It has been roughly a decade after the days that people first discussed Open Design. It has hitherto evolved from a concept, to a movement, to a viable business choice.

The RepRap 3D printer has been one of the first and most successful examples of open design. A 3D printer that could replicate itself is more than a design solution; it is a bold statement on the technological capacities of our time. A thing built to create other things, now creating copies of itself. Creation, being one of the core human characteristics, is now embedded in our creations.

It is, thus, no wonder it has sparked a wave of enthusiasm across diverse communities. Different visions of open innovation, distributed manufacturing and an automated self-sufficient society embody, to a lesser or larger extent the notion of open design. Though as much as the vision extends, the actual practice remains rather restrained. And while RepRap based 3D printers may have evolved to a billion dollar industry, industrial uptake of open design and open manufacturing is, arguably, still not there to see.

Part of the problem, as it is often the case, is structural. As a social activity, the open sharing of ideas and collaboration to create useful things by the users themselves has a self-evident merit. It can lead to better technologies, more learning from the side of the users, broader access to means of making and less waste, due to on-demand production and better maintenance capacity. But as a business option it goes almost against the foundations of everything we understand as the purpose of an enterprise.

In the end of the day, is able to survive to the extent it succeeds to exchange their products and services for money. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, identifies this practice of exchange as a core survival tactic amongst individuals too. In a society where people produce themselves only a small fraction of the things they need, they exchange the products of their labour with these of other people to get the rest of it. It is then the common sense that markets and money is in fact the very purpose of the economy.

From a different perspective, the economy is about provisioning. It is the sphere of human activity that serves to cover societal needs: from the basic means of subsistence, to things and actions meant for pleasure and self-actualisation. From this point of view, sharing is actually a very economic function. Even more, on many instances it serves to create and distribute vital resources much more efficiently than markets. However, at least until recently, sharing could not be generalised as a capacity providing for human needs at scale. Therefore, it was mainly restrained to those domains where the costs of enforcing the rules necessary for market exchange were simply too high to bear.

But what the internet revolution brought about is much higher capabilities for communication and coordination based on shared information and human sociality. The sphere of these domains where market exchange is not the common sense has rapidly expanded. It became possible for people to pool, rather than exchange, the products of their labour on much greater scale, thus creating a much more generalised capacity for societies to serve their needs.

That is of course not to suggest that markets and money are simply done away with sharing and open design. Nevertheless, they no longer serve as the sole imperatives stimulating human creativity and coordination, if they ever have been. And it is vital for the flourishing of our societies to recognise, support and further stimulate these dynamics in our economic institutions. Even when access to better design and user experience is now more available than ever, businesses, especially small ones, will not invest in these possibilities before clear returns can be foreseen, in terms of covering their overheads, wages and taxes.

In the transitioning from the feudal order to the industrial one, no markets could ever exist and no exchange could take place if there weren’t for the provisions and enforcement of property rights and trade agreements. Likewise, in order to reap the benefits of the new technological capabilities, we need legal provisions to re-establish the relationship of businesses with their user communities now largely participating in the design and production; support measures like universal basic income for workers to be emancipated and devote their creative energy where it most needed in their local societies; and collective institutions that generalise and support pooling of productive capacities wherever possible, from digital platforms of open design, software and knowledge to open spaces for collaborative production, distributed manufacturing and needs-based design for societal needs.

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There is much hype around circular and collaborative economies over the past few years. From Davos to the European Union, everyone is eager to grab a piece of the new mode of industrial development. But what lies beneath these grand narratives?

In this 3-part short series we attempt to critically review the current discussion on the circular and collaborative economy and provide insights from some alternative trajectories.

This short series based on a workshop on circular, collaborative and distributed production designed and facilitated by Chris Giotitsas and Alex Pazaitis on the occasion of the participation of OD&M project at the 83rd Florence International Handycraft Fair, on April 24, 2019 in Florence.

Part 1: On the circular economy.

The most widely known and basic definition for a circular economy (accepted even by the European Union) entails cycles of production, ranging from repair, to maintenance, to re-use, refurbishment, and last to recycling. For this conceptualization to work, products need to be designed to fit these cycles. Meaning that we need to rethink how we design and make things. For instance, a phone may be designed so that it can be more durable, easier to repair and easier to recycle. So far so good.

