Here are some interesting findings, which I would like to highlight:

1. These communities are also ‘imaginary communities’ with specific values, i..e. they want to make the world a better place, i.e. they are ethical communities not just profit-maximising entities, and their identification is in global networks, not just the locales they are embedded in. This is historically important since it echoes the birth of nation-states as imaginary communities (see Benedict Anderson’s landmark book on this topic)

2. A majority of 78% of these communities are practicing, preparing and/or looking into open value or contributory accounting systems; again, this is significant since changes in accounting practices and philosophies have accompanied the great value regime transitions in the past

3. Reputation capital is a fictitious commodity that has an effective capacity to drive and allocate resources to these common projects.

This document is therefore a must-read for the P2P and Commons community.

This paper summarizes three years of ethnographic work on Commons Based Peer Production (CBPP) communities within the research project P2PValue, funded by the European Commission. By Adam Arvidsson, Alessandro Caliandro, Alberto Cossu, Maitrayee Deka, Alessandro Gandini, Vincenzo Luise, Brigida Orria and Guido Anselmi.

Key insights:

• CBPP is part of a broader transformation in the information economy whereby collaboration and common knowledge have come to play an ever more important part in value creation. This development has roots that go back to the industrial revolution in the 19th century and it has been greatly accelerated by the diffusion of digital media. CBPP or CBPP like modes of production have become a core component to the contemporary information economy as a whole.
• CBPP occurs in highly particular kinds of communities. They are not kept together by frequent interaction or a tight web of social relations. Instead they are kept together by sharing a common imaginary that posits a transformative potential on the part of the particular practice to which these communities are dedicated.
• Contributions to this potential through technical skills and/or virtuous conduct is rewarded with reputation. Reputation is the form of that exchange value takes in CBPP communities, it is the ‘fictious commodity’ typical to CBPP.
• Reputation is also the most important value form that structures transactions between CBPP and other institutional logics, such as that of markets, capitalism and the state.
• The value of reputation lies in its ability to give a proximate measure to risk.
• The fact that value is principally related to risk means that CBPP communities operate a value logic that mirror that of financial markets.
• Most CBPP communities envision commons based markets as alternatives to capitalism. Such commons-based markets build on the construction of imaginaries that are able to transform insecurity into risk in ways that mirror communitarian principles.

Introduction

“The publication of Yochlai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks in 2006 introduced the notion of Commons based peer production (CBPP) to the theoretical vocabulary of the social sciences. Similar issues had been debated for some time, mainly within the disciplines of computer science and management, and within the mainly non-academic debates that constituted what Richard Barbrook and Andrew Cameron (1996) called the ‘Californian Ideology’ of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, hackers and computer enthusiasts (for an overview see Turner, 2010, Romele and Severo, 2016). However, Benkler’s work, along with the contemporary writings of Michel Bauwens (2005), gave a coherent definition to the phenomenon and placed it within the tradition of mainstream social theory.

Benkler makes explicit the implicit suggestion already current within exponents of the ‘Calfornian ideology’, that CBPP should be understood as a new mode of production, alternative to markets and networks, which is emerging in digital environments. Departing from the perspective of transaction cost economics Benkler suggests the most important determinant of this development is the ability of digital media to greatly reduce the transaction costs involved in large-scale collaboration among strangers. These new forms of productive collaboration are marked by three central features: First, decentralization: in CBPP “the authority to act resides with individual agents faced with opportunities for action, rather than in the hands of a central organizer, like the manager of a firm or a bureaucrat” (Benkler and Nissenbaum, 2006:400). (In Michel Bauwens’ (2005) words CBPP communities are self-organized ‘adhocracies’: organizational structures and hierarchies emerges as a consequence of practice and members invest significant time and energy in developing organizational forms and governance systems as they go along.) Second, “a frequent use of common resources and public goods” (Benkler & Nissenbaum, ibid.). CBPP communities are commons based: they make use of shared resources, mostly immaterial as in the case of Open Software or other knowledge commons, but sometimes also material resources as in the case of Fab Labs, where machinery and other resources are shared among members, or within the ‘Sharing Economy’ more generally (Benkler, 2004). Within most communities, what members make out of such common resources is itself made common, put back into the commons pool, as when a line of open source code is deposited back into a common archive. The common nature of such wealth is sometimes extended beyond particular communities, as when Creative Commons licenses make it publicly available, in whole or in part. Third, CBPP is marked by the prevalence of non-monetary motivations. Here Benkler makes two apparently contradictory points. On the one hand he suggests that participants in CBPP are driven by a plurality of diverse motivations. This is because declining transaction costs and easy connectivity have made it so that enough interested talent will somehow find its way. There is no need to posit any common driver for participation in order to explain the functioning and sustainability of initiatives like Wikipedia or Seti@Home. At other times Benkler suggests that there is indeed such a common driver for participation. This common driver consists in the ‘common decency’ manifested in the kinds of social sharing that goes on, and that has gone on for a long time in the ordinary social relations that make up everyday life. CBPP is simply a technologically enabled extension of the forms of ‘social sharing’ that have been a feature of human life throughout history. They have been extended into the domain of high-tech digital production. That is, ‘sharing nicely’ has become a feature not just of neighborly relations, but also of ‘creative labor’ more generally (Benkler, 2004).

