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In his new book, Jeremy Rifkin focuses on the value crisis of contemporary capitalism based on the revolution in marginal costs which destroys the profit rate. He concludes that this will mean that the economy and society will re-orient itself around collaborative commons, with a more peripheric role for the market dynamics. In this, Jeremy Rifkin joins the founding charter of the P2P Foundation, which was precisely created in 2005 to observe, study and promote this transition.

Past historical phase transitions, say the transition from the Roman Empire slave-based system to feudal serfdom, or the transition of feudalism to capitalism, where not exactly smooth affairs, so it may be un-realistic to expect a smooth and unproblematic phase transition towards a post-capitalist social order.

To get a better understanding of how this transition could occur, we can do two things. First, we can look at past transitions, such as transition to feudalism, and ask ourselves what this means for the current one; second, we can look at the micro-economy of the already existing commons economy, and perhaps deduce from this the future outlines of the social order to come. Follow me in these two explorations.

1. What we can learn from Rome

Most historical empires followed the process outlined by the 14th century Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun: at a certain stage of development, the benefits of the expansion are no longer sufficient to outpace the rise of the costs of managing complexity, the empire starts to decline and is taken over by neighboring 'barbaric' tribes ... But Roman transition did much more than that: it created an entirely new economic and social system. Faced with the crisis of Roman globalization, i.e. a dearth of slaves and gold, Roman emperors and the more intelligent parts of the elite, switched to the emerging coloni system, i.e. a system of land-bound agrarian serfs.

The transition dynamic can be summarized as:

1) a crisis occurs in the dominant system;
2) an exodus occurs at the bottom of society in the producing class (from slaves to serfs, from serfs to labor, from labor to peer producer);
3) a section of the managerial class orients itself to the new mode of value creation and distribution.

Hence the paradox that it is actually a section of the former ruling class that funds and creates the new modalities. Reality check today: the economic meltdown is causing an exodus of labor to freelance status, unemployment and peer production; a section of capital, netarchical capital, invests in the commons and sharing-based social media. Think IBM, which has morphed to a certain degree into a Linux-based consulting company; think Facebook, paradoxically enabling and empowering self-organization and p2p social logics on a global scale.

A second factor, based on the resource crisis of the Roman Empire, is a transition from economies of scale, to economies of scope, i.e. 'doing more with the same thing.' Hence, the feudal system relocalized production in local domains, the Catholic Church and its monasteries created a global open design community at the scale of Europe, and the monks mutualized the physical infrastructures of production and became the engineers of the first medieval industrial revolution (Gimpel, Jean. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages). Note that this was NOT a smooth transition, and took almost five centuries of instability before its consolidation after the first European Revolution of 975 (the Peace of God movement led by the monks which created the new feudal social order that would blossom in the 10th to 13th centuries).

Reality check today: the free software, free culture, open design and hardware movements are mutualizing knowledge, while the sharing economy and the hackerspace/makerspace/fablab/coworking movements are mutualizing physical infrastructures. Just as after the 5th century, the transition towards economies of scope has started.

The third lesson is crucial: political and social revolution is preceded by the emergence, within the old system, of the new productive system and its value logic. Not the other way around, as the socialist and marxist tradition has claimed. Today, in the very womb of capitalism, the new mode of production, the new way of value creation and distribution, is already emerging and growing, but under the domination of the old system still, but, as its logic is fundamentally different of the logic of capital, it cannot possibly be subsumed forever, and prepares the ground for a structural transformation. This structural transformation, or 'phase transition', will make the emergent subsystem into the new dominant logic. Today, the economy based on common knowledge pools is already estimated at 1/6th of GDP in the US (17 million workers). Netarchical capitalism, the forces of capital that are funding and enabling the transition towards the collaborative commons, though under their own conditions, are a increasingly strong sector of the economy, but their very parasital mode of operation (i.e. expropriation of nearly 100% of the value created by human cooperation), makes it impossible for them to be the next ruling class. A capitalism that doesn't pay its value creators simply cannot exist in the long term as a stable system. This is why Jeremy Rifkin is entirely correct in his prediction for the future.
2. Looking at the already existing collaborative commons economy.
So what is the existing commons economy? It's the economy of commons-oriented peer production, first described by Yochai Benkler in The Wealth of Networks. It consists of productive communities of contributors, paid or unpaid, who are contributing, not to privatized knowledge, but to common pools of knowledge, code and design, which fuels a new commons-oriented economy. It's the economy of open knowledge, free software, open design and open hardware, more and more connected to practices of open and distributed manufacturing. It's the economy fueled by the exodus from waged labor, into a freelance economy of young urban knowledge workers, who live from the market economy, but produce more and more for open knowledge pools.

It has a fairly clear institutional structure that prefigures the commons society to come.

Unlike proprietary capitalism, the value is deposited by a community of contributors in a common pool ; this is the core of the new value creation; this is the sphere of abundant knowledge that can be shared and reproduced at marginal cost; the infrastructure of cooperation is empowered and enabled by a new type of for-benefit associations, which do not command and control the production, but make it possible. They are most often foundations, like the Apache Foundation or the Gnome Foundation; around this is constituted a entrepreneurial coalition of enterprises, which provides employment to an increasing number of peer producers: 75% of linux contributors are paid by enterprises who operate on the market , and create market value on top of the commons. Other forms of peer-driven economies are constituted around distributed labor (crowdsourcing), social media (Facebook, Twitter). This new form of netarchical capital (the hierarchy of the network, hence 'net'-'archical') that at the same time enables and empowers social cooperation and collective value creation through sharing and the commons, also captures the value.

In this transitional model, still capital-based but already working around a commons that has an entirely different logic, that is already no longer a commodity, that is already no longer based on a command hierarchy, that is based on the self-allocation of effort through a distribution of tasks instead of a division of labor. In the more extreme variants of this model, we see 100% of the value creation carried out through free human cooperation, but also 100% of the value capture done by the proprietary platform owners. This 'value crisis', where no value flows back to the value creators, clearly show that it is a transitional model, not bound to last. How could a capitalism function, where none of the created value returns to the value creators. Who will buy the products ?

Hence the increasing contradiction in a system where the ability to directly create use value in the commons rises exponentially, but the capacity to monetize these efforts only grows linearly, and is captured without return in terms of livelihood.

Thus the need to harmonize the value distribution mode, in an increasingly dysfunctional capitalism, with the value creation mode. Bottom-up, the new type of enterpreneurs are experimenting with new types of open business models, which recognize the characteristics of the commons. But this will not be enough, restoring the value loop between value creation and value realization will be the key challenge of the phase transition.
3. Facilitating the transitions
The most interesting experiment is happening in Ecuador, where the author of this article has been asked to be the research director of a research project to plan a national transition towards a social knowledge economy. It is the first time that a nation-state recognizes the necessity of such a transition.

They have asked a team of research to create a framework and ten policy papers, that create both the material and immaterial conditions to re-orient the economy, and hence the social and economic system, around open knowledge commons in every field of social, economic and political activity. Following Rifkin's lead, the internet of knowledge creation, driven by common-based pools; could be matched with an internet of energy and manufacturing. Imagine that the neo-colonial economy of Ecuador, which still experts raw material like oil and bananas with low added value, and has to import consumption and production goods with high added value, would develop its own domestic industries, by combining cooperation with global open design communities, and local communities of practice (say in the field of open agricultural machine design and production), and would actually produce these tools and machines locally, close to the place of need. Today, in the neoliberal globalized economy, the cost of transportation is three times the cost of production, and IP-based profits trump the profits in material production. This is why open hardware can be produced consistently at about one eight of the cost of production of proprietary hardware. Imagine that a country like Ecuador, would systematically follow the advice of Joshua Pearce in his book, Open Source Lab (Pearce, Joshua M. Open-Source Lab. Elsevier, 2013), which shows how scientific labs can be built at about 10% of the cost, by systematically opting for open scientific instruments ? It is to early to tell to which degree Ecaudor will indeed follow the recommendations, but that it is contemplating such a transition, shows that the maturity of the emerging mode of production, is much more advanced than most analysts believe. This national effort is already matched by remarkable experiences at the local (city) and regional level in different parts of the world.
4. In conclusion: some recommendations
Our own recommendation is the following (in detail here): open design communities should move to the use of reciprocity-based commons licenses, which unlike the General Public License, allows for the creation of cooperative and reciprocity-based forms of material production, i.e. 'ethical', 'not-for-profit' enterpreneurial coalitions, formed by the commoners themselves. Once constituted, the members of such coalitions, operating in solidarity around the same commons, could move forward to new practices such as open book accounting and open supply chains. If this were done, peer production would become capable of insuring its self-reproduction outside of the sphere of the accumulation of capital.

Through mutual coordination, the already existing, stigmergy-based mutual coordination of 'immaterial' production, would become applicable to material production. In other words, the system of allocation of resources through market price signals, as well as the internal planning that takes place in large enterprises, would be matched by an emerging sphere that would allocate resources through mutual coordination. If the micro-economic model that we discussed in section 2 would grow to become a societal model, we would see that the core of society would have become a productive civil society, organized around contributory commons; we would see that the state would have been transformed into a Partner-State, which like the micro-economic for-benefit associations, would enable and empower autonomous social production on a societal scale; finally, a post-capitalist market economy would have been constituted by ethical enterpreneurial coalitions, who would use their surplus and profit to realize their social goals.

