On the Importance of Seed Forms for the Next Civilization
* Article: What we can learn from seed forms on how the next civilization will look like
URL = https://4thgenerationcivilization.substack.com/p/what-we-can-learn-from-seed-forms
An overview of fifteen years of research by the P2P Foundation
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I was normally planning to write about the principle and practices of Cosmo-Localism, as the new way to organize human civilization in a context of balance with the web of life and the natural resources of our planet. Instead, I am summarizing the fifteen years of research efforts we have undertaken through the P2P Foundation, and in which I have been personally involved as author and researcher.
The context is the following. After a career that ended with the creation of digital startups in the nineties, and working as director of strategy for digital adaptation for a large telco in Belgium, I had come to the conclusion that all the markers of our global civilization were moving in the negative direction, that something had to be done, and that in my corporate context, I would be more part of the problem than part of the solution. But what was the best way to change a society ? The classic Marxist scenario of taking political power to drive through what turned out to be authoritarian and top-down imposed change obviously did not offer a satisfactory solution, and was likely worse even than a status quo. So the first step was to undertake a two year sabbatical to study civilizational change. Of course, two years is an awfully short time for such a weighty subject but bear in mind I had some decades of societal reading behind my belt already.
My first conclusion was that the scenario of political revolution was very exceptional, even in the ‘capitalist revolutions’ that upended feudalism, and that in any case, where they occurred, they had been preceded by centuries of structural change. My conclusion tended to focus around the concept of seed forms. Basically, when the old societal logic stops functioning, and society fragments, more and more people seek solutions outside of the former institutional logic, and it is this experimental seeking of adaptive solutions that create the new logic. Bear in mind the systemic logic of a succession of relatively stable systems, followed by periods of ‘chaotic transition’ (which in some cases turn out to be long-lasting dark ages), followed by a new consolidation), which then lead to a new relatively stable system. Another way to look at it is to analyze the transition in terms of an exodus out of the old categories (such as classes), which ends up in a new consolidation. For example, there was an exodus from Roman slaveholders and slaves, towards feudal lords and serfs, and in a next transition, towards capital owners and workers. But the key is the seed forms.
In the transition from feudalism to capitalism, this would have been ideological hacks such as purgatory, which allowed Christians to lend money without going to hell; the invention of the printing press, which destroyed the monopoly on knowledge of the Catholic Church; and the invention of double entry accounting, which facilitated the creation of entrepreneurial entities. One way to say this is that there would be no capitalism without capitalists, i.e. a merchant class which over time, created a society at their image; similarly, I would posit that today, a commons-centric society may result from the efforts of digital and cosmo-local commoners to create a society at their image. Around this change in practices, and social desires and imaginaries, changing jurisdictional alliances will eventually lead to a new institutional order. In this process, we go from adaptive experimentation, to the creation of subsystems which connect to each other, and to eventually a qualitative change through which this subsystem becomes the dominant system. During this sabbatical, but following many years of working as a strategic and scenario planner, I also consolidated my vision that this time around, the seed forms were centered around the social ‘peer to peer’ logic of trans-local cooperation through digital networks, which created the possibility of producing powerful commons of knowledge, software, and design, which had the capacity to create trans-local value systems.
Here are a number of other ‘finds’, that I made during this period, and which you can find by looking at the summary document called, ‘Sources of Peer to Peer Theory’:
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Sources_of_P2P_Theory
It may be fruitfully combined with the specialized bibliography of commons literature, entitled, ‘What You Should Read To Understand the Commons, here at
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/What_You_Should_Read_To_Understand_the_Commons
Here are some major theoretical finds of this early period, which changed my understanding:
A shift in analysis of historical change from dominant modes of production to modes of exchange. These findings follow the relational grammar of Alan Page Fiske (Structures of Social Life), the historicization of these dynamics by Kojin Karatani (in his Structure of World History), the institutional grammar of David Ronfeldt (Tribes, Institutions, Markets and Networks), as well as the views of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler (Capital as Power).
· This work resulted in a first book, Network Society and Four Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy, which proposed four concurrent outcomes, namely
o netarchical capitalism, a centralized control of such networks, with a shift of capitalism towards neo-feudal ‘rent’ income, resulting in a value crisis resulting from the exploitation of unpaid contributory work and which massively uses the productivity of the open-source revolution;
o distributed capitalism, which has now become the crypto-economy and creates trans-local ecosystems of coordination and that aim to create functional equivalences to a world state;
o a revival of relocalized urban commons based on the mutualization of provisioning systems;
o and the emergence of global open-source communities.
We documented these projects and experiences in a massive database now containing 25,000 articles (https:wiki.p2pfoundation.net)
· In the process of achieving this first synthesis, we undertook an in-depth observatory and analytical work around open-source peer production in knowledge, software and design; on urban commons, i.e. the mutualization of relocalized provisioning systems as a reaction to the crisis of 2008 (finding a tenfold expansion in a decade), and the emerging open systems of collaboration developed by both peer production and crypto-centric communities.