We need to assume no fundamental change in the nature of humanity. We merely need to see that the material conditions of production in the networked information economy have changed in ways that increase the relative salience of social sharing and exchange as a modality of economic production. That is, behaviors and motivation patterns familiar to us from social relations generally continue to cohere in their own patterns. What has changed is that now these patterns of behavior have become effective beyond the domains of building social relations of mutual interest and fulfilling our emotional and psychological needs of companionship and mutual recognition. They have come to play a substantial role as modes of motivating, informing, and organizing productive behavior at the very core of the information economy (Benkler 2006: 92).

At times Benkler suggests that such ‘social sharing’ is able not only to motivate but also to coordinate the productive practice that unfolds in CBPP communities. “Participants to social production use social cues and motivations, rather than prices or commands to motivate and coordinate the actions of participating agents” (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006:400). Throughout Benkler’s writings the possible contradiction between these two points of view is never addressed: Is participation in CBPP driven by a plurality of different motivations? Or is ‘social sharing’, ‘sharing nicely’, ‘social cues and motivations’ the one overwhelming factor that motivates participants and coordinates their actions? This omission is probably explained by Benkler’s reluctance to identify a theory of value for CBPP. To Benkler CBPP is primarily a civic, rather than an economic phenomenon. As such it is driven by virtues, which he understands to be beyond calculation (Benkler, 2006:109). And although he concedes that it is sometimes possible to construct economic explanations for participation in CBPP communities (as in the early work of Lerner & Tirole, 2002), this, he suggests, somehow does violence to the phenomenon:

Although it is entirely possible that the persistent and pervasive practice of spending time and effort producing something of value and giving it freely to be used by others for no compensation can be explained as self-serving behavior in pursuit of, say, reputation, a more efficient and direct explanation in many, if not most cases, is the pleasure or satisfaction of giving – generosity, kindness, benevolence (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006:408).

This non-economic nature of CBPP is central to Benkler’s whole theory. Not only does it serve to separate CBPP from markets and hierarchies, but it is also key to the civic and political potential of this movement. CBPP, he claims ‘offer not only a remarkable medium of production for various kinds of information goods, but serve as a context for positive character formation ‘(Benkler and Nissenbaum, 2006: 396). CBPP fosters particular kinds of collaborative virtues, and the motivations of participants are related to the realization of such virtues. Michel Bauwens goes even further and sees CBPP as the seed form of a new human civilization based on collaborations and self-organization (Bauwens and Kostakis, 2014).

Benkler’s early work was innovative and visionary but, at the time, little in terms of empirical studies were available to substantiate his ideas (Benkler, 2006:410). As a consequence, most of his theory development occurred with a few highly successful cases on mind, like chiefly, Wikipedia and Seti@home. Today this has changed, as the decade that has passed since the publication of Benkler’s magnum opus has seen the accumulation of a massive corpus of empirical studies of various aspects of CBPP (for a partial review, see Benkler et al., 2013). In the light of this material, and in particular, in the light of our own contributions to it within the research project P2PValue, we would like to revisit and discuss some of Benkler’s key ideas about peer production. In particular we would like to focus on and explore the question of value in CBPP trying to reconcile Benkler’s focus on the virtuous nature of participation with more sociological explanations that are able to account for the actual and potential relations between CBPP communities and the overall economic ecology of the information society.”