However, considering the production and distribution networks today, that would presumably take place on a global scale. A product would be produced in one place, then purchased on the other side of the planet, then repaired or refurbished and resold somewhere else entirely. Until ultimately it is recycled for material and entering the cycle all over again. The question here, then, is: who would do the repair/ refurbishment/ recycling on that scale? As it is currently conceptualized, it is the service provider or the manufacturer that does it. How? Would manufacturers have processing facilities all over the planet, or would the products be sent to their locations thus increasing energy consumption and pollution? Doesn’t this reverse the whole point of circularity related to sustainability?  

Furthermore, how would manufacturers and service providers keep track of all these products? Apparently, it is with the help of the “Internet of Things”, by making products smart and trackable. But if we’re talking about a circular system of this complexity then this means that the “manufacturer” would need to have massive operational capacities and resources as well as tracking (or surveilling really) data to an alarming degree.

From a different perspective, if one looks at the EU reports on the issue of circular economies they will find assessments based on collected data and while there is plenty available on a state and municipal level (regarding, for instance, recycling) there is next to none when it comes to industry. That is hardly surprising. It is costs money to track and collect information and when there is no clear profit foreseen, then why would a private manufacturer do it? The idea is to incentivize industry to change their practices. Allow them to make money in a different, more sustainable way. But even then, why would they share data? And how would the protocols and processes of one huge manufacturer work with those of another. They are competitors after all and the profit of one signals the loss of another. 

So, circularity without being open source, is not really circularity. By making it so, then it would ensure interoperability for start. Meaning the products of one manufacturer would work with those of another. Open licenses and standards for parts, tools, materials as well as the sharing of all relevant information would mean that the product of one manufacturer would be possible to be repaired or maintained by whomever locally. Their materials would also be easier to locate, distribute, and reuse. However, at least for now, this seems not to be the goal.

When it comes to the circular economy, we are attempting to apply a concept on a production system that is incompatible. And the attempts so far, seem either too small or they end up being co-opted to such a degree that they lose any transformative potential.  

Part 2: On the Sharing Economy

As a global society, we are facing what could be understood as an existential dilemma with the sharing economy. As a phenomenon, the sharing economy has been increasingly gaining attention since -roughly- 2004, as it gets more and more share in the global markets. But sharing, as a practice, is not a new phenomenon. It has been present in communities since the dawn of human history. And, frankly, in our current form of economic organisation we have not always been very fond of it…. 

Those of us who have been old enough to witness a primitive type of audiovisual technology called “Digital Video Disc” (aka DVD), have often found ourselves irritated with -and simultaneously amused by- aggressive anti-piracy ads like this one. In all their ridiculousness, comparing a downloaded movie with car theft, what they were basically tackling was early forms of peer-to-peer file-sharing.  

So what has happened in less than 10 years that made sharing (esp. over the internet) from a criminal activity to the whole “sharing is caring” story? 

Apparently, the answer lies in some people making enormous amounts of money through sharing. A glimpse on the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg or the market value of tech start-ups like Uber or AirBnB nicely illustrate this. On the other hand, a closer look in their underlying infrastructures (and also their tax returns) shows that, despite profiting on sharing capacities, they are not equally interested in sharing themselves. So, to put it bluntly, what is interesting about sharing, is the sharing economy. What is less obvious is what it is about the economy that is of the interest of sharing. 

In a broader view, the economy can be described as a system that caters for the production and distribution of the means necessary for our subsistence and well-being. In the specific kind of economic system we broadly refer to as capitalism, economic affairs usually involve two main institutions: (a) private property; and (b) market exchange. The latter is fundamentally dependent on the former, and, respectively, the former rationalises the latter. This line of economic understanding also by and large underpins the definition of the sharing (or collaborative) economy from the European Union (European Commission (2016). A European Agenda for the Collaborative Economy. Available): 

“[…] the term “collaborative economy” refers to business models where activities are facilitated by collaborative platforms that create an open marketplace for the temporary usage of goods or services often provided by private individuals” 

And further it is pointed out: 

“Collaborative economy transactions generally do not involve a change of ownership and can be carried out for profit or not-for-profit” 

More or less, the understanding of sharing on behalf of the EU is reduced to the extent it can relate to these fundamental institutions of property and exchange. The focus is then placed on regulating issues evolving around these relations, concerning both things and people, including labour, liability and taxation. 

