Commons-based peer production at the edge of a chaotic transition — with Michel Bauwens

Podcast notes

In this with Michel Bauwens, we explore both the epistemological and political/regulatory layers of the transition from the “old” to the “new” ways of organising society. We dig into concepts like “trans-national institutions” and explore the changes we could expect in both regional and international governance of the economy and society.

Michel Bauwens is founder and director of the P2P Foundation, research director of CommonsTransition.org (a platform for policy development aimed toward a society of the Commons) and a founding member of the Commons Strategies Group.

Michel is a real lighthouse when it comes to collaborative, commons-based production models and works tirelessly since more than a decade in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property.

Here are some important links from the conversation:

• Michel Bauwens, Corona and the Commons http://liminal.news.greenhostpreview.nl/2020/03/23/corona-and-the-commons/
• Michel Bauwens and Jose Raomos, “The pulsation of the commons: The temporal context for the cosmo-local transition” (Draft), https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sHhuecKxfB8HRH8o9aOfdlKNqaPQ8lc91502FXXv8e4/edit#heading=h.99i7fcsrn7tf
• Bologna regulation for the care and regeneration of the urban commons, https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Bologna_Regulation_for_the_Care_and_Regeneration_of_Urban_Commons
• P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival — Commons Transition, https://commonstransition.org/p2p-accounting-for-planetary-survival/
• REPORTING 3.0, https://reporting3.org/
• Robert I. Moore (2000), The First European Revolution: 970–1215, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/712195.The_First_European_Revolution
• Bernard A. Lietaer, The Mystery of Money, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8198838-the-mystery-of-money
• Material flow accounting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_flow_accounting
• Resources, events, agents (accounting model), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resources,_events,_agents_(accounting_model)
• David Ronfeldt, Tribes, Institutions, Markets and Networks, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2005/P7967.pdf
• Jamie Wheal in Rebel Wisdom: War on Sensemaking 3, the Infinite Game, https://youtu.be/mQstRd7opv4
• French land trust “Terre des Liens”, https://terredeliens.org/
• Bernard Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40203892-the-neganthropocene

Key insights

1. There are two main layers of the transition from the “old” to the “new”: Epistemological and Political/Regulatory:

– The epistemological layer needs a new educational approach, since the current one is largely reductionist and rooted in the “old” system.

– The political and regulatory space need stronger commons-based institutions and governance protocols, where the nation state becomes a “partner state” and you have a public commons protocol, like for example in the Bologna regulation for the care and regeneration of the urban commons in Italy.

– We will also see the emergence of trans-national institutions that connect local constituencies globally and virtually and which are able to protect planetary boundaries.

2. We’re moving towards a mutation of consciousness where Western countries are increasingly questioning modernity/progress paradigm, while many Asian countries still think they can get capitalism right (modernity-nature). Nonetheless, the fact that we’re currently consuming five times our planetary resources to maintain the capitalist economic model might indicate that we’re moving towards a next “pulsation”, or regenerative reaction, to a period of unsustainable extraction.

3. There’s a need of coherence driving decision-making mainly based on accounting using energy flows, which go beyond double-entry accounting — creating winners and losers — making transparent the three-dimensional, real impact of activities.

? Boundaryless Conversations Podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous.