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New and radical forms of ownership, governance, entrepreneurship, and financialization are needed to fight pervasive economic inequality.
This proposition is intended as a provocation—to stimulate productive controversy and debate—and does not necessarily represent the views of the Open Society Foundations. Applicants are invited to dispute, substantiate, or otherwise engage with the proposition in their submissions. Though the proposition deals with economic issues, those without an economics or business background are welcome to apply, provided they have a relevant project in mind.
Applicants are first required to submit a one- to two-page, single-spaced, letter of inquiry that outlines the topic of the project, proposed work product, and relevance to the proposition. A CV should accompany the letter of inquiry. Letters of inquiry should address the following questions:
What is the central argument of your proposed project as it relates to the proposition?
How does your project advance or challenge current thinking?
Who is/are the intended audience/s?
What are the potential work products?
Proposed summary/description: Blockchain Inspired Data Structures Supporting New Modes of Production, Commons Based Peer Production. Distributed governance/production of everything from cell phones to democracy.
We are at a second major paradigm shift of the internet age. The first is the still unfolding web technologies, and the second can be loosely grouped under the heading blockchain, but it is much more than digital or crypto-currencies. These technologies are transformative to the extent that they can successfully bridge and enhance connections and transactions that extend beyond the digital world. The transformation becomes possible because of how cryptologically based distributed data structures can implement distributed control and governance structures. Distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs), or commons based peer production (CBPP) are new ways to organize production.
There are two contrasting examples that help me think about how commons based peer production might be organized. One is the production of democracy, or, more generally, governance. In the commons shared by all producers and interest groups, there would be data and dialog. In this case, data is about common goals such as maximal participation. Under current rules this is about maximizing citizen registration, voting, and being involved in the process of chosing candidates. Certainly the current rules, the law and our representatives are "in the commons", so in the long run, we the people produce these, and the Constitution as well. If we are to have more direct democracy or more governance by meritorious experts, the systems to implement these are within the commons.
The second example would be a distributed production network based on a commons of design. Buckminster Fuller talked about a "Universal Design Science", which is something we could expand on for the benefit of all. The chained data information system would track what designs and ideas are used in each supply chain in detail for each component and subsystem of all kinds of products. The transaction data itself is a commons that can be mined for ways to make the supply chain more efficient, ie, to route around rent-seekers in the chain. The point is that these technologies can be a game changer for very diverse kinds of activities. By careful design used to support currency systems, incentives and markets, this can create self-regulating growth and a lot of shared wealth.
This shift can support more democratic and equitable forms in economics and politics, however, they could also be turned into tools of further oppression. We don't know what forms will emerge, good or bad. We can only work to design and implement the solutions with the best potential, and use the data capabilities of the new systems to measure their performance. This also points to ways that diverse specialists could contribute value to the commons, particularly if the value of their contributions is also recognized in system currencies.
We can implement a platform for research and experimentation that will reward entrepreneurial successes. We can build in healthy responses to positive feedback in order to cut off bubbles before they can form. If markets don't respond to regulate volatility or, worse, add reflexive volitility on top, then they can't serve important objectives to stabilize economies and reduce risks for market participants. Although parts of the crypto-currency world will fall victim to these systemic design risks, by being aware of them we can design our overall systems to be resillient in the face of them.
It would be a tremendous opportunity to be a fellow and work with others who have dedicated their life's work to making them come true. This is too big a vision for one person, and I would seek to convene conversations leading to action. One work product that I anticipate is a set of software tools that integrate the work flows of "commons producers" with currency systems to connect "work worlds" and "life worlds".
For instance, the old precinct worker had a patronage job, and owed a debt to the political machine; the new precinct worker is co-producing work products in the commons. Politicians would have to pay to access the political groundwork of their factions, if the workers will even sell based on alignment of interests. The workers can collectively invest in up and coming leaders whom they like, and even pass laws to fund the fundamentally nonpartisan work to build a stronger democracy and aims of full participation.
Another Draft
We absolutely need new social forms for creating wealth; the question is how to get from here to there. Drawing on experience in Open Source software, we know it is possible to produce complex systems requiring coodination on complex task by many people who only know each other by their work. They automatically form networks of support between teams of task specialists. But this immense intelligence is undirected without a shared vision.