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Beyond Jeremy Rifkin: How Will the Phase Transition to a Commons Economy Actually Occur?

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In his new book, Jeremy Rifkin focuses on the value crisis of contemporary capitalism based on the revolution in marginal costs which destroys the profit rate. He concludes that this will mean that the economy and society will re-orient itself around collaborative commons, with a more peripheric role for the market dynamics.

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Ouvrage de Michel Bauwens - Boek van Michel Bauwens

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Ouvrage de Michel Bauwens - Boek van Michel Bauwens

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Présent à la bibliothèque de l'IFA - Aanwezig in de OFO Bibliotheek

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Ouvrage d'Alain Tarrius, cité par Michel Bauwens

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Ouvrage d'Alain Tarrius, cité par Michel Bauwens

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La mondialisation ne dépend pas que des multinationales, la mondialisation part également de la base.

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Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons

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Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons

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Regulation at http://www.comune.bologna.it/media/files/bolognaregulation.pdf

David Bollier:

How does the program work?

"It starts by regarding the city as a collaborative social ecosystem. Instead of seeing the city simply as an inventory of resources to be administered by politicians and bureaucratic experts, the Bologna Regulation sees the city's residents as resourceful, imaginative agents in their own right. Citizen initiative and collaboration are regarded as under-leveraged energies that - with suitable government assistance - can be recognized and given space to work. Government is re-imagined as a hosting infrastructure for countless self-organized commons.

To date, the city and citizens have entered into more than 90 different "pacts of collaboration" - formal contracts between citizen groups and the Bolognese government that outline the scope of specific projects and everyone's responsibilities. The projects fall into three general categories - living together (collaborative services), growing together (co-ventures) and working together (co-production).

Phase I projects over the past year included a kindergarten run by parents, a "social streets" initiative, and an urban agricultural coop. In the coming year a new set of Phase II test projects selected by citizens will attempt to extend the scope of the efforts - perhaps with collaborative housing and new sorts of social services provisioning, perhaps with new co-learning programs in the public schools and neighborhood markets." ( http://bollier.org/blog/bologna-laboratory-urban-commoning)

The English version edited by 2013/2014 Labgov interns is now the official version adopted by the City of Bologna. [2]: http://www.comune.bologna.it/media/files/bolognaregulation.pdf

Introduction

Excerpted from the intro to the regulation:

"This Regulation was drafted by a working group appointed by the City of Bologna within the project "The city as a Commons" supported by Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna (www.fondazionedelmonte.it). The Italian version can be downloaded here. Translation into English was prepared and edited by LabGov - LABoratory for the GOVernance of commons ( http://www.labgov.it) at LUISS Guido Carli. Through this acknowledgment note, LabGov would like to express its gratitude to all those who spent time and energies on this translation of what is now known as the Bologna Regulation on Public Collaboration for Urban Commons. Thus we extend our thanks to LabGov interns who translated single parts of this Regulation: Salvatore Borghese, Edoardo De Stefani, Elena de Nictolis, Alessandra Feola, Fabio Fioravanti, Rosaria Gimmelli, Lucia Mosca, Silvia Pianta, Gianluca Purpura, Marco Quaglia, Stefano Speranza, Margherita Sperduti. Also, LabGov expresses sincere gratitude to professors Sheila Foster and Giacinto della Cananea for commenting the regulation and its English version during the workshop on "Urban commons and the Bologna Regulation on public collaboration. An Inter-Atlantic dialogue" held at LUISS Guido Carli on October 31st, 2014." ( http://www.labgov.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bologna-Regulation-on-collaboration-between-citizens-and-the-city-for-the-cure-and-regeneration-of-urban-commons1.pdf)

Section 1 : Purpose, subject and scope

TITLE I - General provisions Sec. 1 (Purpose, subject and scope)

1. This Regulation, in line with the provisions of the Italian Constitution and the Municipal Statute governs the forms of collaboration among citizens and the City of Bologna for the care and regeneration of urban commons.

2. The provisions shall apply in cases where the intervention of citizens for the care and regeneration of urban commons requires the collaboration or responds to the solicitation of the City.

3. The collaboration among citizens and the administration is manifested through the adoption of non - authoritative administrative acts.

4. Remaining firm and distinct from the subject matter of this Regulation, the regulatory provisions of the City govern the provision of economic benefits and instrumental support to associations, pursuant to Sec. 12 of Law no. 241 of August 7th, 1990.

Section 2 : Definitions

Sec. 2 (Definitions)

For the purposes of these provisions the terms are defined as follows

a. Urban commons: the goods, tangible, intangible and digital, that citizens and the Administration, also through participative and deliberative procedures, recognize to be functional to the individual and collective wellbeing , activating consequently towards them, pursuant to article 118, par. 4, of the Italian Constitution, to share the responsibility with the Administration of their care or regeneration in order to improve the collective enjoyment

b. City or Administration: the City of Bologna in its different institutional and organizational branches.

c. Active citizens: all subjects, single or associated, anyhow gathered in social formations, also of entrepreneurial type or with social vocation, which are active for the care and regeneration of urban commons, pursuant to this Regulation.

d. Collaboration proposal: The expression of interest, formulated by active citizens, in order to bring interventions about care or regeneration of urban commons. The proposal may be spontaneous or formulated in response to a solicitation of the City

e. Collaboration agreement: the agreement through which the City and active citizens define the area of application of the interventions about care and regeneration of urban commons.

f. Care interventions: interventions aimed for the protection, conservation and maintenance of urban commons to ensure and improve their quality and usability.

g. Shared management: care interventions of urban commons carried out jointly by citizens and administration with continuity and inclusivity.

h. Regeneration interventions: recovery, transformation and innovation interventions, carried out through co-design methods pursuant to social, economic, technological and environmental participatory, broad and integrated processes, that determine an overall improvement of the quality of life in the city.

i. Public spaces: green areas, squares, streets, sidewalks and others public spaces or open to the public, of public property or subject to public use.

j. Civic network: the citizenship space on the Internet for the publication of information and institutional news, the use of online services and the participation to interactive sharing processes.

k. Civic medium: communication channel, related to the civic network, for the collection, evaluation, voting and comment of proposals made by the Administration and the citizens.

Policy implementations in Bologna, via Neal Gorenflo:

"We heard from the leaders of three projects that had signed pacts. Michela Bassi spoke of the impact of her Social Streets project, which has moved from a network of neighborhood Facebook groups to a nonprofit with a set of tangible projects including an outdoor ad turned into a neighborhood bulletin board. Veronica Veronesi introduced Reuse With Love, a group of 50 neighbors who joined forces to fight waste and improve the lives of children and the poor. Annarita Ciaruffoli of Dentro Al Nido (Inside the Nest) spoke of how the regulation was helping to restore schools.

Stefano Brugnara, president of Arci Bologna and spokesperson for the Bologna Third Sector Forum, an association of local nonprofits, spoke of the durable role of nonprofits under the new regulation; that they don't get subsumed by it, but rather can be strengthened by it, especially if there's transparency in its application. His comments hinted at a concern that nonprofits would be weakened by the regulation.

Giovanni Ginocchini of Bologna's Urban Center commented on urban transformation from a physical standpoint including fighting graffiti, renovation of the city's famous arcades, green lighting in public spaces, and better social housing." ( http://www.shareable.net/blog/bologna-celebrates-one-year-of-a-bold-experiment-in-urban-commoning)

Jay Waljasper:

"Bologna's urban commons initiative began in May 2014, when the city council passed landmark legislation, Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons. "A new era was dawning where citizens are active co-managers of the resources they use in cities instead of passive recipients of services," wrote Neal Gorenflo in Shareable after visiting Bologna at the first anniversary of the project.

The origins of the idea date back to 2011 when a group of local women contacted the city about donating benches to their neighborhood park, which lacked any place to sit. The women grew frustrated as their generous offer was bounced from one municipal department to another until finally they were told it was impossible. In fact, it was illegal for citizens to contribute improvements to their hometown.

As one of Italy's most progressive cities, home to Europe's oldest university and with a regional economy based on cooperative enterprises, this incident caused a stir around Bologna and spurred city officials to partner with the Rome-based organization LabGov (Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons) which applies the work of Elinor Ostrom to city life. Conference co-chair Christian Iaione, a legal scholar, was instrumental in bringing the project to life. Similar projects sprouted in the Italian cities of Palermo, Montova, Battipaglia and Rome. In North America, Toronto is looking at implementing Urban Commons policies and LabGov is partnering Fordham Urban Law Center to launch a project in New York City." ( http://bmccommons.org/index.php/2016/02/08/the-city-as-a-commons-from-flint-to-italy/)

by Christian Iaione:

"The approval of the so-called Bologna Regulation on the collaboration between citizens and public administrations for the care and regeneration of urban commons has given impulse to a local regulatory movement. Having greatly contributed to the drafting of this regulation I could not be less happy to see public collaboration ideas spreading. Unfortunately to elaborate and pass a reform is not sufficient in order to recognize and protect the commons.This subject requires a cultural change in the administration of public and private goods and implies the shift from government logic, centered on the bipolar paradigm, to governance logic (1) based on the circular subsidiarity paradigm (2). Moreover it requires also a shift of methodological approach, from theoretical to experimental. The cultural leap needed by the commons highlights the necessity to create several kinds of initiatives to persuade, train, follow and assist public administrations and its officials in the concrete application of the model of shared administration of the commons. By doing so it will be possible to promote the paradigm of the governance in which the practice of the shared care of the commons is part.