Nevertheless, the same document still cannot move away from pointing out -even if in a footnote- a certain element that is significantly different: 

“Collaborative economy services may involve some transfer of ownership of intellectual property […]” 

And I would add a hint: often without conventional market-based transactions. Earlier examinations of the phenomenon focus exactly on this dynamic, explaining those conditions that allow them to have massive economic impact. Harvard Law Professor, Yochai Benkler, more than a decade before the EU became interested in the sharing economy (Benkler, Y. 2004. Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Form of Economic Production. The Yale Law Journal, 114(2): 273-358), eloquently argues on sharing as a form of economic production and nicely summarises his position as follows (again in a footnote, yet for different reasons here): 

“I am concerned with the production of things and actions/services valued materially, throughnon-market mechanisms of social sharing […]” 

And then continues: 

“Sharing’, then, offers a less freighted name for evaluating mechanisms of social-relations-based economic production” 

The phrase “valued materially” concerns the real value of sharing, not the one expressed in financial markets or the balance sheets of Facebook’s partner advertising companies. It relates to the very human interaction of sharing stuff and our own time and capacities in things we consider meaningful, from food, shelter and rides, to knowledge, information and technology. The meaning, or value, of this interaction, contrary to the so-called sharing economy, is not guided by price signals between the people, commodities and services. It is a form of an economy, i.e. a system catering for human subsistence and well-being, based solely on social relations. And this is partly why a Harvard professor has to come up with a “less freighted name” for it, as we can all imagine the all-too-freighted name of it that any Fox News anchor would instinctively shout out based on the above definition alone. 

And here lies the real transformative dynamic of sharing as a form of economic production. It is this element that allows a group of uncoordinated software developers create better a web-server than Microsoft; or thousands of people, contributing their knowledge with no predefined structure, roles or economic incentives, create a digital encyclopedia that outgrows Britannica. But such sharing-enabled success stories typically don’t mobilise huge cash flows and don’t create “added value”, which basically entails an understanding of value stemming exclusively from selling stuff to people.  

Going back to our existential issues with sharing, our general position as societies is that we basically think of sharing as a nice thing to do, but lack the institutions to really appreciate its value for our economic system. This massively restrains the actual dynamics of sharing, which are gradually subsumed by the dominant private-property-and-market-driven system. 

There are of course great alternatives in the digital economy alone that build on this sharing capacity in a more humane and socially-minded way, from early neighbourhood tools and rides sharing platforms, to Free and Open Source Software, open design projects and Wikipedia. There is frankly as much sharing taking place on Facebook as in Wikipedia, at least on the front end. But the underlying value models and, subsequently, potential outcomes for the majority of the people involved are vastly different. 

For this we need to finally mature with regards to our issues with sharing and, eventually, make a choice for the kind of sharing for which we would design our institutions and societies. And hopefully that would be the one that would help us escape the current dead ends on the social and ecological front. 

Part 3: Needs-based design as an alternative paradigm 

Despite the serious conceptual and systemic problems described in the previous parts of this short series, it does not necessarily mean that there are no examples of true implementation for collaborative and circular practices right now. In fact, there are several technological development communities that make it happen to some significant degree. More specifically,  needs-based design and grassroots innovation as community-driven endeavours offer a serious alternative paradigm. 

In other words, communities can harness these ICT-enabled capabilities to collaboratively create technology for themselves, and promote sustainable practices based on shared values, knowledge and infrastructure. For instance, small-scale farmers in the agricultural communities of L’atelier paysan and Farm Hack, collaborate to produce tools and machines, often from recycled scrap material, suitable for their type of agriculture, which conventional market channels often fail to adequately cover. 

Yet, this type of self-construction activity is limited in simpler, frugal solutions, whereas  to address today’s challenges we need a broader engagement of design and engineering. But for a community to create complex technologies and systems, advanced skills still need to be employed, including designers, engineers and software developers. The main difference is the type of relationship they have with the community of users. This means the experts would act according to their own motives for engagement but with an explicit purpose to provide a solution which best serves the users of the technology. 