To articulate a vision ofwhatthe thisdesired looksfuture like is utopian, a fools errand destined to fail unless we have an open vision. No fixed frameworks, only general directions and experimentation. Only instead of systems and software, our design space is social relations, or (social) process architecture based on the practices of leading process artists. These are people with skills and experience leading social movements and convening social dialogs. With their help we can convene multi-disciplinary teams to map the emergent collective visionvisions as just one of many collectivly curated digital living documents. OSS experience suggests that this would be more thatthan sufficient to spark dozens of whole new industries.
Although OSS is a great example of commons production, its financial system is ad-hoc at best. The rapidly emerging space of cypto-currencies provides an opportunity to change that. Although much of the interest in crypto-currencies is generated by people who want to route around or replace parts of current financial infrastructure, this isn't what makes this the second great innovation of the internet after the web. You can't have any effective financial systems without governance and ultimately settlements through particular legal jurisdictions, and therefore governing systems will always be critical components. Governance can be autocratic, and evenifwhen in principle democratic, they can be captured and become autocratic. Commons based production demands democracy, and not the weak forms we have, but direct forms that give autonomy. We will need to experiment in process architectures to see what works, and draw on our long human history of peer production within a living envirionment. The Earth is our shared Commons and its continued productivity inis in danger.
ManyGood good people are initiating many great projects to work on bitstheir part of thisthe vision.vision without waiting for global coordination. We don't need just another website, there may be three already trying to get traction for their vision. We need to putserve allthose thealready visionsdoing onit; onemaybe mapseveral soprojects weneed canto allbe findcombined them and createreorganized to provide that service to the possibilitywhole commons. Serve with maps of emerging networks of production, tracking activity and progress, and making it visible for collective intelligence markets and governance.
This provides a context for experiments in global governance at any levelofwe governance.care Emergentabout. Governance is then emergent from the network, not imposed from outside. Capitalism is a story of money, and the new kinds of money are an opportunity not only for new modes of production but for distributed governance. The new currencies can be used to building shared assets from patient capital sources to help grow the space of peer production. Even if many of the cypto ICOs (initial coin offerings) are snake oil, this mechanism is already pulling in billions in capital. The opportunity is there for well thought out projects to attract attention and funding and probably the greatest dangers involve failures of control/governance. In crypto-currencies and crypto-governance, the risks can be formalized in terms of the systems design, and the open review of these systems is always a critcal asset in the production commons. Naturally, shifting the story of money from one of hording and greed to one of shared gifts and abundance is another mission for human architecture. Because the story of money is so powerful today, the design and functioning of the currency system must be at the core of any shift for good or ill.
If the tools I envision were ready, I would want to use it to finance the building of real democracy where I live. We, the future leaders of a new economy with a renewed democracy, would gather and plan our work and issue crypto-currencies to finance the plan. As the plans are executed and goals achieved, the entire currency system tracks contributions and implements governance processes. The leaders can use the systems to view progress and gaps, adjust the plans andrewardrecognize exceptional performance. We have to build all these systems before we can really imagine the power we can give to future process architects to create initiatives and carry them out,out just by issuing currencies that create incentive structures to generate common wealth.
In truth, the current productions system, capitalism and its currencies and financial institutions, are in reality CBPP systems. The only trouble is that it is a commons of capital and capital wealth, not living wealth. The design space of new currency systems is an opportunity to reveal and understand the current financial commons and its pros and cons in such a way that we can design better systems. The system as it stands is not sustainable, everyone knows this. We need more options, We need to measure value differently.
New and radical forms of ownership, governance, entrepreneurship, and financialization are needed to fight pervasive economic inequality.
This proposition is intended as a provocation—to stimulate productive controversy and debate—and does not necessarily represent the views of the Open Society Foundations. Applicants are invited to dispute, substantiate, or otherwise engage with the proposition in their submissions. Though the proposition deals with economic issues, those without an economics or business background are welcome to apply, provided they have a relevant project in mind.
Applicants are first required to submit a one- to two-page, single-spaced, letter of inquiry that outlines the topic of the project, proposed work product, and relevance to the proposition. A CV should accompany the letter of inquiry. Letters of inquiry should address the following questions:
What is the central argument of your proposed project as it relates to the proposition?
How does your project advance or challenge current thinking?
Who is/are the intended audience/s?
What are the potential work products?
Proposed summary/description: Blockchain Inspired Data Structures Supporting New Modes of Production, Commons Based Peer Production. Distributed governance/production of everything from cell phones to democracy.