The full article is available here.

Photo by ai3310X

The post Commons Based Peer Production in the Information Economy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In this context, Castells in The rise of the network society develops an analytical distinction of the term ‘information’ and ‘informational’, suggesting that there are similar implications for the ‘information/informational economy’ as well. He protrudes that ‘information’ next to society merely emphasises the importance of the former in the latter, whereas information in its broader sense, has been an important element in the development of all societies. On the contrary, the term ‘informational’ points out to ‘the attribute of a specific form of social organization in which information generation, processing, and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power because of new technological conditions’.

Putting the focus on value, in what way are things different in the information age? Adam Smith offers one of the first comprehensive theories for value early in the industrial transition, defining the value of any commodity in exchange as ‘equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command’. With information as ‘the fundamental source of productivity and power’ how are the relations of ‘purchase and command’ changing?

There is widespread scholarly dissent regarding the transformation of work and the nature of labour in the information economy. Consequently, the relevance of the labour theory of value has largely been dismissed in more contemporary views, which make a case for alternative approaches. Wealth creation in the information economy, as opposed to classical views, is increasingly dependent on socialised and networked productive processes. The individual ‘toil and trouble’ in which one gets into in order to produce any commodity, which Smith identifies as its real price of commodities, is thereby becoming more and more difficult to identify and assess. Furthermore, the increasing importance of affect has been claimed to form the basis for a new conception of value, as labour becomes immaterial, that is, more qualitative and ever more complex, both in individual and collective terms. Value is increasingly created in collective cooperative processes by a multitude of diverse actors and is thus less susceptible to control and measure in terms of labour.

The immeasurability of value, apart from a rejection of the classical theory of value, also constitutes to a strong challenge for the conventional practices of management and accounting. This is coupled with the increasing importance of financial markets in the information economy, where the produced ‘value beyond measure’, as Hardt & Negri put it, is associated with an accounting system based on solely sentimental criteria. Thus, even though value is created by collaborative social relationships, it is by and large directly channelled to financial markets, which are affective than rational.

Nevertheless, it is argued that from a Marxist point of view the labour theory of value remains relevant. In the first chapter of The Capital, Marx holds that in capitalist production there are two processes of labour identified: First, concrete labour, which produces use values and represents ‘the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence’. Second, abstract labour that creates the value of commodities. The activity of internet users could thereby be viewed as labour that produces informational content, which is then commodified and exchanged by media advertisers. At the same time they constitute to the audience for advertising, while their attention as a commodity is actually measurable in terms of aggregated time of social labour.

From another perspective, informational content alone does not possess any exchange value, as it is non-rivalrous and it can be reproduced at negligible cost and time. Hence, the produced information does not classify as a commodity but rather as a universal commons, embodying use values. Subsequently, social media companies employ labour to exploit this information and provide services, thus creating exchange value. Marx himself unveils this antagonistic relation of use value and exchange value in capitalist production. The first serves the collective social interest, whereas the second the individual private objectives. This relation is further eradicated in the context of information, due to its non-rivalry form. Consequently, exchange value is only possible to be imposed on information through artificial scarcity and enclosure of the information commons. Therefore, the price extracted from information can be better understood as a form of monopoly rent.

Towards a new measure of value

What can we conclude from the previous section in relation to Marx’s theory of value and, in fact, labour theory in value in general? Firstly, the claim that new forms of social production are surfacing in the information economy which cannot be encapsulated by the labour theory of value, is in principle correct. However, as long as those new forms become monetised in any manner, they still fall within the reach of Marx’s theory of value. Secondly, the Marxian theory of value can be understood as an integration of the preceding theories of value in the framework of his critique on the capitalist mode of production. The rationale provided by the Smithian or the Ricardian labour theory or value are arguably neither rejected nor contradicted by Marx’s analysis; rather they are interpreted in context. From this perspective, since we are living in a capitalist system, the Marxian theory of value will remain relevant.