As far as the users are concerned, designers take up a specific purpose. They serve the role of guides or “Sherpas” (with reference to the ethnic group of the Himalayas that are expert mountaineers helping other groups). In that sense, the design process begins after a need within a community is made explicit. Then the designer meets with the community several times to discuss the parameters of the problem that needs solving and uses her expertise to design the solution, which is then reviewed by the community. This is an iterative process until a final artefact is produced, often through a collective process.

Nevertheless, engaging in such a creative activity  and simultaneously making a living out of its is no easy task, yet it is better than the alternative. Having a community as a base of support beats deciding to engage in “social innovation” on your own. At least if we are defining social innovation as something that you make for the common good rather than a thing to make money out of. For instance, designers in the agricultural communities mentioned above, could receive funds to help farmers refurbish or redesign an existing tool, or they could crowdfund within the community for the creation of a new tool. 

Such hybrid and radical models may lead to some sustainability for the designer willing to engage in social production. In our view however, for these terms to be genuinely meaningful in terms of sustainability, openness and equity, structural changes need to take place starting from a policy level. These communities provide a certain blueprint to inform the direction which needs to be taken. 

For instance, instead of incentives for manufacturers, perhaps more focus could be placed in empowering communities to tackle parts of the extremely complex problems of circular production. Likewise, user-communities can harness favourable licences and legal tools to build on shared capacities for collaborative forms of production and distribution. Individuals like designers could also be given incentives and support to engage with these communities in a relationship that is not profit-driven but informed by mutually shared values. 

What this would look like may take many forms, especially depending on local cultures and social contexts. For instance, such a community in the US, which generally lacks serious welfare structures, means that farmers need to rely largely on themselves and each other. Designers that work with them, manage to secure limited funding through the national agriculture organisations and donors while doing also something else to secure their personal sustainability. A similar community in Europe, on the other hand, which still manages to maintain basic social welfare amidst austerity obsessions, means that designers and engineers working with the farmers can secure state funding. So the volume of the work, as well as the quality of tools and documentation can be significantly increased. 

In conclusion, collaborative and circular economies are possible. But we need, as a society, to engage with these ideas in more radical ways than it is happening at the moment.

The post OD&M: Designing for Sustainable Economic Transformations appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The 5 teams have developed the following prototypes:

• MakeIT Manifattura: a set of physical installations to map values and meanings that citizens attribute to Manifattura Tabacchi in Florence (Team: Vincenzo Rizza, Christia Tsrimpa, Margherita Vacca, Riccardo De Mei, Alessandra Bonelli);
• NEST: a dynamic, creative and modular makerspace to host making and design communities across the city (Team: Sophie Defauw, Paolo Ciarfuglia, Edoardo Dalla Mutta, Elisabetta Simone, Alessandra Galli)
• Carriù: an innovative camper redesigned to bring educational services in remote areas (Team: Tommaso Scavone, Liang Shuang, Marco Berni, Zhou Min)
• Sma_Lab: a device to create and develop creative collaboration between artisans, students and makers (Team: Francesca Gianassi, Silvia Nicoli, Lu Ji, Li Meng)
• CamperJob: a camper hosting innovative labour services in remote areas (Team: Beatrice Bettini, Camilla Franchina, Alessia Macchi, Anna Eleonora Fabrizi)

The exhibition has been opened up by Cecilia Del Re (Florence City Councillor for Economic Development and Tourism), while Stefano Ciuoffo (Tuscany Region’s Councillor for Production Activities) has closed the day with the delivery of the diplomas to students.

The exhibition has also hosted a workshop on circular, collaborative and distributed production facilitated by Chris Giotitsas and Alex Pazaitis of the P2P Foundation.

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Science-fiction or social reality, the Blockchain. Fact. Fiction. Future. event brought together artists, activists, hackers, designers, scientists, sociologists and political scientists to analyse, question, and discuss the distruptive, cultural and creative potential of this technology. iMAL, Brussels, 4 November 2016.