This means that for promoting the spread of a culture of the governance of the commons is necessary to restart from the tools of the "institutional communication" intended as public policy centered on the one hand on the sharing of a common worldview, on the other hand on the governance of the networks and the valorization of the energies of the society.This proposal requires the creation of a "space" or "hub" in which the public administration that intend to be involved could get techniques of governance of the commons. This in the perspective to provide activities of "learning-intervention" based on the alternation between class and field to their employees.The educational method adopted aims to combine: a) dispensation, also via computer, of lessons of technical/operational kind and high professional level; b) support in the project management and practical experimentation of the models of governance of the commons; c) elaboration and spread of the results of the activities, research and analysis made within these experimentations.The final objective is the establishment of a coordination center for the governance of the commons. A public-private institution able to promote and support, mainly the public administration, in the achievement of experiences of governance of the commons. It will be necessary a cultural dissemination within public administration in order to raise the general competences for involving citizens in the implementation, maintenance and financing of the commons." ( http://www.labgov.it/a-coordination-center-for-the-commons/)

David Bollier on the LabGov experiment in Bologna

David Bollier:

"What would it be like if city governments, instead of relying chiefly on bureaucratic rules and programs, actually invited citizens to take their own initiatives to improve city life? That's what the city of Bologna, Italy, is doing, and it amounts to a landmark reconceptualization of how government might work in cooperation with citizens. Ordinary people acting as commoners are invited to enter into a "co-design process" with the city to manage public spaces, urban green zones, abandoned buildings and other urban issues.

The Bologna project is the brainchild of Professor Christian Iaione of LUISS University in Rome in cooperation with student and faculty collaborators at LabGov, the Laboratory for the Governance of Commons. LabGov is an "inhouse clinic" and think tank that is concerned with collaborative governance, public collaborations for the commons, subsidiarity (governance at the lowest appropriate level), the sharing economy and collaborative consumption. The tagline for LabGov says it all: "Society runs, economy follows. Let's (re)design institutions and law together.

For years Iaione has been contemplating the idea of the "city as commons" in a number of law review articles and other essays. In 2014, the City of Bologna formally adopted legislation drafted by LabGov interns. The thirty-page Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons (official English translation here) outlines a legal framework by which the city can enter into partnerships with citizens for a variety of purposes, including social services, digital innovation, urban creativity and collaborative services.

Taken together, these collaborations comprise a new vision of the "sharing city" or commons-oriented city. To date, some 30 projects have been approved under the Bologna Regulation. Dozens of other Italian cities are emulating the Bologna initiative.

The Bologna Regulation takes seriously the idea that citizens have energy, imagination and responsibility that they can apply to all sorts of municipal challenges. So why not empower such citizen action rather than stifling it under a morass of bureaucratic edicts and political battles? (On this point, check out David Graeber's new book,The Utopia of Rules.)

The conceptualization of "city as commons" represents a serious shift in thinking. Law and bureaucratic programs are not seen as the ultimate or only solution, and certainly not as solutions that are independent of the urban culture. Thinking about the city as commons requires a deeper sense of mutual engagement and obligation than "service delivery," outsourcing and other market paradigms allow.

But consider the upside: Instead of relying on the familiar public/private partnerships that often siphon public resources into private pockets, a city can instead pursue "public/commons partnerships" that bring people together into close, convivial and flexible collaborations. The working default is "finding a solution" rather than beggar-thy-neighbor adversarialism or fierce political warfare.

To Iaione, the Bologna Regulation offers a structure for "local authorities, citizens and the community at large to manage public and private spaces and assets together. As such, it's a sort of handbook for civic and public collaboration, and also a new vision for government." He believes that "we need a cultural shift in terms of how we think about government, moving away from the Leviathan State or Welfare State toward collaborative or polycentric governance."

Besides more public collaborations, the Regulation encourages what Iaione calls "nudge regulations" -- a "libertarian paternalism" that uses policy to encourage (but not require) people to make better choices. The term, popularized by behavioral economist Richard Thaler and law scholar Cass Sunstein in their book Nudge, is seen as a way of respecting people's individual freedoms while "nudging" them to (for example) save enough for retirement, eat healthier foods and respect the environment.

The Regulation also encourages "citytelling" - a process that recognizes people's "geo-emotional" relationships with urban spaces in the crafting of rules for managing those spaces. And it elevates the importance of "service design" techniques for meeting needs. Thus, information and networking tools, training and education, collaboration pacts and initiatives, and measurement and evaluation of impact, all become more important.

For a lengthier treatment of Professor Iaione's thinking and the Bologna Regulation, check out Michel Bauwens' recent interview with Iaione at the Shareable website. Iaione explains how his studies of the tragedy of urban roads and experiments in Bologna led him to develop the theoretical framework for local public entrepreneurship, which is the basis of the CO-Mantova project and the idea of the city as a commons.

Iaione sees commons-related policies as ways to tap into the talents and enthusiasm of an emerging new social class - active citizens, social innovators, makers, creatives, sharing and collaborative economy practitioners, service designers, co-working and co-production experts, and urban designers. Conventional governance structures cannot effectively elicit or organize the energies of these people. Thinking about the "city as open platform" works better.

With the CO-Mantova project, in Mantua, LabGov has been trying to develop "a prototype of a process to run the city as a collaborative commons, i.e., a 'co-city.'" It is building a new kind of collaborative/polycentric governance with five key sets of actors: social innovators, public authorities, businesses, civil society organizations, and knowledge institutions. Although it is a formal, institutionalized process - a public-private-citizen partnership - its beating heart is the trust, cooperation, social ethic and culture among the participating parties.

The goal is to build peer-to-peer platforms - physical, digital and institutional - to advance three main purposes: "living together (collaborative services), growing together (co-ventures), making together (co-production)." The CO-Mantova project may soon start a CO-Mantova Commons School.

An exciting aspect to LabGov is its reconceptualization of the catalytic role that universities can play. LabGov is a nonprofit based at a university, but it works with all sorts of outsiders. Instead of considering the university, industry and government as the only important players, LabGov subscribes to "a Quintuple Helix approach" (expressed in LabGov logo) where the university "becomes an active member of the community and facilitates the creation of new forms of partnerships in the general interest between government, industry and businesses, the not-for-profit sector, social innovators and citizens, and other institutions such as schools, academies, plus research and cultural centers."

There are so many urban commons projects emerging these days that it would be great to assemble them into a new network of vanguard players. In the meantime, I will be closely watching the progress of LabGov and the Italian cities that are boldly experimenting with these new modes of governance." ( http://bollier.org/blog/labgov-pioneers-paradigm-city-commons)

Bologna as a City of Collaboration

David Bollier:

"Bologna's self-declared ambition to become a "city of collaboration" has deep roots in its culture. It has long favored decentralized political authority and encouraged active citizen participation. Mayor Virginio Merola explained the city's unusual stance toward development: "Our city relies upon common assets and social relationships - but we are also a city based on human rights and duties. Our traditions as a city have been based on collaboration."

When Merola addressed the conference, he got quite emotional: "Being an attractive city means first of all, loving each other and not excluding," noting that lots of Bolognese residents come from southern Italy and that there are 120 different ethnic groups in the city. In an apparent slap at fashionable technocratic management ideas, Merola said, "We are an intelligent city because we believe in feelings," adding that "smart cities can be stupid."

Unlike so many politicians who remain committed to tight, centralized control, Merola and his staff understand the virtues of decentralized participation: "The less that central administration is doing, the more things are working," he said. "Everybody needs to have power to do something for their lives." In this, a venerable Bolognese ethic meets up with Internet sensibilities, yielding a new model of city management.

The City of Bologna is quite serious about becoming a "city of collaboration." City officials regard it as a unifying vision, and almost a brand identity - one that aligns Bologna with some of the larger trends sweeping global culture today, such as open source software, social networks, and DIY innovation. The City has even developed a "personalized logo" that allows anyone to produce a unique symbol that is graphically integrated with the general city logo -- as if to say, we are all different, but we can all be Bolognese.

Luca Rizzo Nervo, the city's development officer, explained that Bologna's community development model "goes back to the real meaning of community. We need a collaborative ecosystem - a new way of living and working together." Nervo hopes to create a national and international network of collaborative cities. Torino is already in the process of adopting the Regulation, and a number of other Italian cities, including Alessandria, Muggia and Rome, have expressed interest in the concept.

Of course, it's not as easy as passing a new city ordinance. What's really needed is a new cultural orientation and cultivation of new social practices - and those take time and commitment. It requires a retreat from bureaucratic formalism and an appreciation for the power of informal process and personal relationships.

