[iDC] Agency (was Re: THE ANTI WEB 2.0 MANIFESTO)

Tue May 8 07:04:46 EDT 2007

Thanks Robert, for enlightening me about the common ground between peer
production and the actual reality of artist lives.

I don't think the individual sustainability is in and by itself an argument
against peer production, because, despite the individual difficulties, we
see it emerging everywhere and being strengthened. For many, and I guess
that would include the artists, the passionate production becomes the
priority, and the paid work an obligation, or a temporary choice to fund the
passionate endeavours. So it will not disappear, but rather push more and
more the boundaries of the present system, forcing it to adapt in some way
or other. It is the only way for the system to capture the surplus
productivity. For this we need forms of revenue that are not directly
related to the activity itself, in order to provide a basic income that
smoothens the going in and out of the market. On top of that will be the
project revenues and salaries, that really become a price for your freedom.
You are getting paid to temporarily direct your efforts away from  your
passion, or to apply it, but less free as it is conditioned by the payment,
to specific issues.

A book that has been recommended to me, but hard to get in libraries, is
Tous Sublimes, which reviews the many initiatives across Europe to achieve
precisely that, and to revive the condition for a renaissance of the
Sublimes, the 19th cy. labour aristocrats that worked just a few months a
year. This is pretty much the structural condition of cognitive workers, who
are no longer selling their labour to capital, but are rather as artisans in
control of their own means of production.

So, to repeat, I disagree that p2p projects have to be financially
rewarding, in fact, if they are, they are no longer peer projects, but
cooperative projects depending on the market. The way I see it, peer
production creates, in most de-monetized ways, a commons. This is funded
either through a market for attention (in the context of the sharing economy
of individual expression) or, value added services can be created for the
market (in the case of commons-oriented production by communities). The
creation of the basic income I see as materially realistic (if the middle
ages could afford to subsidize 25% of it men to be active in spiritual
pursuits, then we certainly can now), but not yet culturally, I suspect
that, as all great civilizational advances, it will only come after great
crises, when the ruling class sees that it is the only solution to save the
system. In the meantime, the onus is on the individuals and communities
involved to find solutions for their sustainabililty. It's a challenge, but
not impossible.

What is missing I believe, is a middle term between the for-benefit
activities of commons-oriented peer production, and the for-profit companies
that either market attention or value added services. This would be equity
based cooperative projects, working for the market, but in a peer-informed
way, i.e. considering the producers and stakeholders as partners, and using
values like equity, transparency , etc... The OS Alliance is Austria, is, I
think, as I haven't studied it closely, an example of what I mean.

Of course peer production/governance/property will have its shadows and dark
sides (I'm actively tagging those in delicious), but I don't think hobbyism
is one of them. There is a difference between private hobbies, and
commons-oriented peer projects, since, they are oriented to produce a useful
commons. That commons may be a subsection of  humanity, but it is still a
human community that will benefit in the long term from the collective
endeavour.

If we need to switch from a focus on material accumulation, to one of
immaterial development, then hobbies are no longer an example of leisure,
i.e. what you do after work, but rather, become the central endeavour of
post-materialistic societies, where the real intellectual,spiritual and
cultural value is created.

