.
- Anti-credentialism, http://p2pfoundation.net/Anti-
- Holoptism, http://p2pfoundation.net/
- Equipotentiality, http://p2pfoundation.net/
The primary aim of peer production groups is to avoid that any ‘group’ can lay claim on the production by all, but it is experimenting with various solutions, not all ending up being successful. For example, it has been argued that in Wikipedia, the editors wield too much power over contributors.
Peter asks: “It is not clear to me what P2P's objectives are”.
There are different ways to answer that question. Specific peer production projects are moved by their object of common value, for example, creating a universal operating system (Debian), or a universal encyclopedia (Wikipedia). They are agnostic as to other social problems. Individually, such peer producers occupy the full ideological spectrum.
Nevertheless, I believe the practice itself, of open and free input, participatory process, and commons oriented output indeed changes the value system, and in almost every social field, movements are now being created advocating these value systems and practices. So to have the possibility to freely create and share culture is indeed a core value.
At the P2P Foundation, we summarize by saying that the current social models combine artificial scarcity in the immaterial field, with pseudo-abundance in the material field (i.e. no concern for negative environmental externalities). Overturning both would require an alliance between the p2p movement and the environmental movement, which would also need to be combined with movements for social justice, and could become the basis of a progressive political and social agenda.
Peter adds that “capital increasingly seems to be supportive” of moves towards free culture. This is partially the case. I use the concept of netarchical capitalism to indicate that a section of capital is creating sharing platforms and engaging with peer production communities, because they are realizing that it is a means of making a profit. Other sectors however, remain adamantly opposed to it.
Peter’s assessment that P2P people do not seem “ones moved sufficiently to take any meaningful risk to bring about a decent society” is one that I would seriously dispute, since I know an extraordinary number of p2p activists living in very precarious circumstances and dedicating their lives to constructing such alternatives.
This page also contains remarks about classnessness, to which I will reply below.
Under my reaction to Parecon, here at http://www.zcommunications.
“our organizations which make up the "embryo" of our future society must embody the values and structures (to the greatest extent possible) of the society we which to attain. Basically, this means that any "transformative social movement" would not be led by any coordinating central committee imposing illegitimate hierarchic relations. But instead would, to the greatest extent possible, implement self-management.”
I completely agree, and peer production communities in fact generally adhere to these principles as well (though they can go wrong as in the case of the Wikipedia governance model), which is why I find this social practice so encouraging.
I would like to re-iterate my position regarding classlessness. If we wish for it, the question is really: how to achieve it. Striving for utopia is one thing, realizing it is another. Since the tribal era, success in this area has been extremely limited.
As I see it, there are two ways to achieve it. One is to create small voluntary communities. These communities exist in various forms already, as intentional communities (Federation of Egalitarian Communities), as spiritual communities (Focolare), and I presume there must be Parecon communities, though I have never heard of them.
The other means is through social struggle and a phase transition for the whole society. I don’t think class is biological not at all, but I’m really still with Marx on this. This means that under conditions of relative scarcity, we will still needs forms of exchange or reciprocity (like Parecon), but to the degree we move to relative abundance, we can realize more and more non-reciprocal relationships. It is in fact because of the relative abundance of non-rival goods, i.e. knowledge, software, designs, that we now have the emergence of ‘communal shareholding’ in the sphere of immaterial production. So my idea is to combine this very real and already existing possibility, with cooperative potential in the field of material production. This process benefits enormously from current technological developments leading to more distributed means of capital and manufacturing. So while today’s peer producing communities are still forced to operate in a market and cooperate with corporations, tomorrow, they may want to create their own coops, and work with more autonomous groups of producers. See http://p2pfoundation.net/
I fear my argument about classlessness and job complexes has not been understood. My question is: how to achieve it without coercion? The division of labour is very integrated in all our social and productive systems, including in our subjectivities, and in fact, about from in the really existing peer production which abolishes the division of labour and replaces it with the distribution of voluntary accepted tasks, I see relatively little evolution in that area. I have lived in several communal arrangements myself, the worse ones being my early experiences in left collectives, where ‘nobody wanted to do the dishes’. Please do not see this is as a ridiculous statement, human inertia and resistance is very high in this area. See for example how difficult it has been for women to obtain more homework for their husbands, including with progressive feminist partners … So again, wishing for it is easy, but realizing it is very difficult. Again, realizing it in small communities can work on voluntary basis, but realizing it on a mass scale will be very difficult, especially given the massive failures that we have witnessed in the 20th century, where as Michael correctly points out, attempts at it have inevitably resulted in the emergence of coordinator class dominated systems. I therefore do admit that I have a hard time seeing the possibilities of realizing on a macro scale, the ‘classlessness’ patterns that Parecon advocates. But that does not mean that I’m opposed to it. The advantage of the process of peer production for me is that real people can experience the dynamic of communal shareholding in their lives, learn to cherish unalienated work in a community setting, and will naturally want to extend it to other areas of life.
Joe then continues the debate on job complexes and he concludes:
“I don't doubt that even the most egalitarian movement would have some type of leaders. Key question: Do the leaders continue to share the same risks and hardships of the people who have made them prominent? If so then I don't think their leadership status undermines progress towards balanced job complexes.”
That is indeed a key question, but here also the historical record would indicate caution in our expectations. There are very few social movements where a privileged leadership has not consolidated.
In peer production however, the voluntarily accepted leadership is automatically dependent on the continued adherence of voluntary contributors, and the possibility of forking or exit creates a very strong pressure. Peer communities like Debian, have created quite exemplary democratic procedures of self-management.
I recommend Matthieu O’Neil’s study, CyberChiefs, for an extensive examination of peer governance as it is really practiced.
Finally, under my “reply to Parecon, at http://www.zcommunications.
(Please note that there is some technical issue on my side. Though I click under the third link, I get the same URL as the second, but the comment field is slightly different).
Paul Brodie argues that “In Parecon, we have a set of values that we want an economy to function with, and then we ask what institutions could plausibly fulfill these values. So we 'seek out patterns (institutions) that 'go in the direction of our ethics (values). “
That is in fact very similar to my own approach, but it is the starting point that is different.
Parecon starts from a description of what society and organization is needed to fulfill the ethical requirement of classnessness. I think that is totally legitimate.
My own peer to peer approach however, starts with a really existing social practice, which already exemplifies in practice certain ethical values, and it seeks to extend these practices to wider and wider areas of social life, by interconnecting observable practices and initiatives, in the the hope they can learn from each other and strengthen each other.
The difference may be subtle, but I think it is more easy to mobilize people around really experienced and successful practices, than around a idealistic hope for the future. I see this as an important difference in approach.
So when Paul writes: “If you mean it is an economic system with such lofty expectations and values that no people, let alone institutions, could ever expect to fulfill them”, then my answer is the following:
- I think that based on historical experience and on my own life’s experience, it is indeed unlikely that there will be a mass phase transition to classlessness as indicated by Parecon
Since this conclusion is in my opinion based on observable evidence, I think the burden is rather on Paul. Why do you think this system will be realized in the near future, when all past attempts have failed?
By contrast, the peer production approach based on already existing social practice does not have that problem.
So, when Paul then again asks:
“you're right, most people don't like this sort of work, which is why it needs to be shared equally so that some group of people doesn't end up with the burden of doing all the bad, unenjoyable work”
We really arrive at the same problem: it is fine to say “it needs to be shared equally”, but the issue is, how can we realize this age old dream of human equality?
We share the desire to move in that direction, but perhaps we differ in our expectations of how far we can go in realizing it.
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