Becoming a "collaborative city" requires that various stakeholders find new ways to work together, moving beyond political gamesmanship and bureaucratic maneuvering. Citizens, business, schools, and government, among others, have to learn how to make long term, good-faith commitments to each other and the process. Inevitably, any city will have to do its own experimentation and adaptation to learn how to make collaboration work within its distinctive culture.

This process, however, has the distinct advantage of limiting political conflict and ideological factionalism. Because goals are mutually set and programs co-designed, everyone's focus is more on working through differences than on trying to "beat" the political opposition. The openness of the process also helps avoid NIMBY-ism (Not in My Backyard) and refresh the legitimacy of government action in an ongoing way. Unlike a bureaucracy, the system is designed for rapid citizen feedback and constant iteration. In time, citizens realize that they can adopt a different attitude toward government and become meaningful participants in the process of self-governance. The city truly does belong to them." ( http://bollier.org/blog/bologna-laboratory-urban-commoning)

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Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons

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Regulation at http://www.comune.bologna.it/media/files/bolognaregulation.pdf David Bollier: How does the program work? "It starts by regarding the city as a collaborative social ecosystem. Instead of seeing the city simply as an inventory of resources to be administered by politicians and bureaucratic experts, the Bologna Regulation sees the city's residents as resourceful, imaginative agents in their own right.

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Bologna as a City of Collaboration - P2P Foundation

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The City of Bologna is quite serious about becoming a "city of collaboration." City officials regard it as a unifying vision, and almost a brand identity - one that aligns Bologna with some of the larger trends sweeping global culture today, such as open source software, social networks, and DIY innovation.

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Bologna's Urban Commons Approach - P2P Foundation

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"Bologna's urban commons initiative began in May 2014, when the city council passed landmark legislation, Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons. "A new era was dawning where citizens are active co-managers of the resources they use in cities instead of passive recipients of services," wrote Neal Gorenflo in Shareable after visiting Bologna at the first anniversary of the project.

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We introduce the concept of the Partner State Approach (PSA), in which the state becomes a 'partner state' and enables autonomous social production.

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The basic orientation of p2p theory towards societal reform:

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The basic orientation of p2p theory towards societal reform:

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transforming civil society, the private and the state

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This article aims to be a summary of the very basic orientation that I propose for social change.

I start from the classic division of human society in three basic aspects: civil society, the private sector, and the state.
1. The transformation of civil society
I think it is safe to say that in the present system, civil society is not the primary social reality. "Value" is created in the private sector, where we are present as 'workers', under the 'leadership' of corporations and those members of our society who have access to capital. Civil society though in theory 'sovereign', chooses its own authority in terms of electing the state personnel. The secondary status is well established in our language, where the organisations of civil society are called non-profits, i.e. considered as secondary to the for-profit corporations, or NGO's, non-governmental organisations that are secondary to 'government' or the state. Despite all democratic advances, the state forms have clearly been captured by private interests. Despite the critique that we can address to this state of affairs, it also represents some kind of reality, i.e. that in a capitalist system, 'civil society' is not directly productive of the goods and services that we need to survive, live and thrive.

However, the emergence of commons-based peer production, and all its derivative modes of creating value, clearly indicate that civil society has become not just productive, but in fact, the commons of knowledge, code and design are the primary productive factor in a knowledge-based economy, where everything that needs to be made, has to be designed through collaborative innovation in the first place. This means that under conditions of increased importance and centrality of peer production in value creation, civil society becomes the core of the civil-private-state triarchy.

Civil society, or perhaps better 'civic' society, becomes the core of social life, and consists of the continuous interchange and dialogue of citizens as they determine their collective life. Both civil society and the notion of citizenship can be criticized for being insufficiently inclusionary, and therefore as 'mechanisms of exclusion'. While I believe that such critique has a lot of merit, I think we can continue to use the concept of civil society if we use it in an expansive way, i.e. with a view of maximum inclusion, and in the historicity of its evolution which indeed is characterized by succeeding waves of inclusion and participation.

However, in view of such limitations, this almost certainly means that on top of the existing nation-states, we need new mechanisms so that there are no human beings that are excluded from civil and civic duties, i.e. excluded from participation in the life of the physical and 'virtual' polises that they have a stake in, or are impacted by. This means by necessity that civic life must also be transnational. Objectively speaking, commonses of knowledge, code and design are not in any way limited by nation-state limits, through they may be organized in broad language communities.

In summary, peer to peer sees the core value creation happen in civil society, as citizens/commoners create value to the various commons and communities to which they belong, and specifically the commons of knowledge, code and designs that are at the basis of any human activity.

Thus, the core of civil society is the commons, consisting of shared depositories of knowledge, code and design; the communities of contributors and users of such commons. Such commons need infrastructures of collaboration, which are managed by a new type of 'for-benefit associations' which take care of the various commons and are democratically governed by all participants and stakeholders in such commons. It is important that we use this new language of for-benefit, as it clearly indicates the primacy of such institutions, which are not derived or secondary from either the private or state forms.

In conclusions, under conditions of peer production, civil society is the locus of the shared abundance of value creation, and the place for the continual dialogue regarding the necessities of common life.

We can distinguish different aspects of civil society.

As citizens, members of civil society enter into dialogue with others around the organisation and priorities of social life, including the meta-governance of the triarchy civil-private-state; and they democratically decide the rules and norms that govern the various systems of 'provision', both material and immaterial, which provide for human needs. We also participate in the meta-governance mechanisms responsible for managing the 'common good' of society as a whole

As contributors to the various commons, we participate in the value creation, either as free voluntary contributors, or as members of a new type of private sector organisation, which we will describe later.

Some of us also participate in the governance mechanisms of the commons themselves, particularly in the democratically governed for-benefit associations that protect and nurture the commons. Whereas the commons themselves are plurarchies based on permissionless contribution, forking and other rights guaranteeing the diversity of contributions and contributors; the for-benefit associations are democratically governed. The difference is that the commons where the immaterial value is created are positioned in a field of abundance characteristic for non-rival or anti-rival goods; while the for-benefit associations are responsible for the sometimes contentious allocation of rival infrastructures.
2. The transformation of the private sector
In the present system, the private sector is the core of the triarchy and it is dominated by corporations and financial capital, closely entertwined with a state system that maintains the privileges of dominant players and that is largely captured by the dominant players of the private sector.

Under conditions of the rule of capital, for-profit corporations are beholden to work for the interests of the shareholders. This format allows for the accumulation of capital, but also indirectly of political power, through the power of money to influence politics and politicians. For-profit corporations are part of a system of infinite growth and compound interest, must continuously compete with other corporations, and therefore, also minimize costs. For-profit corporations are designed to ignore negative environmental externalities by avoiding to pay the costs associated with them; and to ignore positive social externalities, also by avoiding to pay for them. In terms of sustainability, corporations practice planned obsolescence as a rule, because while the market is a scarcity allocation mechanism, capitalism itself is a scarcity maintenance and creation mechanism. Anti-sustainable practices are systemic and part of the DNA of the for-profit corporation.

Under conditions of peer production, design and innovation moves to commons-based communitiies, which lack the incentive for unsustainable design; products are inherently design for sustainability, and the production process itself is designed for openness and distribution. This already means that even without format change, the entrepreneurial coalitions that coalesce around commons of code and design, already have to adapt to the sustainibilty norms and regulations characteristic of commons-based design. In other words, corporations have to adapt to these rules and norms and work on the basis of sustainable designs. However, we believe that peer production will bring more profound changes, and a true reform of the private sector and the corporate form.

We suggest that commons-based production communities should create new entrepreneurial forms, that are designed to make the commoners and the commons themselves sustainable, by not 'leaking' surplus value to external shareholders. This means that commoners themselves should create mission-oriented, community supportive, sustainability-oriented corporate forms, that operate in the marketplace but do not themselves reproduce capitalism. In this transformation, surplus value stays within the commons, allows its autonomous social reproduction, and sustains the commoners. A good concept for such new enterprises is the phyle, a transnational business entity that sustains a particular commons. Such entities are not only limited by external regulations exerted by the state, but have internal regulations dictating their support for the commons. Phyles can be cooperatives, B-corporations, LLC's, social entrepreneurs or any other ethical mechanism that subsumes profit making under the social goal of strengthening the commons.
3. The transformation of the state
Historically, the state started as a private function of the rulers, then became separate as the general instrument of the ruling class 'as a whole', but extended its realm of participation, first to all property owners (19th cy), later to all national citizens. Though the state form has become formally democratic in many countries, its national form has been largely unable to resist the dominance of global market forces.

We believe that under conditions of peer production, the state form will continue to exist, because the common good cannot be solely taking care of by individuals or groups taking on contracts, nor by the invisible hand of the commons, because commons and their communities are themselves specific, and do not automatically take into account the common good of society as a whole .

While we believe that the achievements of the welfare state have to be defended, and are necessary for the development of extra-state activities, we believe the state form has to be transformed into a partner state. A Partner State functions center around enabling and empowering social production and abandons some of the paternalistic aspects of the welfare state by focusing on strengthening the possibilities of autonomy.

