Re: [ox-en] Out-Cooperating the Empire? - Exchange with Christoph Spehr
- From: Michael Bouwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 01:11:11 -0700 (PDT)
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I think the key is, to use a concept by hierarchy philosopher Louis Dumont, to avoid the emergence of collective individuals, i.e. groups of people claiming to represent the larger group, and conducting themselves strategically apart and above the group.
Cooperative and algorhythmic structures can be found and experimented with, to avoid (or keep fluid), such separation/sedimentation, and indeed, I think VN is very innovative in that respect,
Michel
Markus <markus vodes.net> wrote: I THINK I made a similar mistake during the early formulations of
P2P Theory.
same here.
Peer projects are not anti-institutional, they create different
institutions, such as the Commons legal framework, the use of nonprofit
foundations, and the body of regulations arising out of the problems of
working together. Institutionalization is simply a crystallisation of
experience: when you are encountering similar problems time and again,
it is natural to have a consensus on process, but this of course
constrains to a certain degree the next generations. But the
institutions themselves should be open to revision.
the original conception of vn was as a very loose co-operation with no
institution in the middle. a people to people network that is. however, in
our case it soon became clear that an outer form and some structure is
necessary. our case is perhaps different because we want to get money
involved and we have our specific goals which we want to achieve.
regardless of whether money gets involved, at least to me Michel's
explanation ("crystallisation of experience") is convincing.
one of the main issues i have with institutions (apart from generally
being sceptical on them) is the issue of control and the relationship
"individual-institution/decision makers". when there is an institution,
individuals (like the chairman for instance) get quite some (statutary,
static) powers ("decision making monopolies"). of course, when you want to
be productive and have certain goals you seriously want to achieve,
hierarchies and power allocations are necessary. in the case of the most
important day-to-day single decision maker (CTVN-G/chairman), we hope our
"complex performance polls" system is an effective means to prevent
(un)intentional misuse of such powers.
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