Or even better, please suggest an email or usenet based forum where we can continue the discussion.

Regards,
Dmytri.

Access to Open Knowledge, Open Design, Open Futures, Open Data,and Open Business models, are all part of the “means of production.” I think that as people create and develop infrastructure in a collective way, that they can share knowledge and best practices, and data about tangible and intangible values of many types of local, regional, and global conditions. I think that people can use all of this open information and knowledge to collectively inform their decision making, and to figure out how to multiply value among the networks of people who connect themselves in the ways that we are talking about.

If this is your reaction to what I wrote, then it looks like I\\\’ve failed to communicate effectively what I am talking about. Also, upon re-reading what we both wrote, I think I misunderstood the focus of the Venture Commune idea.

I now see that we are actually talking about two different solutions to two generally different local conditions.

The ideas that I am developing are focused on the local area that I am in, which is The United States (Michigan, actually, a part of the United States called \\\”The Rust Belt.\\\” An area that used to provide an abundance of work in manufacturing, but now has the lowest employment in the entire US). My PeerInvest and OpenValueNetwork ideas are centered around devolving power and knowledge to people who are not in a condition of extreme proverty. The people with whom I am co-creating the frameworks that I talk about are people who are gainfully employed, but just disatisfied with the conditions of working for American (or American and/or western-type) governments and corporations. I think that we would find that venture communes would not appeal to many of these people (it may appeal to some, but they would be a small amount of the majority, I would guess).

Some of the big differences between what I am talking about with PeerInvest and OpenValueNtework , and the monopolistic corporate \\\”capitalism\\\” that we experience here in America right now are:

-A for-profit cooperative is the idea that I am proposing for PeerInvest (equally owned by all Cooperative members).

-\\\”devolved power\\\”: putting the decision making, design, and over all control in the hands of many instead of a few who monopolize control. At least some fo the violence that you speak of comes from people struggling over, and trying to grab at this concentrated power. Like a game of \\\”king of the hill\\\”.
-transparency/trust metrics/peer review: I think this is self explanatory. Do we have this in our current capitalist system? No, we do not. And that is a large reason why people get away with being liars, thieves, and crooks.

-Ways to measure the value of exchanges beyond money. Ways to aggregate and understand and share data about indexes beyond money.

-Access to open knowledge: creating a commons of knowledge, science, culture, design etc, opens up the building blocks that people need to craete their own means of production.

However, this is a set of ideas aimed at a different set of life conditions than what I think you are looking at with venture communes. If I think about the venture commune model in the context of people stricken with extreme poverty, it makes much more sense to me. It seems like a plausible way to solve basic problems for people who\\\’s conditions of existence taxes large amounts of labor out of them.

And, the extreme poverty problems, or life conditions that you are looking at are huge. One in six people, or roughly a little over a billion living in extreme poverty in the world right now. That is a lot. I can see, in the case of people in these conditions, how a social structure like venture communes could help them begin to build infrastructure, and give them a systematic way to collectively build access to the means of production.

As far as I can tell, the structure of the venture commune idea is close to being what we call a \\\”Cooperative\\\” in the US. In the US, there are \\\”for profit\\\” and \\\”non profit\\\” Cooperatives. Venture commune seems to have elements of both, as far as I can tell.

So, I now think that I understand the focus of venture communes, I don\\\’t dismiss them as a viable and applicable way to address poverty for a very large amoutntof people in the world.

In the “industrial era,” as now people have material needs for food and shelter, and these are not satisfied by information. The fact that the production process is increasingly capital intensive, in no way changes the fact that labour is the only real source of exchange value, as unlike land or capital, labour is the only productive input that needs to be compelled by exchange to bring its product to market.

Your future of machine-based abundance does not hold much hope for people who do not own property, who will command now greater share than they have now of capital yield.

Your entire point of view is sorely lacking any understanding on the nature of cause of poverty and inequality, neither of which are a product of scarcity or a lack of capital yield, but of unequal acess to the means of production.

As for your questions about “contibuting” a machine to a venture commune. If the commune needed or wanted the machine, they would buy it from you, but this would not grant you any membership in the commune.

In what way is your idea “to allow people to invest money, property, or any other resource they see fit” different from current Capitalist practices that have generated so much inequality, violence and poverty?

Cheers.

I think we agree on the need for Peer funding. But, I think we disagree on desired outcomes.

Although, I will state that I am happy to live in a world where Venture Communism exists, and I am happy to cooperate with venture communes, I don’t see being part of a venture commune as a desireable future for myself.