For peer production to grow and thrive, general conditions are necessary which depend on a solid common infrastructure. The development of a partner state is not automatic, but will depend on the mobilization of social forces to obtain a new social contract. First, we suggest that peer producing communities and their social movements look for a network of sympathetic representatives; then, we suggest a sustained effort is undertaken to reform aspects of the state towards further participation and for the implementation of efforts that are beneficial to the commons. The ultimate goal is the transformation of the present state form which privileges private interests, towards a 'partner-state form' which works for the common good, the general interest of the commoners, and the thrivability of the commons.

We have to envisage the partner state as a fundamentally 'transformed' form of public authority, such as for example the 'Civic Democratic Institutions' described by Mark Whitaker in his book on the bioregional democracy.

The Partner State, functioning under the control and for the benefit of civil society and the commoners, creates ever better conditions for the growth of social production, and is responsible for the meta-governance of the new triarchy civil-private-state. The partner state respects the principles of subsidiarity, the prominence of civil society and the commons, and assists the emergence and evolution of the new commons-friendly market players.

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The basic orientation of p2p theory towards societal reform: transforming civil society, the private and the state | P2P Foundation

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This article aims to be a summary of the very basic orientation that I propose for social change. I start from the classic division of human society in three basic aspects: civil society, the private sector, and the state. 1. The transformation of civil society I think it is safe to say that in the...

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This section will be further developed:

David Bollier writes:

"This is a very complex subject, but in general, one can say that the state has very different ideas than commoners about how power, governance and accountability should be structured. The state is also far more eager to strike tight, cozy alliances with investors, businesses and financial institutions because of its own desires to share in the benefits of markets, and particularly, tax revenues. I call our system the market/state system because the alliance - and collusion - between the two are so extensive, and their goals and worldview so similar despite their different roles, that commoners often don't have the freedom or choice to enact commons. Indeed, the state often criminalizes commoning - think seed sharing, file sharing, cultural re-use - because it "competes" with market forms of production and stands as a "bad example" of alternative modes of provisioning.

Having said this, state power could play many useful roles in supporting commoning, if it could be properly deployed. For example, the state could provide greater legal recognition to commoning, and not insist upon strict forms of private property and monetization. State law Is generally so hostile or indifferent to commoning that commoners often have to develop their own legal hacks or workarounds to achieve some measure of protection for their shared wealth. Think about the General Public License for software, the Creative Commons licenses, and land trusts. Each amounts to an ingenious re-purposing of property law to serve the interests of sharing and intergenerational access.

The state could also be more supportive of bottom-up infrastructures developed by commoners, whether they be wifi systems, energy coops, community solar grids, or platform co-operatives. If city governments were to develop municipal platforms for ride-hailing or apartment rentals - or many other functions - they could begin to mutualize the benefits or such services and better protect the interests of workers, consumers and the general public.

The state could also help develop better forms of finance and banking to help commoning expand. The state provides all sorts of subsidies to the banking industry despite its intense commitment to private extraction of value. Why not use "quantitative easing" or seignorage (the state's right to create money without it being considered public debt) to finance the building of infrastructure, environmental remediation, and social needs? Commoners could benefit from new sources of credit for social or ecological purposes - or a transition to a more climate-friendly economy - that would not likely be as remunerative as conventional market activity." ( http://trise.org/2017/04/30/the-future-is-a-pluriverse-an-interview-with-david-bollier-on-the-potential-of-the-commons/)

For more on these topics, David Bollier recommends:

Co-Creative Labor, Productive Democracy and the Partner State; a very important text to reset government policies for the p2p age. The 3 parts cover: 1 A value revolution in labor; 2 Re-constituting industrial strategies based on co-creative labor; 3 The Co-Creative Economy needs a Partner State

1. The basic orientation of p2p theory towards societal reform: transforming civil society, the private and the state

2. To the Finland Station: the political approach of P2P Theory

Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy

1. The Public - Commons Partnership and the Commonification of that which is Public.

2. Towards a Legal Framework for the Commons

1. At the Turning Point of the Current Techno-Economic Paradigm: Commons-Based Peer Production, Desktop Manufacturing and the Role of Civil Society in the Perezian Framework. tripleC 11(1): 173-190, 2013. URL = http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/463/447

2. The Parody of the Commmons. tripleC 11(2): 412-424, 2013. URL = http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/484

3. The Political Economy of Information Production in the Social Web: Towards a "Partner State Approach". TUT Press, 2011. URL = http://digi.lib.ttu.ee/i/?610

The key concept we propose is that of the Partner State

Help us develop the following concepts:

Other key concepts:

Public-commons partnership is a means of de-privatization while public-private partnership is a means of privatization.

- Poor Richard (Facebook, October 2012)

""Super-Competent Democracies will emerge when the people, their leaders and the technical professionals learn how to use ensembles of participative, management cybernetic and soft-systems processes (i.e. 'Super-Competencies) to co-create increasingly just, sustainable and super-competent communities, organisations, enterprises, services, cities and states."

Commons-Public rather than Public-Commons

"We should link up social-public partnership and Commons-Public Partnerships. The important point to highlight is that social or commons must precede the state. Our elected representatives need to become again public servants and arrogant masters need to be rapidly recalled." (email, February 2014)

- Pat Conaty

David Graeber on Markets and States

"This is a great trap of the twentieth century: on one side is the logic of the market, where we like to imagine we all start out as individuals who don't owe each other anything. On the other is the logic of the state, where we all begin with a debt we can never truly pay. We are constantly told that they are opposites, and that between them they contain the only real human possibilities. But it's a false dichotomy. States created markets. Markets require states. Neither could continue without the other, at least, in anything like the forms we would recognize today." ( http://p2pfoundation.net/First_Five_Thousand_Years_of_Debt)

Key Articles

Reclaim the State. Adventures in Popular Democracy. By Hilary Wainwright. Seagull, 2009

How unions and social movements are fighting the market state.

An integrated proposal for territorial re-organisation around bio-regional provisioning.

"The subject of my previous book - The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto - was the way in which falling capital outlays required for both information and material production was eroding the rationale for large organizations, and shifting the balance of power toward individuals, small groups and networks. In particular, I focused on the radically reduced capital outlays required for manufacturing were giving rise to a low-overhead micromanufacturing economy in which the large quantities of land and capital to which the privileged classes had access were becoming increasingly irrelevant, and the material basis for the factory system and wage employment was collapsing.

In this book, my subject is how the same phenomenon is empowering individuals against the large, powerful institutions - both state and corporate - that previously dominated their lives. The implosion of capital outlays associated with the desktop revolution, and the virtual disappearance of transaction costs of coordinating action associated with the network revolution, have (as Tom Coates has said) eliminated the gap between what can be produced within large hierarchical organizations and what can be produced at home in a wide range of industries: software, publishing, music, education, and journalism among them.

The practical significance of this, which I develop in this book, is that many of the functions of government can be included in that list. The central theme of this book is the potential for networked organization to constrain the exercise of power by large, hierarchical institutions in a way that once required the countervailing power of other large, hierarchical institutions."

Left Approaches

See chapter 12 of the book by István Mészáros, The Necessity of Social Control, i.e. "The Mountain We Must Conquer: Reflections on the State"

Hardt and Negri's Empire.

Meiksins Wood's Empire of Capital.

Harvey's New Imperialism.

Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire.

Historical Approaches

The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change. Hendrik Spruyt. Princeton University Press, 1996. [3]: "The present international system, composed for the most part of sovereign, territorial states, is often viewed as the inevitable outcome of historical development. Hendrik Spruyt argues that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the state system, however. Examining the competing institutions that arose during the decline of feudalism--among them urban leagues, independent communes, city states, and sovereign monarchies."

See also: Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990 - 1992. Charles Tilly: "In this pathbreaking work, now available in paperback, Charles Tilly challenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe. Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of state development resolving in today's national state."

Books documenting the importance of government

By William Berkson [4] :

"While the short-term impact of government spending is difficult to disentangle from other factors, government investment in the economy is what actually has grown economies in the long term. Successful long-term economic growth has never come from government getting out of the way of the private market. Growth has always come from government leadership that leverages private sector growth. Government investment in public goods and services, targeted and sustained over decades has in fact always been necessary for sustained growth of the private economy and increasing opportunity for all.

Recent books documenting the critical role of public investment include:

Land of Promise by Michael Lind (2013),

Success in Agricultural Transformation by Isabelle Tsakok (2011),

State of Innovation by Fred Block and Matthew Keller (2011), and

The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato (2013). And new this March, 2016:

Concrete Economics, by Stephen Cohen and Bradford DeLong and American Amnesia, by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson."

Source: http://evonomics.com/countries-never-thrive-without-activist-government/

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This section will be further developed: David Bollier writes: "This is a very complex subject, but in general, one can say that the state has very different ideas than commoners about how power, governance and accountability should be structured.

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Founded by Michel Bauwens

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The P2P Foundation is a non-profit organization and global network dedicated to advocacy and research of commons-oriented peer to peer dynamics solutions.

