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There is a clear institutional division of labour between these three players

a set of "for-benefit institutions' which manage the 'infrastructure of cooperation'

an enterpreneurial coalition that creates market value on top of that commons;

because democracy, and the market, and hierarchy, are modes of allocation of scarce resources

Is there perhaps a new model of power and democracy co-evolving out of these new social practices, that may be an answer to the contemporary crisis of democracy

we are witnessing a new model for the state. A 'P2P' state, if you will.

The post-democratic logic of community

these communities are not democracies

Can we also learn something about the politics of this new mode of value creation

has achieved capacities both for global coordination, and for the small group dynamics that are characteristic of human tribal forms and that it does this without 'command and control'! In fact, we can say that peer production has enabled the global scaling of small-group dynamics.

Everyone can contribute without permission, but such a priori permissionlessness is  matched with mechanisms for 'a posteriori'  communal validation, where those with recognized expertise and that are accepted by the community, the so-called 'maintainers' and the 'editors',  decide

These decisions require expertise, not communal consensus

tension between inclusiveness of participation and selection for excellence

allowing for maximum human freedom compatible with the object of cooperation. Indeed, peer production is always a 'object-oriented' cooperation, and it is the particular object that will drive the particular form chosen for its 'peer governance' mechanisms

The main allocation mechanism in such project, which replaces the market, the hierarchy and democracy,  is a 'distribution of tasks'

no longer a division of labor between 'jobs', and the mutual coordination works through what scientist call 'stigmergic signalling'

work environment is designed to be totally open and transparent

every participating individual can see what is needed, or not and decide accordingly whether to undertake his/her particular contribution

this new model

Such communities are truly poly-archies and the type of power that is held in them is meritocratic, distributed, and ad hoc.

conflicts between contributors

are not decided by authoritarian fiat, but by 'negotiated coordination'.

A community of contributors

An enterpreneurial coalition

A set of for-benefit institutions which manage the "infrastructure of cooperation"

There is a clear institutional division of labour between these three players.

The contributors create the use value

The for-benefit institution enables and defends the general infrastructure of cooperation which makes the project 'collectively' sustainable

The enterpreneurial coalition makes the individual contributors 'sustainable', by providing an income, and very often they provide means for the continued existence of the for-benefit associations as well.

Is there perhaps a new model of power and democracy co-evolving out of these new social practices that may be an answer to the contemporary crisis of democracy?

My answer will be an emphatic yes, and stronger yet, I will argue that we are witnessing a new model for the state. A 'P2P' state, if you will.

In a first phase, the commons simply emerges as an added alternative.

becoming a subsector of society, and starts influencing the whole

phase transition and transformation will need to occur.

how a commons-dominated, i.e. after the phase transition, society would look like.

At its core would be a collection of commons, represented by trusts and for-benefit associations, which protect their common assets for the benefit of present and future generations

The commons ‘rents out’ the use of its resources to entrepreneurs. In other words, business still exists, though infinite growth-based capitalism does not.

More likely is that the corporate forms will be influenced by the commons and that profit will be subsumed to other goals, that are congruent with the maintenance of the commons.

The state will still exist, but will have a radically different nature

Much of its functions will have been taken over by commons institutions, but since these institutions care primarily about their commons, and not the general common good, we will still need public authorities that are the guarantor of the system as a whole, and can regulate the various commons, and protect the commoners against possible abuses. So in our scenario, the state does not disappear, but is transformed, though it may greatly diminish in scope, and with its remaining functions thoroughly democratized and based on citizen participation.

In our vision, it is civil-society based peer production, through the Commons, which is the guarantor of value creation by the private sector, and the role of the state, as Partner State, is to enable and empower the creation of common value. The new peer to peer state then, though some may see that as a contradictio in terminis, is a state which is subsumed under the Commons, just as it is now under the private sector. Such a peer to peer state, if we are correct, will have a much more modest role than the state under a classic state society, with many of its functions taken over by civil society associations, interlinked in processes of global governance. The above then, this triarchy, is the institutional core which replaces the dual private-public binary system that is characteristic of the capitalist system that is presently the dominant format.

fundamental mission is to empower direct social-value creation, and to focus on the protection of the Commons sphere as well as on the promotion of sustainable models of entrepreneurship and participatory politics

the state becomes a 'partner state' and enables autonomous social production.

the state does exist, and I believe that we can’t just imagine that we live in a future state-less society

retreating from the binary state/privatization dilemma to the triarchical choice of an optimal mix amongst government regulation, private-market freedom and autonomous civil-society projects

the role of the state

“the peer production of common value requires civic wealth and strong civic institutions.

trigger the production/construction of new commons by - (co-) management of complexe resource systems which are not limited to local boundaries or specific communities (as manager and partner) - survey of rules (chartas) to care for the commons (mediator or judge) - kicking of or providing incentives for commoners governing their commons - here the point is to design intelligent rules which automatically protect the commons, like the GPL does (facilitator)"

the emergence of the digital commons. It is the experience of creating knowledge, culture, software and design commons, by a combination of voluntary contributions, entrepreneurial coalitions and infrastructure-protecting for-benefit associations, that has most tangibly re-introduced the idea of commons, for all to use without discrimination, and where all can contribute. It has drastically reduced the production, distribution, transaction and coordination costs for the immaterial value that is at the core also of all what we produce physically, since that needs to be made, needs to be designed. It has re-introduced communing as a mainstream experience for at least one billion internet users, and has come with proven benefits and robustness that has outcompeted and outcooperated its private rivals. It also of course offers new ways to re-imagine, create and protect physical commons.

stop enclosures

peer to peer, i.e. the ability to freely associate with others around the creation of common value

communal shareholding, i.e. the non-reciprocal exchange of an individual with a totality. It is totality that we call the commons.