We are at a second major paradigm shift of the internet age. The first is the still unfolding web technologies, and the second can be loosely grouped under the heading blockchain, but it is much more than digital or crypto-currencies. These technologies are transformative to the extent that they can successfully bridge and enhance connections and transactions that extend beyond the digital world. The transformation becomes possible because of how cryptologically based distributed data structures can implement distributed control and governance structures. Distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs), or commons based peer production (CBPP) are new ways to organize production.
There are two contrasting examples that help me think about how commons based peer production might be organized. One is the production of democracy, or, more generally, governance. In the commons shared by all producers and interest groups, there would be data and dialog. In this case, data is about common goals such as maximal participation. Under current rules this is about maximizing citizen registration, voting, and being involved in the process of chosing candidates. Certainly the current rules, the law and our representatives are "in the commons", so in the long run, we the people produce these, and the Constitution as well. If we are to have more direct democracy or more governance by meritorious experts, the systems to implement these are within the commons.
The second example would be a distributed production network based on a commons of design. Buckminster Fuller talked about a "Universal Design Science", which is something we could expand on for the benefit of all. The chained data information system would track what designs and ideas are used in each supply chain in detail for each component and subsystem of all kinds of products. The transaction data itself is a commons that can be mined for ways to make the supply chain more efficient, ie, to route around rent-seekers in the chain. The point is that these technologies can be a game changer for very diverse kinds of activities. By careful design used to support currency systems, incentives and markets, this can create self-regulating growth and a lot of shared wealth.
This shift can support more democratic and equitable forms in economics and politics, however, they could also be turned into tools of further oppression. We don't know what forms will emerge, good or bad. We can only work to design and implement the solutions with the best potential, and use the data capabilities of the new systems to measure their performance. This also points to ways that diverse specialists could contribute value to the commons, particularly if the value of their contributions is also recognized in system currencies.
We can implement a platform for research and experimentation that will reward entrepreneurial successes. We can build in healthy responses to positive feedback in order to cut off bubbles before they can form. If markets don't respond to regulate volatility or, worse, add reflexive volitility on top, then they can't serve important objectives to stabilize economies and reduce risks for market participants. Although parts of the crypto-currency world will fall victim to these systemic design risks, by being aware of them we can design our overall systems to be resillient in the face of them.
It would be a tremendous opportunity to be a fellow and work with others who have dedicated their life's work to making them come true. This is too big a vision for one person, and I would seek to convene conversations leading to action. One work product that I anticipate is a set of software tools that integrate the work flows of "commons producers" with currency systems to connect "work worlds" and "life worlds".
For instance, the old precinct worker had a patronage job, and owed a debt to the political machine; the new precinct worker is co-producing work products in the commons. Politicians would have to pay to access the political groundwork of their factions, if the workers will even sell based on alignment of interests. The workers can collectively invest in up and coming leaders whom they like, and even pass laws to fund the fundamentally nonpartisan work to build a stronger democracy and aims of full participation.
Another Draft
We absolutely need new social forms for creating wealth; the question is how to get from here to there. Drawing on experience in Open Source software, we know it is possible to produce complex systems requiring coodination on complex task by many people who only know each other by their work. They automatically form networks of support between teams of task specialists. But this immense intelligence is undirected without a shared vision.
To articulate a vision of
Although OSS is a great example of commons production, its financial system is ad-hoc at best. The rapidly emerging space of cypto-currencies provides an opportunity to change that. Although much of the interest in crypto-currencies is generated by people who want to route around or replace parts of current financial infrastructure, this isn't what makes this the second great innovation of the internet after the web. You can't have any effective financial systems without governance and ultimately settlements through particular legal jurisdictions, and therefore governing systems will always be critical components. Governance can be autocratic, and even
This provides a context for experiments in global governance at any level
If the tools I envision were ready, I would want to use it to finance the building of real democracy where I live. We, the future leaders of a new economy with a renewed democracy, would gather and plan our work and issue crypto-currencies to finance the plan. As the plans are executed and goals achieved, the entire currency system tracks contributions and implements governance processes. The leaders can use the systems to view progress and gaps, adjust the plans and
In truth, the current productions system, capitalism and its currencies and financial institutions, are in reality CBPP systems. The only trouble is that it is a commons of capital and capital wealth, not living wealth. The design space of new currency systems is an opportunity to reveal and understand the current financial commons and its pros and cons in such a way that we can design better systems. The system as it stands is not sustainable, everyone knows this. We need more options, We need to measure value differently.