A contribution from Neal Gorenflo of Shareable magazine on the intersection between complexity theory-based stages of social evolution, and p2p strategies for social change:

“My colleague Michel Bauwens asked me to share some thoughts about the timing of a shift to a P2P world using the panarchy model developed by the Resilience Alliance as a guide (see diagram). This is an interesting challenge as I’m not familiar with it as an economic forecasting tool. However, I welcome the challenge because a recent event I co-hosted, Design 4 Resilience (D4R), asked participants to apply resilience thinking in unique ways outside of the normal use in academe and ecosystem management.

That being said, what I share here is exploratory. My goal with this short post is just to introduce the possibility of using the panarchy model to learn something about where we are and what may come in the near future.

The starting point is to understand that social and ecological systems tend to move through four recurring phases: growth and conservation (resources committed, stable, slow change, predictable), release and reorganization (resources freed up, chaos, fast change, opportunity). At the recent Viennese Talks on Resilience & Networks, the assumption was that the world system is in a late K, meaning approaching the end of the conservation phase and the beginning of the release phase.

Here I share characteristics of the conservation phase with some corresponding real-world signals:

-Increased rigidity: The long series of failed WTO talks. The inability of leading governments to respond appropriately to climate change.

-Increased specialization: this is the age of the long tail and 1,000 true fans. Specialization is escalating in the Internet age.

-Bound up capital accumulation: Only recently, US and Germany’s budgets are 100% committed to existing programs and debt servicing. No money is available for new programs.

-Increased efficiency: The rapid increase in computing power described by Moore’s Law. The Toyota Prius is an cultural icon symbolizing efficiency.

-Slowing growth: There are formidable obstacles to economic growth including the degraded buying power of consumers in the developed world, the unlikelihood that debt-burdened governments can provide continued stimulus, the weakening of major currencies, and the increasingly apparent fact that the ecological basis of our economy can’t sustain further growth.

I share the perspective that we’re in late K because we see unprecedented vulnerability in the global economy and environment that is resulting in dramatic episodes of disruption, and with increasing frequency. It appears that we are pushing against thresholds on many fronts, thresholds that once crossed result in swift, dramatic, and sometimes irreversible change. Release may be near.

As to timing, the transition from conservation to release can be sudden. There is no way to predict exactly when the transition will start. I suspect that at the society scale, the timing of transition is influenced by human lifespans. Generational theory has much to about the relationship between cycles and generations. It suggests to me that it’s no accident that we are experiencing late K crises as baby boomers begin to retire.

One thing I would pay attention to is any change in pace of late K signals. My casual observation is that the frequency and magnitude of disruptions has accelerated since 9/11. The keynote at the Vienna Talks, Buzz Holling, famed ecologist and founder of the Resilience Alliance, pointed to the fall of the Berlin Wall as a signal of the onset of late K.

I would also take into account the relationship between geographic scales and the pace of change. Resilience thinking teaches us that change at large geographic scales is slow while there is more flexibility at lower scales. This dynamic argues for concentrating on bottom up strategies for change while staying engaged with higher scales albeit with more patience. This perspective also explains why cities have outstripped nations and international bodies in responding to crises such as climate change. Holling offered some personal advice along these lines at the Vienna Talks – stay positive by working on what you’re passionate about while moderating your expectations that large institutions will change.

Going forward, it may be difficult for the structures baby boomers built up to be maintained. Rather, new forms of organization may emerge in the nexus between a new generation, a different mix of resources, the rise of developing nations, and a new spatial fix. The P2P blog and Shareable make a case that this is already happening.”

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