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TEDxBrussels - Michel Bauwens - 11/23/09

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Michel Bauwens shred his idea of "open everything" with examples like the ecar blueprint that allows anyone to turn a Toyota Corolla into a fuly electric car. About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

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Rachel Botsman : The case for collaborative consumption

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Rachel Botsman : The case for collaborative consumption

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Talk at TedxSydney in 2010

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Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption

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Michel Bauwens a obtenu un diplôme en Relations politiques/Relations internationales en 1981 à l' université libre de Bruxelles. Il est rédacteur en chef de la revue belge mais il est surtout connu pour avoir fondé la fondation pour les alternatives P2P.

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Michel Bauwens studeerde politieke wetenschappen aan de Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Hij startte zijn carrière als informatieanalist bij de US Information Agency en werkte daarna voor onder andere British Petroleum en Belgacom als ebusiness strategy director.

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Michel Bauwens, pionier van de peer-to-peer economie

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Michel Bauwens, pionier van de peer-to-peer economie

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artikel in MO* (dec. 2012) waarin het concept van p2p economie uitgelegd uitgelegd wordt.

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In zijn geboorteland België blijft hij vooralsnog wat onder de radar, maar internationaal geniet Bauwens als spreekbuis van de peer-to-peer beweging (p2p) heel wat aanzien. Vorig jaar werd Bauwens door het Post Growth Institute, samen met ondermeer Mahatma Ghandi en Martin Luther King, opgenomen in de lijst met de 100 meest inspirerende personen voor een duurzame toekomst.

Bauwens steekt van wal met wat uitleg over waar p2p precies voor staat: 'Heel wat sociale praktijken als samen innoveren en het gedeeld gebruik van producten bestonden al, maar konden niet 'schalen'. Door het internet zijn de communicatie- en transactiekosten van het samendoen drastisch naar beneden gedrukt en krijg je opeens samenwerking op grote schaal. Ik noem dat het "mondiaal schalen van kleine-groepsdynamieken".'

'Dit lag aan de basis van bijvoorbeeld Wikipedia en het open source besturingssysteem Linux. De teams van Wikipedia en Linux zijn klein: van 1 tot 5 personen. En toch slagen die mensen er in om zeer complexe producten op te bouwen die na een paar jaar beter blijken te functioneren dan de alternatieven uit de bedrijfswereld. Geen enkel bedrijf, hoe groot het ook is en hoeveel mensen het ook kan rekruteren, is op termijn sterker dan een mondiaal netwerk van mensen die samenwerken.'

Het abc van p2p

P2p: In de computerwereld wordt een netwerk van computers die zich op hetzelfde hiërarchische niveau bevinden een peer-to-peer netwerk genoemd. Peer-to-peer, letterlijk 'van gelijke tot gelijke', kortweg p2p, wordt steeds meer ook buiten de computerwereld gebruikt om fenomenen te beschrijven waarbij mensen elkaar horizontaal benaderen. Horizontaal betekent hier: op voet van gelijkheid en zonder (of met minimale) tussenkomst van bijvoorbeeld een bedrijf of de overheid.

Community: netwerk van personen, instellingen en bedrijven die gezamenlijk bijdragen aan een project.

Commons: een door een community opgebouwde en gedeelde kennispool, waaruit de leden van de community vrij gebruik kunnen maken, zonder patenten en zonder het betalen van licenties.

Open source: term uit de computerwereld die aanduidt dat de broncode van software niet wordt afgeschermd en zo door andere programmeurs kan aangepast en verbeterd worden. Open source vindt nu ook ingang in de reële wereld onder de vorm van open design.
Voor veel mensen heeft p2p een negatieve connotatie van illegaal downloaden en piraterij. Is dat terecht?
Michel Bauwens: P2p komt historisch gezien wel uit dat milieu voort. Waarschijnlijk was ik niet de enige maar toch een van de eersten die het principe van p2p toepaste op andere vlakken van de samenleving. Ik keek dus niet enkel naar de computerwereld, maar ik beschouwde het als een sociale structuur.

P2p heeft voor mij een zeer positieve betekenis. Het gaat eigenlijk over de capaciteit van mensen om als gelijken, zonder toestemming, samen waarde te creëren. De vroegere betekenis van p2p, waar onder andere het delen van bestanden deel van uitmaakt, benadrukt eerder nog het passieve: daarbij wordt muziek gedeeld die door anderen is gemaakt. Wij bedoelen met p2p dat mensen vandaag zeer gemakkelijk met elkaar in contact kunnen komen en samen dingen kunnen opbouwen.
P2p zou meer duurzaam zijn dan het huidige systeem van produceren en consumeren. Kan u dat eens uitleggen?
Michel Bauwens: Laat ik Wikispeed hiervoor als voorbeeld geven. De auto is het emblematische product van de consumptiemaatschappij en heeft alle karakteristieken van het Fordistische systeem met massaconsumptie, marketing en schaalvergroting. Leg dat eens naast Wikispeed: 80 mensen in een dozijn landen die op drie maanden tijd een volledige auto ontwikkelen die rijdt, die volledig veilig is en vijf keer zo zuinig is als een auto uit Detroit en die bovendien in microfabrieken kan gemaakt worden.

Bedrijven creëren soms artificiële schaarste, want ze moeten functioneren in een marktdynamiek van vraag en aanbod. Daarom gaan ze niet-duurzame producten maken die snel of gepland stuk gaan en die je dus opnieuw moet gaan kopen. Maar als je het ontwerp van een product door een community laat gebeuren, zoals dat het geval is in de p2p filosofie, krijg je automatisch duurzame producten: niemand in de community heeft namelijk een drijfveer om een auto te maken die na 15 of 20 jaar stuk gaat, aangezien de leden van de community tegelijk ook gebruiker zijn van de auto.

Het idee is hierbij niet schaalvergroting ( economies of scale), maar meer doen met wat je hebt ( economies of scope). Ik denk dus dat we op globale schaal door de energie- de voedsel- en de waterproblemen die we aan het creëren zijn, moeten gaan van een schaaleconomie naar een scope-economie. Als je competitief wil zijn in een schaaleconomie moet je namelijk meer energie en meer grondstoffen gebruiken. In een economy of scope ga je meer doen met de auto's die je al hebt, zoals het geval is bij de talrijke autodeelsystemen die overal ter wereld de kop op steken. Bij autodelen wordt 80 procent minder materie en energie verbruikt dan bij privéwagens voor hetzelfde aantal gereden kilometers. Autodelen verandert bovendien ook de manier waarop mensen autorijden. Heel veel machines kunnen door het proces van mutualisering veel efficiënter gebruikt worden.
De financiële crisis heeft ook een opstoot gegeven aan de p2p-beweging?
Michel Bauwens: Je hebt mensen die op basis van altruïstische motieven beslissen om in een p2p project te stappen, maar door de crisis zijn er meer en meer mensen die geen keuze hebben. Door de crisis van het huidige systeem, zeker na 2008, worden veel mensen automatisch gedreven naar dat soort oplossingen. In Spanje bijvoorbeeld zie je in de laatste jaren een sterke stijging van het aantal p2p-projecten

Het oude systeem is aan het sterven, maar wat het nieuwe systeem wordt, dat ligt nog open.

De essentiële oorzaak van de financiële crisis is de schaarste in het financieel systeem dat door banken wordt gecreëerd. Het is de intrest die het schuldprobleem creëert. Vandaar dat er heel veel complementaire munten zijn die werken zonder intrest. Heel interessant is de p2p-munt Bitcoin. Die werkt ook met schaarste, maar wordt gecreëerd door de community, buiten de staat en het bankensysteem om. Bitcoin behoort tot het denken dat we een nieuw systeem nodig hebben. Als het mainstreamsysteem er niet in slaagt om oplossingen te verzinnen, dan heb je eigenlijk de civiele maatschappij die nu zegt: 'dan moeten we het maar zelf doen'.

De complementaire munten werken met andere regels, die een probleem hebben van schalen: je kan ze moeilijk op grote schaal implementeren. Maar Bitcoin is wel een mondiale munt geworden: je hebt beurzen, je kan wisselen met euro's en dollars en hier in Thailand kan ik zelfs mijn telefoonkrediet aanvullen met Bitcoin.
Is p2p iets westers?
Michel Bauwens: Ik denk dat het in elk continent een andere invulling krijgt. In Azië gebeurt er nog maar vrij weinig rond p2p in de moderne, digitale zin. Maar je hebt er wel nog veel traditionele commons: de visserij, de bossen, ...

In Afrika heb je een zeer sterke makers-beweging: de bestaande traditie van zelfredzaamheid, om dingen te herstellen en te hergebruiken, heeft een zeer natuurlijke vertaling gekregen in de digitale fabricatie en open hardware van de zogenaamde makers.

In Zuid-Amerika zie je een brede adoptie van het fenomeen, ook door de politiek. Onlangs was ik in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilië is volgens mij het meest p2p land van de wereld. Je vindt er tienduizenden zoniet honderdduizenden jongeren die die cultuur echt helemaal doorleven. Het is daar een soort levensfilosofie geworden. Tien jaar geleden was Gilberto Gil minister van cultuur. Hij heeft toen duizenden productieve cybercafés opgericht in de favela's en in rurale gebieden. Met productieve cybercafé's bedoel ik dat die plaatsen niet bedoeld zijn om computerspelletjes te spelen ofzo, maar om dingen samen te doen en te produceren: muziek maken, fotografie, film. Professionals kwamen er les geven en daaruit is een echt sterke p2p cultuur ontstaan die nog altijd voortbestaat. Nu zijn er heel veel ondernemers die ook de principes van p2p toepassen.