For instance (quoting from the P2P Venture Commune wiki page): “A Share In The Venture Commune Can Only Be Acquired By Contributions Of Labour, and Not Property.”

Increasingly, we see that “labor” is automated, by machines and computers, which are usually “property”. So, Venture Communes are limited to only to those areas of human endeavor where actual human labor is required. Plus, in the venture commune, who controls how “labor” is measured? Who decides what a unit of “labor” is?

I understand that during the industrial era, that a focus on people controlling their own “labor” was very important. However, now, a focus on people controlling and sharing their own knowledge/information is arguably far more important.

The resources that people use to design and build on their shared knowledge bases are not always human labor-based. And in the future, the resources increasingly will not be human labor-based. They will be machine based. Often, the required input to acheive desired outputs is a combination of human and machine work. So, human labor can be pooled into a commons if desired by the people pooling it together. And, it can be valued and measured, but it will not be the only resource required for physical production of modern technology, nor is it the only resource required for production and distribution of almost anything anymore. What is also required are machines of many kinds. And, these machines are often made in part, or wholly by other machines. How do you measure the labor input of a machine, made by several other machines, made by several other humans with aid of machines.

What if I want to join a venture commune, but instead of contributing labor, i want to contribute a machine that does a job that used to be done by manual labor. What if I made this machine with the aid of several smaller fabrication machines, in such a fashion that my labor input was very small in comparison to the total labor output that we will see from the machine that I made throughout it’s lifetime? Would my contribution of machine be seen as contributed “property”, and thus disqualified as a contribution?

My idea is to allow people to invest money, property, or any other resource they see fit, and to co-create their own rules for how that wealth is distributed among them.

“Also, Kleiner wrote: “…those that do have physical capital will always
capture the entire marginal productivity of the information-commons. �

Yet, peer producers can also be Peer Investors, or Peer Funders. So,
I am also working on creating and laying the ground work for people
to be able to accomplish this.”

What you are suggesting is exactly the point that I am making. The arguement I am presenting is that not only can peer producers be peer investors and peer funders, but they must. For if they are not, then the entire exchange value they create will be appropriated by Property owners. And not only must they, but they must also invest and fund in an equity promoting, rather than privilge promoting way, especialy important is that not only information-capital but phyisical capital is also accumulated within the commons and available for peer-production.

The model that I am working on for peer production and investment is called Venture Communism, and Michel has added a page on the wiki for it, which has a link to the archive of drafts on the Transitioner website.

http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Venture_Commune

I will take a look at the links you have provided.

However, I would like to propose that, in fact all peer production is really a reciprocal exchange of either tangible, or intangible value of some type.

Even when someone volunteers, or when someone altruistically gives, or shares, they are reciprocated with some type of value. That value may be highly intangible. But, I believe that it is there. But, as Michel points out above, in Communal Shareholding, the reciprocation is not implied (there is no tangible “debt” owed). I think in Communal Shareholding, the reciprocation is actually built-in. Because, the community that sustains the Communally held resource would probably not allow everyone to take, and no one to give. But, CS works because people do give. I think that people give BECAUSE they WANT Communal Shareholding to work.

Actually, Clare W Graves’s Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence theory has layed out some possible “values” that are reciprocated. For instance, perhaps someone gives altruistically because they feel they will be rewarded in “heaven”? Or, perhaps they share for the same reason?

So, there are emerging ways to create metrics to understand these intangible exchanges. This is something that I am working on with http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenValueNetwork and I invite others to participate in developing these concepts.

Also, Kleiner wrote: “…those that do have physical capital will always capture the entire marginal productivity of the information-commons. ”

Yet, peer producers can also be Peer Investors, or Peer Funders. So, I am also working on creating and laying the ground work for people to be able to accomplish this. See: http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/PeerInvest and http://barcamp.org/BarCampBank

I don’t want to dismiss Michel’s vision of Post-Capitalist evolution. Though, I think that we’ll get to Post-Capitalist by devolving the power of the mechanisms that people used to sustain hierachical corporate/capitalist/beureaucratic societies during the industrial era. I think that what is emerging cannot be fully understood through the lenses of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, or other -isms, and their accompanying economic theories.

I think that what is emerging is something different. A system of networks, lateral connections (see: http://necsi.org/projects/yaneer/Civilization.html) and devolving power to every “node” in the network.

So, new peer production networks can employ solutions that are derived from strucutures that traditionally were recognized as capitalistic or socialistic solutions to the distribution of tangible and intangible value. The network is based upon devolving power as much as possible to all nodes in the network, increasing intput and output value to all network nodes, and creating ways of reinforcing trust and relationships, and sustaining a commons of resources among the network.