Michel

>  For me the key para. of your post is, interestingly, the caveat,
> bracketed:
> > (But it comes at a price. While it is collectively sustainable (as long
> as the passion capital
> > of those who leave the project can be replaced by newcomers), it is not
> individually
> > sustainable. This key problem requires social institutional solutons).
>
> Exactly so for the vast majority of artists, even the most successful, who
> drift in and out of studio-based production while "making a living" from
> teaching, commercial art or other forms of employment, and/or are subsidized
> by family members. The art world is constantly fed by younger artists, to
> the point that we have practically created a cultish status here in Canada
> around what is called the "emerging" artist; no one asking what exactly they
> emerge "as" or "into" afterwards.
>
> I too suspect that the solution is institutional and social and that
> is, for me, the reason for the agency enquiry.
>
> For example, we do find some institutional relief to this
> "unsustainability" here in Canada where we have a fairly well-developed
> (though always inadequate) system of multi-level state funding for the arts.
> The network of institutions that provide support includes, state arts
> funding agencies that provide personal grants to artists and to artist-run
> alternative spaces, public galleries, public museums, public art fairs and
> even some business-type subsidies to private galleries. All these
> institutions have social aspects; they act in agent-like ways, or, if you
> will, act sometimes more like principals, engaging artists like agents to
> represent their institutional programs.
>
> With respect to your last para. aren't questions of leadership and
> heirarchies moot if the first problem, of basic sustainability can't be
> answered? Otherwise, you have communities that develop flatter, more
> inclusive, political processes but which finally can't serve the very people
> who are creating them because those people have to move on.
>
> If political effectiveness is to be realized as a result of p2p networks,
> don't they have to become financially rewarding?
>
> Finally, I don't know whether to bring it up here, now, but I do have one
> more nagging question, terrible to leave it to the end like this, and
> perhaps stray even futher afield, but...
>
> Lately I'm feeling like there is another dark side to "passion
> capital." Whether in YouTube or Second Life or just filesharing, one creates
> at the same time that one consumes. I write here because it entertains me to
> do so as much as I feel I am also being productive. So I have misgivings,
> that something about p2p is equivalent to hobbies like scrapbooking or model
> railroading or collecting Barbis? We don't consider those to be particuarly
> creative, nor do we think of them politically despite the fact that they all
> have rather large user groups who develop consensus about standards and
> likely share many of the same values. Yet, we tend to accept these more
> simply as kinds of surplus activity pursued without concern for compensation
> by people who can afford the time and the materials.
>

