Re: [ox-en] Democracy and peer production
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:23:40 +0200
Hi Till and all!
Still an interesting debate and I feel we get closer to the fundaments
slowly.
2 months (82 days) ago Till Mossakowski wrote:
Since I know you are a heavy supporter of democracy: May be you can
summarize what you think are important goals for which democracy is a
means.
Humanism, freedom, reconciliation of individuum and society,
consideration of needs of people
Then we certainly agree in the goals - though you probably agree that
these goals are rather abstract and need to be broken down to concrete
goals in concrete situations. Nonetheless I'll go through them to
check where we can agree.
IMHO *humanism* could be well read as a precondition for
Selbstentfaltung. People can selbstentfalt only under conditions of
humanism. If Selbstentfaltung is a precondition for peer production
then humanism is a means for peer production. That would be an even
stronger point than democracy being a means to introduce humanism
afterwards. Right?
A similar argument would apply to *freedom*: Freedom is a precondition
for volunteering and since volunteering for useful tasks is an
important expression of Selbstentfaltung freedom is again a
precondition rather than something which needs to be introduced
afterwards.
Well, there are many meanings of freedom. One is to have the means to
do something. The external openness of peer production would make
available many means to do things and thus would enhance freedom even
more directly than democracy.
*Reconciliation of the individual and the society* is a more difficult
point. On a very abstract level I'd ask whether the question is right:
Reconciliation of the individual and the society is needed if the
individual is thought as separated or even opposed to society. Of
course that is very common thinking in contemporary minds. I think
this is part of capitalist ideology already.
I think that if we think peer production then we need to get rid of
this stereotype. I'm not saying that this conflict does not exist -
but the modern society is probably the first revolving around this
conflict in a perfect dualism. And a vote IMHO is also a vehicle to
separate individuals from each other rather than making them work
together.
On a less abstract level I'd say that Selbstentfaltung by definition
is individual activity *with the society in mind*. If you see it this
way then the potential for conflict is at least smaller and similarly
the need for reconciliation.
On a rather concrete and project level I'd say that the maintainer of
a peer production project has to do exactly this reconciliation in the
project. The maintainer needs the individuals for their joint project
and thus needs to reconcile different interests in the project.
Well, that applies to a project but how about bigger structures where
people are only in a very limited sense volunteer to be part of - such
as a city. I agree that this is a good question and added it to the
`drawing board`_.
.. _drawing board: http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/Oekonux/DrawingBoard#governance-in-non-voluntary-projects
In tendence I'd agree with you regarding consideration of *needs of
people*. Though the things said above imply that this is also cared
about I'd nonetheless consider this a challenge_.
.. _challenge: http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/Oekonux/DrawingBoard#societal-need-in-peer-production
To put it frankly: this opens the door for little dictators,
who often have to be disempowered by strength-draining forks.
There are a number of examples of this in the free software
movement.
But isn't this exactly how democracy works? The change of a government
certainly comes not without cost so I don't see why forking is so much
worse.
Consider e.g. the Debian GNU/Linux project. The election of a new leader
has happened several times, and comes definitely with less costs
than a fork.
But it did not prevent the forks which Ubuntu in practice has at least
some characteristics of...
Indeed one of the nice features of democracy is that you can get rid
of your government without a bloodshed. This is a feature we certainly
want to keep in a post-democratic society.
Good that you have found some point where we agree. :-)
Yes. :-)
Well, my best description on how decision making in peer production
can be described is by finding a consensus (== nobody has to object).
Listening to the needs of people is obviously a precondition for that.
That I'd call a participative process.
I always prefer consensus to a democratic vote. But there are
controversies where it is hard to find a consensus (even within one
individual...) In such situations, the force to find a consensus can
be counter-productive, since very subtle mechanisms (not transparent
to the individuals) can determine the consensus that is actually found.
I agree. During my anarchist times I experienced this also - though
most of the time in the group where I worked in this went very, very
well. From this time I'd say it is quite a challenge to learn to
behave properly in a consensus based culture. On the one hand it is a
challenge to wield the powerful sword you have in your hands by a
veto. On the other hand it is a challenge to carefully listen to
concerns of others and to deal with them in a constructive manner. For
some it also might be a challenge to be patient enough to wait for a
consensus to emerge.
So I would sum up: Try to find a consensus, and if this is not
possible, use a democratic vote.
I agree that this is a valid solution to the problem. However, it
faces the problem that the inner structure of a democratic vote is
rather different from the inner structure of consensus. In a
democratic vote if you are sure of your majority you don't need to
listen to others any more. If you are part of the minority you don't
have a bigger chance to convince others than before so you lose power.
Also the rapid decision making may prevent making the best decision -
though sometimes arguably quick decisions are simply needed. A
decision which came about by a vote also has nobody who is really
responsible. Also democratic votes have the general tendency to be
random: This time they go in this direction, next time they go in
another direction. This can be disruptive for the overall project.
In my experience - and I have come a long way here ;-) - I think
maintainership is another valid solution to the problem. It has the
advantage that only the maintainer needs to care about the problem and
s/he is also responsible. Also a maintainer has an easier time to
follow a general line and keep the overall goals of the project in
mind. It also solves the problem on how to recognize such a situation
at all.
Grüße
Stefan
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