The open-source movement created a globally scalable cooperation model to create massively shared knowledge commons which are at the basis of huge technological and societal creations, which dwarf the capacities of states and corporations. These productive communities operate ‘stigmergically’, i.e. through mutual signaling in open ecosystems.
But after 2008, and the massive unemployment this created including in the advanced countries, this led to an explosion, i.e. a tenfold increase in the number of initiatives, in urban commoning. With these models, groups of citizens or consumers ally with producers to create commons-centric ecosystems of collaboration, and take control of provisioning systems for food, transport, housing, etc. .. achieving massive gains in the use of matter and energy in the process. The evolution went from the mutualization of consumption, to actual models of cosmo-local production, i.e. the commons-centrical creation of value.
Finally, the crypto movement created socially sovereign currencies outside of the state and banking apparatus, which allowed shared production in open ecosystems, which for the first time allowed a direct coordination of allocation and economic production, using various new accounting technologies for mutual coordination.
This work resulted in policy initiatives, i.e. we were called by three governmental institutions in Ecuador to write up a Commons Transitions Plan for a ‘Free, Libre, Open, Knowledge Society (2014), and by the city of Ghent to undertake the formulation of a urban Commons Transition Plan (2016). We were later asked to do a synthetic overview of urban commons policies for the city of Seoul. This means an expansion from the analysis of the institutional logic internal to the commons, to the link with policy and public institutions; while at the same time, looking at the generative or extractive logic of the entrepreneurial coalitions that work around and with these emerging commons.
· This led us to a next stage of work in which we looked at environmental and social constraints. We analyzed the value dynamics (Report: Value in the Commons Society), which we call ‘contributory’: this means we believe that we are transitioning from a system based on commodity-value, centered around scarce goods, to a system based on contributory value, i.e. the joint creation of commons which allow interdependent entrepreneurial activities to occur.
We then examined the ‘Thermodynamics of Peer Production’ after a study of biophysical economists; and looked at the emergent responses to the ecological crisis and the problem of value distribution. The key question here is how can humanity attend to its vital needs and cultural evolution, in a way which doesn’t require us to overshoot natural boundaries, and destroy the ecological balance of the planet. The thermodynamics of peer production, through the mutualization of provisioning systems, can achieve a Factor 20 Reduction in the use of matter and energy by humanity.
The report P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival, looks at emerging post-capitalist accounting systems, nl. the contributory accounting practices in peer production communities (P2P Value), the flow accounting within the entrepreneurial coalitions in open source or crypto production (f.e. the Resources, Events, Agents REA protocol), and crucially, the matter/energy accounting systems that can be integrated into such flow accounting, with particular attention to practices such as Musiasem, and R30’s ‘Global Thresholds and Allocations’ proposals. Contributory accounting allows such communities to recognize all those that create value for the network, even if they don’t directly realize market value, but help indirectly to achieve it; flow accounting allows to see value flows in a three-dimensional ecosystem, integrating all the players, permanent and temporary; Finally, the direct visualization of matter and energy, allows for the use of resources within established parameters. This is addressed by the proposal (and experimental practice) for a Global Threshold and Allocation Council, which is a scientific council which tracks the availability of resources, their bio circularity (re-use capacity), and the negative pivots that would create supply crisis through overuse.
Around that time, we organized, under the umbrella of the Commons Strategies Group which I co-created, deep dive dialogues with the degrowth movement. We also looked at the various forms of impact accounting, such as the Common Good Economy.
· If the tenfold increase in urban commoning was mostly focused on mutualizing consumptive practices, in the case of first energy and food/agriculture, productive coalitions started to take shape, which we call ‘Cosmo-Local Production’. In this modality, networked coalitions of producers, suppliers and consumers relocalize material productive activities, sometimes with distributed manufacturing technology, but combine this with global open designs, trans-local ‘protocol cooperatives’ which manage translocal cooperation and coordination. In some cases, local ‘quintuple helix’ coalitions are involved in the support mechanisms, led by local authorities. We published the Cosmo-Local Reader, which highlights 40 cases studies of modes of value creation in which ‘the heavy is local, and what is light is global and shared’.
Relocalizes production closer to human need, thereby saving vast amounts of resources that are currently used for transportation
Uses circular economy techniques, biodegradable raw materials, production on demand, eventually using distributed manufacturing models, based on shared open designs, free software, etc..