>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> *To:* idc at mailman.thing.net
> *Sent:* Monday, May 07, 2007 9:41 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [iDC] Agency (was Re: THE ANTI WEB 2.0 MANIFESTO)
>
>
> Hi Robert,
>
> We may not share the same framework of reference, so I'll be just rambling
> on.
>
> (first, in case I haven't mentioned it before, for a rapid overview of the
> p2p meme, there is now a 4-minute videa at
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-is-peer-to-peer-4-min-version-of-michel-bauwens-video-interview-featuring-cc-licensed-music/2007/05/04
>
> <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-is-peer-to-peer-4-min-version-of-michel-bauwens-video-interview-featuring-cc-licensed-music/2007/05/04+>
> )
>
>
> I will start with some arguments as why agency is indeed so efficient in
> the p2p model, and conclude with a short paragraph as to why the
> principal-agent logic does in fact not apply in distributed models.
>
> I am of the opinion that, in certain circumstances, which have to to with
> either an abundance of resources (true in the immaterial sphere), or a
> distribution of resources (i.e. slicing it up in so many small pieces that
> the supply becomes a matter of sovereign individual choices which can create
> a semblance of abundance, i.e. an infinity of choices even in a finite
> environment) - thus when these conditions are met, that the economic and
> political productivity is essentially higher, and almost inevitable creates
> asymmetric competition that will make the distributed network stronger than
> its centralized or decentralized rivals.
>
> In terms of cooperation, p2p's synergestic cooperation model (1+1>2) seems
> stronger than either neutral (the tit for tat exchange of capitalism) or
> adversarial (feudal and tributary models)
>
> In terms of game theory the four wins of p2p cooperation (win for the
> individuals involved, for the community, and for the world at large) will
> trump the individual-wins-only of capitalism, and the win-lose model of
> feudalism.
>
> In terms of motivation, the peer production model simply eliminates the
> less efficient motivations, i.e. the extrinsic negative of adversarial
> models based on fear, and the intrinsic positive remunerations of the
> for-profit model. Unpaid passionale production only caters for the intrinsic
> positive motivation, which has been shown to be the most productive.
>
> (But it comes at a price. While it is collectively sustainable (as long as
> the passion capital of those who leave the project can be replaced by
> newcomers), it is not individually sustainable. This key problem requires
> social institutional solutons).
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by representation, but peer production is
> essentially non-representational, and can only be such because we can now
> globally coordinate micro-teams that stay under the Dunbar number limitation
> of hierarchical necessity.
>
> Peer production is economically more productive for the above reasons, and
> is politically more productive because of this intrinsically higher
> participation, while it is more productive in terms of distribution of the
> wealth creation, through its commons-oriented licenses.
>
> I used to think that the model of peer production would essentially emerge
> in the immaterial sphere, and in those cases where the design phase could be
> split from the capital-intensive physical production sphere. Von Hippel's
> work is very convincing in showing how widespread the model of built-only
> capitalism already is.
>
> However, as I become more familiar with the advances in Rapid Manucturing
> (see http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Rapid_Manufacturing) and Desktop
> Manufacturing (see
> http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Desktop_Manufacturing), I'm becoming
> increasingly convinced of the strong trend towards the distribution of
> physical capital.
>
> If we couple this with the trend towards the  direct social production of
> money (i.e. the distribution of financial capital, see http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Exchange_Infrastructure_Projects
> ) and the distribution of energy (
> http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Energy_Grid); and how the two latter
> trends are interrelated (see
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/combining-distributed-energy-with-distributed-money/2007/05/06),
> then I believe we have very strong grounds to see a strong expansion of
> p2p-based modalities in the physical sphere. See also Kevin Carson's book
> manuscript about trends in decentralized production technology (
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/)
>
> I'm not suggesting that all these trends automatically lead to an
> egalitarian society, but I'm suggesting that these trends are very
> favourable to all those working on counter-institutions and new types of
> social relationships, and unprecedentally so.
>
> How is this all evolving in terms of the principal-agent problem,
> especially when there is no principal and agent involved? (and indeed no
> asymmetric information 'in principle', though it may occur 'in practice'
> because of dysfunctions). As far as I can see, the nature of peer governance
> is that leadership becomes both invitational a priori, and one of arbitrage
> a posteriori, and the main problem is for leadership to become a bottleneck
> rather than a facilitator. I believe the essential logic of such emerging
> governance systems is the avoidance of the emergence of collective
> individuals. A recent example is the conflict at couchsurfing, and how it
> generates, not a forking, but an open movement to go beyond the core
> leadership as bottleneck, see
>
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/forking-at-the-couchsurfing-hospitality-network/2007/05/08
>
> On 5/7/07, R Labossiere <admin at klooj.net> wrote:
> >
> >  Thanks Sam for the summary of David Bollier's paper, which is itself a
> > summary of his notes from an Aspen Institute round table. I remember the
> > buzz around "push" vs. "pull" models -- the ever finer articulation of
> > consumer demand that becomes determinative of production -- but hadn't
> > thought about it lately, esp. in relation to social networks.
> >
> > More people creating more themselves and being more active in creative
> > processes is a good thing, like education, lesbian moms and apple pie:) One
> > problem, much discussed here and on other lists, is about effectiveness
> > and exploitation; and that's where I'm thinking agency theory might be
> > useful.
> >
> > What I'm interested in is the link between creation and reception,
> > between creator and audience, where are a number of agent-like tasks:
> >
> > a) contact and relationship building
> > b) presentation and promotion
> > c) value judgments
> > d) aggregation of responses, and
> > e) publication of response results.
> >
> >  Agency theory has, in my very limited understanding of it, arisen to
> > resolve problems between principals and agents due to incomplete and
> > asymetric information, inefficiencies that stifle effective representation.
> > (Bernard Roddy pointed out that the theory is 'burdened' by the business
> > context where these issues tend to have critical economic consequences, but
> > I don't see that as a reason to discount the theoretical apparatus as such:
> > an "agent" that fails to build good networks, misrepresents the work or
> > improperly values it, or who doesn't appropriately provide feedback or
> > celebrate success needs to held accountable, whether we're talking about
> > Chrysler or MySpace:)
> >
> > So the question that arises is whether in the p2p environment of the
> > Web, agency is as efficient and effective as we tend to think it is.
> >
> > Speaking strictly from personal experience, within relatively small
> > networks like this one, I feel represented and, in terms of the esteemed
> > audience who I hope have read this far down in this post, it seems quite
> > efficient.
> >
> > anyway, this is intended only to open discussion...
> >
> > Sam's summary of Bollier's paper:
> > http://www.cooperationcommons.com/Documents/EntryView?id=129
> > Bollier's original paper:
> >
> > http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7BDEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5%7D/2005InfoTechText.pdf
> > The principal-agent problem on Wikipedia
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem
> >
> >
> > - Robert Labossiere
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > )
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
> alternatives.
>
> Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
> http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p
>
> Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
> ; video interview, at
> http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
>
> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by
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-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html;
video interview, at
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by
http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm
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