Landen in het Zuiden hebben een voordeel: ze hebben veel minder te kampen met geërfde en verouderde structuren en systemen. Zo kunnen ze ontwikkelingsstappen overslaan en direct naar p2p overstappen. Een auto maken in het westen, waar al veel merken aanwezig zijn, is veel moeilijker dan in landen waar geen auto-industrie aanwezig is en waar je bij wijze van spreken met een wit blad kan beginnen en bijvoorbeeld Wikispeed maken.
Het thema van de honderdste editie van MO*magazine is veerkracht. Kan p2p ook helpen om mensen beter bestand te maken tegen schokken?
Michel Bauwens: We mutualiseren kennis: dat is open source. En we mutualiseren materiële productie via open hardware en samenwerkingsconsumptie. En het gezamenlijke principe is: meer doen met wat we hebben. Iedere innovatie die via open source wordt ontwikkeld, die is onmiddellijk voor de hele wereld beschikbaar. Terwijl een oplossing die geprivatiseerd wordt, niet beschikbaar is zonder patentrecht en grote financiële middelen. Zo zit er meer veerkracht in een open dan in een gesloten systeem

Er zijn twee manieren om het te bekijken: lokale veerkracht en globale veerkracht. Globale veerkracht bekom je door open kennis en open design. Lokale veerkracht bekom je door te werken met lokale voedselsystemen, LETS, lokale energiesystemen en te kijken hoe je stad of regio een globale crisis kan doorstaan door zich te beschermen tegen instabiliteit. Die twee soorten veerkracht horen volgens mij samen: het is globaal-lokaal. De algemene regel is: als het zwaar is doe je het lokaal, als het licht is (digitaal) doe je het globaal.

Binnen de p2p filosofie is geen plaats meer voor patenten en copyright. Dit jaar werden enkele antipiraterijwetgevingen, zoals SOPA (in de VS) en ACTA (wereldwijd) terug in de koelkast gestopt. Was dat een overwinning voor p2p?

Michel Bauwens: Het was zeker een overwinning, maar een slag is nog niet de oorlog. Zolang de oude systemen nog bestaan, zal geprobeerd worden dergelijke wetten in te voeren. Als het niet via de EU lukt proberen ze het via de Wereldbank, als daar niet lukt proberen ze het met bilaterale akkoorden. Daarvoor hebben mediabedrijven, filmhuizen, uitgevers en andere bedrijven duizenden lobbyisten in dienst, die daar permanent rond werken. Die strijd is zeker nog niet gestreden.

Daarom vind ik het zo belangrijk dat nieuwe politieke partijen zoals de Piratenpartij het goed doen. In Duitsland halen ze bijna 10 procent. Op die manier kunnen ze wegen op de Duitse regering. En zonder Duitsland kan Europa dergelijke wetten niet meer doordrukken.

Dit toont aan dat je niet alleen technisch en sociaal bezig moet zijn, maar ook op politiek vlak actief moet zijn. Er zijn ook constructieve wetsvoorstellen nodig. Enkel reageren op negatieve regelgeving volstaat niet. Daarvoor is de beweging eigenlijk nu nog wat te zwak, maar er zit wel degelijk groei in.

Wat volgens mij wel onvermijdelijk is, is de dominantie van de p2p technologie. Net als de boekdrukkunst: deze werd dominant en je kon niet meer terug naar het vorige model. Maar de toekomst hangt natuurlijk ook af van politieke en sociale evoluties. De slag om de controle van de technologie moet dus nog gestreden worden. Het oude systeem is aan het sterven, maar wat het nieuwe systeem wordt, dat ligt nog open.
Lees ook W@t mijn is, dijn is, de analyse over p2p die verscheen in MO*magazine van december 2012.

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Michel Bauwens, pionier van de peer-to-peer economie

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Michel Bauwens woont in Chiang Mai, Noord-Thailand, waar hij onderzoeker is aan de plaatselijke universiteit. Maar een blik op de Facebookstatussen van de stichter en hoofdonderzoeker van de p2p Foundation leert dat hij overal ter wereld een graag geziene gast is om zijn visie op de peer-to-peer economie uit de doeken te komen doen.

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Artikel in MO* over "samenwerkingsconsumptie"

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Volgens Rachel Botsman, auteur van het boek What's Mine Is Yours, leiden de mogelijkheden van het internet vandaag tot een wedergeboorte van traditionele vormen van uitwisselen als delen, lenen en ruilen. Ze doopte dit nieuwe fenomeen " samenwerkingsconsumptie". Het autodeelsysteem Cambio is daar een mooi voorbeeld van. Cambiogebruikers zien bewust af van het bezit van een auto, maar maken er gebruik van als een dienst: ze reserveren online een auto wanneer ze er een nodig hebben en pikken die op bij een van de standplaatsen in hun stad.

Voor sommige autorijders komt een Cambio-abonnement voordeliger uit. Geert Gisquière van Cambio Vlaanderen legt uit: 'Het kantelpunt ligt rond 10.000 kilometer per jaar: wie minder rijdt, zal als autodeler besparen ten opzichte van het bezitten van een auto omdat je de vaste kosten deelt met de andere Cambio-klanten.' Geen wonder dus dat de meeste klanten voor autodelen kiezen uit kostenoverwegingen. 'Het milieuvoordeel van het efficiënter inzetten van onze auto's beschouwt een meerderheid van onze klanten als 'mooi meegenomen'. Maar zonder persoonlijk voordeel, zoals een hoger gemak of lagere kosten, zouden ze de overstap wellicht niet maken', aldus Gisquière.

Mondiaal schaalvoordeel

Het idee van autodelen is niet nieuw: auto's werden eerder al gedeeld door kleine groepen mensen. Via het internet kun je nu echter dergelijke systemen op een veel grotere schaal laten functioneren. 'Al die sociale praktijken bestaan al langer, maar konden enkel lokaal functioneren. Het internet drukt nu de communicatie- en transactiekosten van delen drastisch. Zo krijg je plots samenwerking op grote schaal. Ik noem het "het mondiaal schakelen van kleine groepsdynamieken".' Dat is wat Michel Bauwens zegt, de Belgische stichter en hoofdonderzoeker van de p2p Foundation. Hij bestudeert hoe nieuwe vormen van samenwerken, mogelijk gemaakt door nieuwe technologieën, onze samenleving beïnvloeden.

Wie is Michel Bauwens?

Belgisch voormalig bedrijfsleider van twee dotcombedrijven

Onderzoeker aan de Universiteit van Chiang Mai, Thailand

Predikt de peer-to-peer-economie, waarbij mensen in grote, digitaal verbonden netwerken gezamenlijk consumeren, produceren en innoveren.

Vorig jaar door het Post Growth Institute, samen met onder meer Mahatma Ghandi en Martin Luther King, opgenomen in de lijst van de honderd meest inspirerende mensen voor een duurzame toekomst.

Lees ook het volledige interview met Michel Bauwens

Behalve het aanbieden van producten als diensten, zoals bij Cambio, zie je volgens Rachel Botsman nog andere vormen van samenwerkingsconsumptie. Bij herdistributiemarkten worden producten versluisd van de plaats waar ze niet meer nodig zijn naar waar dat wel het geval is, waardoor ze een tweede leven krijgen. Voorbeelden hiervan zijn websites als kapaza.be en 2dehands.be.

Een derde vorm noemt Botsman samenwerkende levensstijlen, waarbij gelijkgestemde mensen niet alleen tastbare producten delen, maar ook tijd, ruimte en vaardigheden. Voorbeelden zijn het delen van werkruimte (coworking) en ook Couchsurfing, een wereldwijd netwerk van gastheren die reizigers ("couchsurfers") ontvangen. Volgens Johan Brisaert, Couchsurf-ambassadeur van Brussel, gaat het gemeenschapsgevoel en de sociale uitwisseling bij Couchsurfing vóór het kostenbesparende aspect: 'Vaak begaat men de fout Couchsurfing eerst en vooral uit te leggen aan de hand van het detail dat het gratis is. Het is inderdaad gratis, maar échte couchsurfers doen het in de eerste plaats voor de ervaring.' Collega-Couchsurf-ambassadeur Sven Van Den Meerssche beaamt dat: 'Er moet een bepaalde tegenprestatie zijn. Je deelt iets over je cultuur, je maakt een streekgerecht klaar... Het moet een sociale wisselwerking zijn. Iemand die ergens blijft slapen, en van wie je niet eens merkt dat die er is, dat is geen echte couchsurfer.'

p2p

Mensen kiezen dus om verschillende redenen voor samenwerkingsconsumptie. Economische motieven zijn vaak doorslaggevend, zeker in economisch onzekere tijden, maar een verhoogd milieubewustzijn en gemeenschapsgevoel spelen ook mee. Maar de basis van de explosie aan samenwerkingsconsumptie-initiatieven is steeds het internet.