May use cooperative or regenerative institutional and economic models
Cooperate on a translocal and transnational scale using global for-benefit associations which protect the joint code, enable cooperation through standard protocols, etc
· My essay in this collection is called the Pulsation of the Commons and defends a historical hypothesis that commons re-emerge during the declining B-phases of various societal cycles. This is based on a thorough review of macrohistorians, world-systems analysis, and Big History, particularly augmented with the material from the Russian school which publishes the Evolutionary Almanac and the Kondratiev Almanac, with the synthetic work of Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev, around the common ‘evolutionary’ multilinear dynamics and ‘emergent complexity’ phase transitions in the organizational forms governing matter, life, and culture. We rely heavily on the empirical research of Mark Whitaker, and his in-depth look at societal transformations in Ancient China, Medieval Japan, and post-Roman Europe. (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Political_Origins_of_Environmental_Degradation_and_the_Environmental_Origins_of_Axial_Religions )
· Finally, this has led me to my current project, nl. a Synthesis of Mutual Coordination Economics. This work is intended,
- after a historical review of the failed cybernetic planning in the Soviet Union, the Cybersin experiment, the Yugoslav and Chinese experiences, the planning experiences of Multinational Corporations;
- followed by a look at the record of the current market-centric societies and their more state-sovereigntist rivals (following the analysis of Michael Hudson in the Destiny of Civilization).
- and to contrast these with the newly developing capacities of the mutual coordination economy, i.e. the open source and crypto-based models of global cooperation
The not so immodest aim is to arrive at scenarios for the optimal coordination of various allocation methodologies, but under the umbrella of translocal and commons-centric global Magisteria of the Commons, which would have the power to constrain the resource usage of productive entities worldwide. This, in our opinion, would address the contemporary ‘commons gap’ which exists at a translocal scale. With the societal reform and transformation blocked at the nation-state level, due to the excessive power of financial rentiers, we believe the constitution of a transnational power bloc of productive commons-centric civic alliances, will be an essential part of creating a counterpower that can operate for systemic change at the translocal level. The aim of this work is to look at the optimal combination of the institutions and practices of the state, the market, and the commons, in a translocal commons-centric world regime that protects the regenerative capacity of non-human matter and life. In this model, the coercive protective capacity allows for the maximum amounts of freedom within the limit of the non-destruction of planetary capacity.
Documentation
o The P2P Value study, an in-depth examination of 300 peer production projects and their governance and contributory accounting practices (https://p2pvalue.eu/)
o The FLOK project, director of research into commons-based transition policies for the Republic of Ecuador, author of main report (Commons Transition Plan for the State of Ecuador, https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Commons_Transition_Plan_(FLOK_version) )
o Production of the Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent, based on an in-depth survey of commons-centric citizen initiatives and mutualized provisioning systems, with the aim of advancing new forms of ‘Contributory Democracy’; production of a synthesis of commons-based city policies for the city of Seoul (Ghent: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Commons_Transition_Plan_for_the_City_of_Ghent ; Seoul: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Mutualizing_Urban_Provisioning_Systems )
o Co-production of a study on Value in the Commons Economy, a study of ‘contributory’ value practices in commons-based peer-production; Follow-up report, P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival, provides an in-depth survey of 3 new forms of accounting emerging in these communities, 1) contributory and impact accounting; 2) 3D eco-systemic flow accounting such as the REA model 3) Matter and Energy flow accounting such as the Commodity Ecology model in South Korea (Value: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Value_in_the_Commons_Economy ; P2P Accounting: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Accounting_for_Planetary_Survival )
o Sponsored and participated in the study, The Thermodynamics of Peer Production, a study the role of the commons and the mutualization of provisioning systems in radically reducing matter and energy usage for human needs (Factor 20 Reduction) (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Thermodynamic_Perspectives_on_Peer_to_Peer_and_the_Commons_as_a_Path_Towards_Transition )
o Authorship of a synthetic overview of commons-based transitional change, in cooperation with Erik Olin Wright (Book: P2P, the Commons Manifesto; a follow up of Network Society and Four Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy) (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Peer_to_Peer:_The_Commons_Manifesto_(Book) ; https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Network_Society_and_Future_Scenarios_for_a_Collaborative_Economy )
o Study of the history with 40 case studies, and a historical hypothesis, The Pulsation of the Commons, proposing a integrated model for Cosmo-Local Production, which recombines relocalized mutualized production formats with globally shared knowledge commons (free software, open design), and cooperative governance. Co-editor of the Cosmo-Local Reader. (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Cosmo-Local_Reader )
o Study of precarious labor in digital capitalism, as strategic consultant for Smart, the European labor mutual based in Brussels (booklet slated for 2024)
Current projects:
o Current: Systematic study of civilizational history and societal phase transitions, as contractor for the Civilization Research Institute (source material at https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Civilizational_Analysis ); CRI studies the acceleration of ‘Global Existential Risk’; my task is to embed it in civilizational history and transitional dynamics.
o Current: production of a synthesis of mutual coordination economics, as complement to state planning and market pricing, which looks at historical experiences such as Soviet planning, the Cybersin experiment, MNO planning, the China model; combined with the analysis of open-source peer production, urban commons, and translocal eco-systemic coordination. (source material at https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Mutual_Coordination )
o Current: as research coordinator of the Global Chinese Commons, an emergent CoordiNation (aka ‘network nation’) of Chinese and diasporic crypto-nomadic workers, I participate in a study (network and discourse analysis) of radical crypto movements