Transitioning from Extractive Capital Models to Generative Capital Models

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Discussion

1. Michel Bauwens:

We have today the emergence of 'ethical' entrepreneurial coalitions around Commons-Based Peer Production, like Sensorica and Enspiral, but obviously these emerging and nice projects are embedded in a dominant system which has another logic, so the questions emerges, how does the new ethical economy deal with mainstream forces, especially in the context of needing capital for development. Two obvious choices are: 1) full separatism , i.e. some parts of the solidarity economy refuse any dealings with the for-profit world 2) cooptation, in which the generative ethical players start behaving extractively, echocing the old logic

The middle way is therefore to consider a set of transitional strategies which regulate the cooperation between the old exctractive economy and the new generative economy, but on the terms of the generative players ?

2. Tiberius Brastaviceanu of Sensorica: on Transferring Assets to the Ethical Economy:

a:

"If the proposition to investors is to pump $ into projects and get more $ in return, we are just feeding the beast. Instead, the proposition should be transfer of assets.

This is how it goes. When you have a major economic transition what was used to store value in the old system might not work in the new system. Smart people move their assets in order to keep their wealth. For example, selling land and buying equity in new means of production (factories) during the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

So we need to tell investors that I3C helps them to transfer their assets to the new economy, using $ to buy equity into new means of production, divesting from old business models into new business models. They give us $, to organizations like SENSORICA, and others, who function based on new relations of production, we use it during the transition to buy equipment, tools, food, pay rent, invest in infrastructure, for as long as these things are purchased in $, we scale, but we are ready to switch to other reward mechanisms, redistribution schemes and currencies. These investors gain equity in these new ventures, so they are able to maintain their wealth. But, the difference is that their role in this new economy will not be the same. They will not own p2p means of production. It's like loosing old social status, titles and benefits during the industrial revolution, when new social classes were formed.

Essentially the message is: keep your old assets and your wealth will melt down progressively. Transfer your assets and you'll maintain (some of) your wealth. We show you how."


b.

"We believe that a new economy cannot be built in vacuum. We see this as a process of metamorphosis. The ethical and aware classical players will join first to transfer their classical store value and production assets into new assets. This is in essence a transfer of resources from the old economy into the new. As the new (generative) economy builds momentum and critical mass the other more pragmatic players will join.

SENSORICA and Enspiral are well-positioned to to this, because we are using tools to gather data about economic activity and because we are transparent. Without metrics and evaluation systems it is a hard sell. All players in the generative economy need to realize this, and start practicing "open book accounting" or "value accounting" a la OVN, or something similar. The old market is mature, it has all the systems in place to allow investment and transactions. We need to build all that, and we need NRP-VAS type of tools.

I am not selling the NRP-VAS, this is why I am using the expression "NRP-VAS type of tools". There are a lot of new efforts to do what we originally called open value accounting, some using blockcain technology, others using more traditional methods like time banks, open ERP (see Valeureux)... (email February 2016)

3. Joshua Vial on Capped Returns:

The idea of capped returns, proposed and discussed by Joshua Vial the Enspiral Foundation and community, is to accept private investments but to cap their possible returns, after which the funded resource is ceremoniously donated to the commons, with attribution to the investor(s).

See this talk by Joshua Vial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2_I5xuagxE .

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