Alex Pazaitis (GR) P2P Foundation / P2P Lab Blockchain and P2P value creation in the information economy The presentation will concern the techno-economic implications of the blockchain. I will briefly illustrate the economic dynamics of P2P productive relations, specifically in the context of the information economy and in relation to the digital commons. In this picture, I will argue on the potential of the blockchain, as an advanced technology for record-keeping of value, which can effectively encapsulate qualitatively different contributions of labour. About the Speaker Alexandros (Alex) Pazaitis is Research Fellow at P2P Lab, an interdisciplinary research hub, community-driven makerspace and spin-off of the P2P Foundation and the Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance. Alex is involved in numerous research activities, including the authoring of scholarly papers and the participation in research and innovation projects. He has professional experience in project management and has worked as a consultant for private and public organizations in various EU-funded cooperation projects. His research interests include technology governance; innovation policy and sustainability; distributed manufacturing; commons and open cooperativism and blockchain-based collaboration.

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Makers and the related  activities are more often observed in vibrant cities, encapsulating diverse communities of designers, engineers and innovators. They flourish around luscious spaces and events, where talent and ideas are abound. Pioneer cities, like Barcelona, Madrid, London, Copenhagen and Amsterdam, have gradually evolved to prominent centres of the maker culture.

But what about places where these elements are less eminent? It is often said that some of the most advanced technologies are needed in the least developed places. And here the word “technology” conveys a broader meaning than mere technical solutions and enhancements of human capacities. Etymologically, technology derives from the ancient Greek words “techne”, i.e. art or craft, and “logos”, which refers to a form of systematic treatment. In this sense, technology is practically inseparable from the human elements of craftsmanship, ingenuity and knowledge. Elements that are as embedded in our very existence, as the practice of sharing with our neighbours. Especially in situations of physical shortage and scantness, solidarity and cooperation are the most effective survival strategies.

This is the case of a small mountainous village in North-Western Greece called Kalentzi. It is situated in the village cluster of Tzoumerka, a place abundant in natural and cultural wealth, yet scarce in the economic means of welfare. The local population mostly depends on low-intensity and small-scale activities combining arboreal cultivation, husbandry and beekeeping. Investment was never overflowing in the region, let alone in today’s Greek economy in life support.

A local community of farmers assembled around a practical problem: finding appropriate tools for their everyday activities. Established market channels mostly provide with tools and machinery that are apt for the flatlands. Acquisition and maintenance costs are unsustainably high, while people often have to adapt their techniques to the logic of the machines. They begun with simple meetups where they created a favourable environment to share, reflect and ideate on their common challenges and aspirations, facilitated by a group of researchers from the P2P Lab, a local research collective focused on the commons.

Soon the discussion was already saturated and they started building together a tool for hammering fencing-poles into the ground. Several tools and methods have been used for this task for ages, though each one with its associated difficulties and dangers. Some farmers climb on ladders to hammer the poles, while others use barrels. However, it’s the combined effort of hammering while maintaining one’s balance that is particularly challenging, whereas there are often two people required for the job.

Interesting ideas were already in place to solve this problem. Designs were drafted on a flipchart with a couple of markers and the ones more available brought some of their own tools, like a cut saw and an electric welder, to build a prototype.

That has been the birth of Tzoumakers: a community-driven agricultural makerspace in Tzoumerka, Greece. Tzoumakers is more than an unfortunate wordplay of “Tzoumerka” and the maker culture; it is about a unique confluence of the groundbreaking elements of the latter, with the rich traditional heritage of the former. A distinctive synthesis that transcends both into a notion that seeks to create solutions that are on-demand and locally embedded, yet conceived and shareable on a global cognitive level.

It is important to emphasise that Tzoumakers is not a place that develops new tools ‘in house’. Rather it builds upon the individual ingenuity of its community and remains open for everyone to participate in this process. Through collective work, field testing and representation new tools may be released and further shared to benefit others with similar problems. Many of the necessary innovations are already there; the role of Tzoumakers is to collect, formalize and disseminate them.