It is customary to divide society into three sectors, and what we want to show is how the new peer to peer dynamic unleashed by networked infrastructures, changes the inter-relationship between these three sectors.

In the current ‘cognitive capitalist’ system, it is the private sector consisting of enterprises and businesses which is the primary factor, and it is engaged in competitive capital accumulation. The state is entrusted with the protection of this process. Though civil society, through the citizen, is in theory ‘sovereign’, and chooses the state; in practice, both civil society and the state are under the domination of the private sector.

it fulfills three contradictory functions

Of course, this is not to say that the state is a mere tool of private business.

protect the whole system, under the domination of private business

protector of civil society, depending on the balance of power and achievements of social movements

protector of its own independent interests

Under fascism, the state achieves great independence from the private sector , which may become subservient to the state. Under the welfare state, the state becomes a protector of the social balance of power and manages the achievements of the social movement; and finally, under the neoliberal corporate welfare state, or ‘market state’, it serves most directly the interests of the financial sector.

key institutions and forms of property.

The state managed a public sector, under its own property.

The private sector , under a regime of private ownership, is geared to profit, discounts social and natural externalities, both positive and negative, and uses its dominance in society to use and dominate the state.

civil society has a relative power as well, through its capability of creating social movements and associations

Capitalism has historically been a pendulum between the private and the public sector

However, this configuration is changing,

the endangerment of the biosphere through the workings of ‘selfish’ market players; the second is the role of the new digital commons.

participatory politics

Peer production gives us an advance picture of how a commons-oriented society would look like. At its core is a commons and a community contributing to it, either voluntarily, or as paid entrepreneurial employees. It does this through collaborative platforms using open standards. Around the commons emerges enterprises that create added value to operate on the marketplace, but also help the maintenance and the expansion of the commons they rely on. A third partner are the for-benefit associations that maintain the infrastructure of cooperation. Public authorities could play a role if they wanted to support existing commons or the creation of new commons, for the value they bring to society.

if a commons is not created as in the case of the digital commons, it is something that is inherited from nature or former generations, given in trust and usufruct, so that it can be transmitted to our descendents. The proper institution for such commons is therefore the trust, which is a corporate form that cannot touch its principal capital, but has to maintain it.

There’s an opportunity to disrupt how those organizations work. Intermediaries, though they do a good job, have a few problems — they’re centralized, which makes them vulnerable to attack or failure

They tax the system

They capture data

They exclude billions of people from the global economy

internet of value

With blockchain, we can go from redistributing wealth to distributing value and opportunity value fairly a priori, from cradle to grave.

creating a true sharing economy by replacing service aggregators like Uber with distributed applications on the blockchain

unleashing a new age of entrepreneurship

build accountable governments through transparency, smart contracts and revitalized models of democracy.

The virtual you is owned by large intermediaries

This virtual you knows more about you than you do sometimes

So there’s a strange phenomenon from the first generation of the Internet where the most important asset class that’s been created is data —and we don’t control it or own it.

individuals taking back their identity through your own personal avatar

The financial services industry

antiquated

a complicated machine that does a simple thing

settlement

an opportunity to profoundly change the nature of the entire industry. The Starbucks transaction should be instant.

At the heart of it, the financial services industry moves value.

so this is both an existential threat to the financial services industry and an historic opportunity.

Banks trade on trust

Within the decade, every single financial asset, which is really just a contract

will all move to a blockchain-based format

In the accounting world, a lot of firms rely on costly audits to drive their profits

With blockchain, you could have a third entry time-stamped in a distributed ledger that could be acceptable to any relevant stakeholders from regulators to shareholders, giving you a perfect record of the truth and thus the financial health of an organization.

Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase argued that firms exist because transaction costs in an open market are greater than the cost of doing things inside the boundaries of the corporation.

four costs — of search, coordination, contracting and establishing trust

Blockchains will profoundly affect all of these.

you can now synthesize trust on an open platform and people who’ve never met can trust each other to do certain things. So this results in a whole number of new business models

It turns out the Internet of Everything needs a Ledger of Everything, because a lightbulb buying power from your neighbor’s solar panel definitely won’t use banks or the Visa network

Right now, governments take tax revenue from corporations, individuals, licenses and so on. All of that can change. We can first of all have transparency in a radical sense because sunlight is the best disinfectant. Secondly, we can open up governments in a different sense of sharing data.

governments can enable self-organization to occur in society where companies, civil society organizations, NGOs, academics, foundations, and government agencies and individual citizens ought to use this data to self-organize and create what we used to call services or forms of public value. The third one has to do with the relationship between citizens and their governments.

There are more opportunities to create government by the people for the people

Electronic voting won’t be delivered by traditional server technology because it won’t be trusted by citizens