From this standpoint, it appears that the best possible development in the Marxian theory of value is to reach to appoint where it will be made obsolete by a radical change in the productive relations beyond capitalism. Indeed, the case of commons-based peer production unseal a political economy which goes beyond the Marxian framework of critique and negate the conventional canons of value altogether. As it has been first observed in the realm of the Free/Open Source Software and in projects such as the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia, it is indigenous to the information economy and encapsulates its transformative dynamics. It is about a new mode of production, different from private for-profit or public state-owned production. Its product does not possess exchange value for markets but rather use value for a community of users/producers. Those are organised in spontaneous productive structures, beyond hierarchy and central coordination and make use of common property regimes to make use value freely accessible. In other words, commons-based peer production celebrates a genuinely sharing economy, in a rather different use of the term from the one purported by the Silicon Valley giants.

So if the value production has fundamentally transformed in the information economy, what is holding back this mode of production to establish its political economy? We suggest that this transformative process can be observed in three interrelated levels: (a) production of value; (b) record of value; and (c) actuation of value.

The first level has already been discussed, with emerging modes of value creation already established in the information economy. On this level it is already made apparent that the produced use value is not measurable in terms of labour time, while the intrinsic value of the products is not associated with the cost of production, since this is almost negligible. At the core we identify an ecosystem of diverse communities of contributors, which are simultaneously users and producers. As the nature of their produce is non-rival, production for exchange is no more relevant and gives way to production for sharing of use values.

The second level is associated with the method used to track and record the produced value, which to a large extent reflects the wider logic of the established economic system. Following the view of Werner Sombart, scientific accounting identified by the double-entry system had played a vital role in unleashing and stimulating the business activities of the economic system, which he is said to have first called capitalism. Double-entry bookkeeping, before its first systematic representation by Luca Pacioli in 1494, had been developed as a practice of merchants in Venice of 14th and 15th century. Much like modern practices that gave eminence to the information economy, bookkeeping has been indigenous to the practice of exchange, which together with the division of labour carve the bedrock of the capitalist mode of production, that is, as Marx puts it, ‘production for exchange’. Likewise, elsewhere (1, 2) it has been argued that the blockchain is the first native digital medium for value.

The transition from the Industrial Economy to the Information Economy

Finally, the third level, concerns the actuation of the produced value. In industrial capitalism the products of labour in production for exchange are transformed into commodities and their value is represented in money through price mechanisms. Similarly, the same process can be observed in our contemporary information economy, which one could perhaps better describe as information capitalism. Even though production of value is socialised, it can only be actualised through enclosure and appropriation. Labour time remains relevant in the production of value, in the sense that people are still working to produce goods and services, while, even though productivity varies in different levels of technology or different tasks and positions, there is definitely some type of relation of labour time and output. Nevertheless, value is then again only measurable, tracked and redistributed through a price mechanism that assigns the actualised value with a money equivalent. Particularly in the case of the so-called sharing economy, even though business giants, such as Facebook and Google, shift away from direct production and instead allow and enable decentralised peer-to-peer operations, the monetisation of the produced value takes place on a central proprietary level.

A more inclusive accounting system would allow the assessment and measurement of value to stream from a process of decentralised consensus and participatory evaluations of a variety of contributions. These two elements complement each other to enable effective evaluation and reward of qualitative different contributions and support decentralised governance. Furthermore, recent cases like Backfeed, propose a token-based economic model, which could tentatively integrate the political economy of this mode of production, providing the final level of value actuation. It envisions a system composed by the circulation of information commons in a sharing market economy. An ecosystem fuelled by a multiplicity of diverse digital tokens coupled with reputational rewards, representing a variety of value systems, while consumption shifts away from utility towards participation and cooperation.

Based on the paper titled: ‘Blockchain and Value Creation in the Information and Sharing Economy: The Case of Backfeed’, by Pazaitis, A., De Filippi, P. & Kostakis, V. (under review). 

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

The post Blockchain and P2P value creation in the Information Age appeared first on P2P Foundation.