But it’s also important to understand that Tzoumakers, much like its tools and solutions, cannot provide ready-made blueprints for solutions to be simply copy-pasted elsewhere. The same applies to the projects that have been its inspiration, such as L’ Atelier Paysan and Farm Hack, which cannot convey one unified cosmopolitan vision for the agricultural sector. The same process of connection, collaboration and reflection has to be followed on every different context, whether rich or poor, vibrant or desolate, in abundance or scarcity. But it is this combination of human creativity, craftsmanship, meaningful work and sharing that arguably embodies a true, pervasive and “cosmolocal” spirit for the maker culture.

Notes:

Tzoumakers and the P2P Lab are supported by the project “Phygital: Catalysing innovation and entrepreneurship unlocking the potential of emerging production and business models”, implemented under the Transnational Cooperation Programme Interreg V-B “Balkan – Mediterranean 2014-2020”, co-funded by the European Union and the National Funds of the participating countries.

The post The Birth of an Open Source Agricultural Community: The Story of Tzoumakers appeared first on P2P Foundation.

WHEN: 21st March 2019 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
WHERE: University of Westminster (Room UG05); 309 Regent St; Marylebone, London W1B 2HT; UK
COST: Free

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis & Alex Pazaitis (P2P Foundation) –Book Launch ‘Peer to Peer. The Commons Manifesto’ (University of Westminster Press)

Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer.  What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions this seminar tries to answer.

Biography

Michel Bauwens is the Founder of the P2P Foundation and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of commons-based peer production, governance, and property.

Vasilis Kostakis is the Professor of P2P Governance at Tallinn University of Technology and Faculty Associate at Harvard University. He is also Visiting Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Vasilis is the founder of the P2P Lab and core member of the P2P Foundation.

Alex Pazaitis is a Core Member of the P2P Lab and a Junior Research Fellow at the Ragnar Nurkse Department, Tallinn University of Technology.

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The article has been co-authored by Alex Pazaitis, Vasilis Kostakis and Michel Bauwens. Special thanks to Alanna Krause and Joshua Vial for their valuable input and support, as well as to all Enspiral people.

Abstract: This article explores how autonomous workers/contributors, involved in peer-to-peer relations, can organise their productive efforts so that they have sustainable livelihoods. The discussion is guided by the concept of ‘open cooperativism’, which argues for a synergy between the commons-based peer production movement and elements of the cooperative and solidarity economy movements. To this end, we review the case of Enspiral, a network of professionals and companies that empowers and supports social entrepreneurship. We explore its values, operation and governance as well as the chosen strategies for autonomy and sustainability. Finally, some lessons are summarised for the cooperative and union movement, which point to open cooperativism as an integrated vision.

Full text available here: http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/cQtJrUauKHrIGGYmMZtq/full (find this and more publications of the P2P Lab openly accessible here).

Photo by mimitalks, married, under grace

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“For much of the history of industrial and post-industrial capitalism, political conflict has been between state and market: either to use state mechanisms for the regulation and redistribution of the excesses of market players, or, conversely, to re-privatise activities towards market players. This has been called by some the “lib” (for liberal) versus the “lab” (for labour and its derivative social movements) pendulum. In our current political economy, the latter has been discarded as a historical legacy without future.

Indeed, the remaining physical commons (e.g. land, water resources, minerals, airwaves, public infrastructures, etc.) that exist globally are under threat and enclosure. At the same time, the re-emergence of digital commons of knowledge, software and design celebrate human collaboration and recreate commons-oriented modes of production and market activities around it.

In these new systems, value is created through contributions and not labour per se, with the output being commons, not commodities. During the last two decades, several commons-oriented projects, such as myriad of free/ open source software projects (FOSS) or the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, have highlighted the emergence of technological capabilities shaped by human factors, which in turn shape the physical environment under which humans live and work.

From this new, communicational and interconnected environment, a new mode of information production has emerged, called commons-based peer production, which is based on distributed, collaborative forms of organization. Ultimately, the potential of the new mode is to emancipate itself from dependency on the old, decaying mode, so as to become self-sustaining and thus replace the accumulation of capital with the circulation of the commons. In an independent circulation of the commons, the common use value would directly contribute to the further strengthening of the commons and of the commoners’ own sustainability, without dependence on capital. How could this be achieved?”

This essay explores a potential course of such a transition – Read the article here.

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