In de computerwereld wordt een netwerk van computers die zich op hetzelfde hiërarchische niveau bevinden een peer-to-peer-netwerk genoemd. Peer-to-peer, letterlijk "van gelijke tot gelijke", kortweg p2p, wordt steeds meer ook buiten de computerwereld gebruikt om fenomenen te beschrijven waarin het zo is dat mensen elkaar horizontaal benaderen. Horizontaal betekent hier: op voet van gelijkheid en zonder (of met minimale) ingrijpen van bijvoorbeeld een bedrijf of de overheid. Samenwerkingsconsumptie is een vorm van p2p. Maar niet alleen in consumptie is p2p aan een opmars bezig. Met wortels in de wereld van de software-ontwikkeling, waar p2p onder de noemer open source of open bron al jaren ingeburgerd is, kiemt p2p nu ook in de productie van materiële zaken, tot zelfs auto's toe.

Geen enkel bedrijf, hoe groot het ook is en hoeveel mensen het ook kan rekruteren, is op den duur sterker dan een mondiaal netwerk van mensen die samenwerken.

Michel Bauwens: 'De auto is het emblematische product van de consumptiemaatschappij en heeft alle karakteristieken van het fordistische systeem, met massaconsumptie, marketing en schaalvergroting. Leg dat eens naast de Wikispeed-auto: tachtig mensen uit een dozijn landen die in drie maanden tijd een volledige auto ontwerpen en bouwen, die rijdt, die volledig veilig is, vijf keer zo zuinig is als een auto uit Detroit en die bovendien in microfabrieken kan worden gemaakt.'

Hij verklaart hoe een groep los samenwerkende mensen kan slagen waar grote multinationals falen: 'Geen enkel bedrijf, hoe groot het ook is en hoeveel mensen het ook kan rekruteren, is op den duur sterker dan een mondiaal netwerk van mensen die samenwerken. Als het mainstreamsysteem er niet in slaagt oplossingen te verzinnen, dan heb je nu eigenlijk de burgersamenleving die zegt: "Dan moeten we het maar zelf doen."'

De openbronauto

De ontwikkelaars van Wikispeed leverden het kunststukje een ultrazuinige auto te bouwen door leentjebuur te spelen bij de softwarewereld en te werken met zeer korte maar intense ontwikkelingscycli. Maar ze haalden nog wat anders uit de softwarewereld: het openbronprincipe. Joe Justice, oorspronkelijk bedenker van Wikispeed: 'De auto bestaat uit acht vervangbare modules. Voor elke module hebben we een ontwerp op het internet gepubliceerd, zodat iedereen die dat wil een module kan aanpassen of zelf een module ontwerpen.' Het ontwerp van de Wikispeed is dus niet gepatenteerd. Het is "open": iedereen die wil kan het ontwerp gebruiken om er verder op te bouwen of het aan te passen.

Justice erkent de cruciale rol die het internet en nieuwe technologie voor Wikispeed hebben gespeeld: 'De instrumenten die we gebruiken om van een afstand samen te werken zijn allemaal gratis, maar bestonden tien jaar geleden nog niet. Onze werkwijze zou nog maar vijf jaar geleden wellicht niet mogelijk zijn geweest.'

Volgens Bauwens stappen we met p2p af van een economy of scale en gaan we naar een economy of scope, waarin we meer doen met wat we al hebben. Hij legt daarbij ook het verband met de samenwerkingsconsumptie: 'Als je wilt kunnen concurreren in een schaalvoordeeleconomie moet je meer energie en meer grondstoffen gebruiken. In een synergische economie, waar samenwerkingsconsumptie als autodelen toe behoort, ga je meer doen met de auto's die je al hebt.'

Academische muren gesloopt

Ook in de academische wereld veroorzaakt het internet via de Open Access-beweging een verschuiving van bezit van kennis naar het delen ervan. Gwen Franck van Open Access Belgium werkt aan de UGent en beschrijft de wortels van de beweging: 'Open Access is ontstaan uit onvrede met het traditionele systeem voor het publiceren van academische artikelen. Dat systeem werkt heel traag: wetenschappers moeten soms tot twee jaar wachten eer hun artikel wordt gepubliceerd. Bovendien stuitte het veel academici tegen de borst dat voor toegang tot wetenschappelijke literatuur letterlijk miljoenenovereenkomsten met academische uitgevers als Elsevier en Springer moeten worden afgesloten.'

Met een muisklik is vandaag een artikel zo op het internet gepubliceerd. En dat is dan ook wat Open Access-tijdschriften doen: zij maken wetenschappelijke artikelen gratis en voor iedereen snel online toegankelijk. De kosten daarvan, die enige orden van grootte lager liggen dan bij publiceren op papier, worden meestal op de auteurs verhaald: die betalen een vergoeding om hun artikelen te laten publiceren. Van dure abonnementen is geen sprake. Wie bij Open Access zo zeker hun voordeel doen, zijn de kleinere en minder rijke instellingen, zoals de meeste universiteiten in het Zuiden. Gwen Franck: 'Voor die instellingen is dat een kapitale evolutie. Ze krijgen nu plots toegang tot onderzoek waar zij voorheen simpelweg de abonnementsgelden niet voor konden betalen.'

Volgens een recente studie van de Finse Hanken School of Economics werd in 2011 wereldwijd bijna een op de vijf wetenschappelijke artikels in Open Access gepubliceerd. In het Verenigd Koninkrijk was dat in hetzelfde jaar zelfs meer dan de helft van de artikels. De steile opgang van Open Access kan onder meer worden verklaard doordat overheden die academisch onderzoek financieren (de Belgische en Europese incluis) inzien dat het eigenlijk logisch is dat onderzoeksresultaten die betaald zijn met belastinggeld voor iedereen beschikbaar worden gesteld. Ze leggen dat dan ook steeds meer op als voorwaarde voor financiering.

Tegenstand (voorlopig) begraven

Dat de strijd tussen voor- en tegenstanders van Open Access hard is, bewijst de boycot die bijna 13.000 onderzoekers dit jaar instelden tegen uitgever Elsevier. Zij weigeren voortaan nog te publiceren in Elseviertijdschriften of te refereren aan artikelen erin. De motivatie voor de boycot zijn niet alleen de hoge abonnementsprijzen van Elsevier, maar ook de steun die Elsevier gaf aan de omstreden maar uiteindelijk verworpen Amerikaanse Stop Online Piracy Act, beter bekend als SOPA. Dergelijke wetgeving, die het vrij verkeer van informatie zou verhinderen, druist in tegen de filosofie van p2p en Open Access, waar kennis niet wordt afgeschermd maar juist gedeeld en gezamenlijk beheerd.

Het begraven van SOPA en het multilaterale antinamaakhandelsverdrag ACTA door respectievelijk het Amerikaanse Lagerhuis en het Europees Parlement eerder dit jaar was volgens Michel Bauwens een overwinning voor p2p, maar hij blijft voorzichtig: 'De slag is gewonnen, maar niet de oorlog. Industrieën als de amusementssector en de uitgeverijen proberen hun producten, die door de computer en het internet nagenoeg gratis te kopiëren en te verspreiden zijn geworden, kunstmatig schaars te maken met verregaande antipiraterijwetgeving. En ze zullen dat blijven proberen: als het niet lukt via de EU, proberen ze het via de Wereldbank of met bilaterale akkoorden. Daarvoor hebben ze duizenden lobbyisten in dienst.'

De p2p-technologie en -filosofie wordt volgens Bauwens wel onvermijdelijk dominant. Hij vergelijkt het zelfs met een revolutie als de boekdrukkunst en spreekt van een nieuw paradigma: 'Het oude systeem is aan het sterven, maar wat het nieuwe systeem wordt, dat ligt nog open.'

Het internet heeft bewezen dat het in staat is om mensen met dezelfde interesses en passies, of het nu consumenten zijn, hobbyisten, uitvinders of onderzoekers, met elkaar te verbinden en ook te laten samenwerken. Daardoor worden kosten bespaard, het milieu minder belast, gemeenschappen versterkt en innovaties versneld: allemaal kenmerken van een verhoogde veerkracht.

Michel Bauwens ziet twee soorten veerkracht, globaal en lokaal, die met p2p versterkt kunnen worden: 'De algemene regel is: als het zwaar is (materieel) doe je het lokaal, als het licht is (digitaal) doe je het globaal. Globale veerkracht krijg je door open kennis en open design. Lokale veerkracht krijg je door te werken met lokale voedselsystemen, LETS, lokale energiesystemen en te kijken hoe je stad of regio een globale crisis kan doorstaan door zich te beschermen tegen instabiliteit. Die twee soorten veerkracht horen volgens mij samen: het is globaal-lokaal.'

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Onze maatschappij is zo doordrongen van het internet dat we er nauwelijks nog bij stilstaan. Intussen tekenen verregaande consequenties van nieuwe, op internet gebaseerde manieren van consumeren, produceren en innoveren zich stilaan af. MO* sprak met, onder meer, Michel Bauwens, Belgisch onderzoeker met internationale faam, die het principe van netwerktechnologie toepast op verschillende gebieden van de samenleving.