The fair compensation initiative

[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]

Hi Suresh, 

Suresh: "let me know what precise path you are trying to pursue in the social finance space."

I was already working on value accounting and on reputation and role mapping for SENSORICA. I already stated that 

"These tools are also necessary to stabilize open ventures, to catalyze their self organization, buy embodying a powerful set of positive incentives and by providing a greater visibility into the social structure of these organizations. "

I decided to propose to the ProM group to think about a new way to compensate ourselves for our work, to go beyond the gift economy (without eliminating it !), while preserving the soul of the open social enterprise. I find that there is a large untaped sea of talent out there, people that are trapped within a web of necessities, that would contribute to our venture if only they could feed their children. 

 

I sensed that your efforts to find funding were not enough, because you did not explain how this funding would be distributed within ProM. I feel that employing people, paying a salary, introduces power relations within the group, which takes us a step back from building an empowering, open, and decentralized space, divides the group into an open area and a closed area, incites competition, etc. Even if the funding comes form alternative sources, once the money get into a back account they smell just the same. What's important is how they'll get distributed. 

To answer your question Suresh, I am NOT planning to get too far into the social financing space. My attention is not on the source, but on the distribution. In the case of the open enterprise SENSORICA, which commercializes a high tech material product and offers services, the source of revenue is the market, where we exchange the fruits of our labor with the consumer. In the case of a social enterprise there are other sources. But I want to reflect on how to reward individuals for their contribution while keeping the open, open. So I am focusing inside ProM. 

Your work is equally important, because if we find a way to redistribute revenue, while respecting the aforementioned conditions, we'll need to have something to redistribute.  

I also want to broaden the scope of this reflection, to also include non tangible value, which can also be mapped and exchanged. It's not just about money.  

NOTE:

I want to thank Paul for helping me better define some of these ideas. I deeply respect Paul'l views on open collaboration. I also admit my own bias, coming from the open innovation space, dealing with resource intensive processes and being forced to interface with the present-old economy.  

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Suresh Fernando <sures...@gmail.com> wrote:

Please forward any specific questions that you might have or let me know what precise path you are trying to pursue in the social finance space.

Thanks!

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 2:43 PM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu <tiberius.br...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some of us already have extensive experience with financing of the open social enterprise. Suresh can provide you with some links to his work. I feel that together, we can go further. 

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 5:40 PM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu <tiberius.br...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Peitrust-ees !

I am the founder of SENSORICA open enterprise, of Multitude Project, and a member of ProM. Both of these organizations are now reaching the point where a reputation and value accounting mechanism is needed. Bayle already knows about our activities and can articulate our needs into your own language. 

I am writing you this message, also including the ProM group, to ask if it would be possible for you to help us articulate our needs and to build a prototype. We can be your testing ground. Together, we can design and build the tools that will allow social changers and members of open enterprises (like SENSORICA) to sustain themselves, their families and their communities, directly from their activities, without compromising the open culture. These tools are also necessary to stabilize open ventures, to catalyze their self organization, buy embodying a powerful set of positive incentives and by providing a greater visibility into the social structure of these organizations. 

We can provide a space for further discussions and collaboration.   

     
Tiberius

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Michael Maranda <trop...@gmail.com> wrote:

no problem, just really trying to ger better appreciation of the social and business structures at play - especially potential for values accounting

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu <tiberius.br...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Michael, 

You requested access to edit SENSORICA website. We are now doing some restructuring of SENSORICA. Some of my partners will create a box organization which will sit on the Mosquito sensor, and I will continue to work on SENSORICA as an open space for innovation and design of high tech products with other collaborators. I will NOT be formally attached to the box, but I will act as a consultant. The box will be member of SENSORICA. I will be a full member of SENSORICA. At this moment we are in the process of separating what belongs to SENSORICA and what belongs to the box. Within a week it will be possible for you to participate to SENSORICA if you please. 

Thanks.  

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[Michael Maranda]

Tiberius, 

I'm very interested in these questions - namely determining the basis for such accounting and distribution.  it can apply within ProM group, and can apply to those using ProM or ProM-like platform.  

Are you mainly at the stage of raising the questions, or is there a particular strategy that is being outlined somewhere?  (HAve I missed it?)

Thank you T!

MM

PS -- let's reduce cross-posting especially between Coaliton and ProM mailing lists.  Let's make it an expectation that those on ProM list should also be on Coalition list, so it something applies to the wider group context, do post it there. The chain of communication gets muddled, and I don't think it is necessary to broadcast to both.  I'm replying to both here mainly to affirm this point.

[paul horan]

Tibi,

THANX 4 the love!!!

AND so sorry for this delayed response ...

Admittedly, I'm a bit of an idealist = confident that best practices in gift economics among real, live human beings (as contrasted with popular professional/mercenary roles people perform) be well integrated with clear insights emerging from biophysical economics (and other ecosystem=sensible activities like permaculture, biomimicry, etc.) = ready, willing and able to help make peace AND/OR fight for robust space where good will, original thought and heart felt folk wisdom have an explicitly strong influence on designing our entire species' evolutionary guidance systems.

For me, "making money" is, at its absolute utmost level of importance, merely secondary to "making sense". I'm not asking anyone else to feel and/or see things this way; I'm simply needing my position to be openly and honorably acknowledged as such by anyone with whom I get to collaborate resolving this wicked mess we're now in (i. e., our global climate crises, including our energetic, ecosystemic & economic crises) AND evolving beyond our own mess making tendencies.

As mentioned in an earlier message, 'who gives a damn what brand's decal's on the side of the bucket of water I'm using to put out the fire consuming my home?'

None of us is exempt from going crazy once in a while; and yet, if we self select to care for what's actually emerging among us, each of us will become more naturally attracted to helpfully supporting one another learning to trust the quality of our human relationships in this source process of collaborating more and more openly.

We still know so little (& probably understand much less) about what we're aiming to do. The least we can do is be more careful than we humans have tended to be in the past. Since evolving beyond old paradigms is so confronting for each/all of us, cultivating shared humility as a human resource might just help us evolve more consciously. Compassion's a related resource that offers quite a bit of promise for reducing resistance along emergent evolutionary pathways.

Given our actual experiences enjoying some good conversation via skype calls over the past few weeks, I trust you get my meaning with the above paragraphs and that you also understand I'm quite serious about having FUN exploring/discovering what we can all do together to help make sense amidst current craziness. This is a another rich dimension of our conversation that ought to continue.

Having FUN makes sense AND feels good to me ...

paul

P. S. = recently ran across an article describing how some folks earn money by carefully scouring the environs where goldsmiths enter the streets after leaving work. Supposedly, the tiny fragments of gold dust falling from the hair, skin, clothing, etc. of these craftspeople provides sufficient income for those determined to scoop it up. Similarly, we're learning to "rub minds' (as Pam likes to say : ) together productively in ways that are akin to craftwork performed by goldsmiths & jewelers. Could it be that some of our "work is love made visible" efforts in a well=cared=for gift economics context actually generate enough wealth as a mere residual side effect of such efforts that all our monetary needs are effectively met? YESSS, I believe it could be as long as we keep our priorities clearly aligned; which won't happen by accident AND will be seriously FUN work such as is now emerging with respect for both open stewardship and pattern languages.

[paul horan]

Tibi,

Please pardon me in advance if I'm misinterpreting your reference "to go beyond the gift economy".

Let's also remain open to the possibility that an actual "gift economy" may simply already be well beyond the current comfort zone of many/most participants in our "present-old economy". 

If so, our efforts to project and circulate greater appreciation for an actual "gift economy" may serve as a guiding influence for whatever transitional steps more good folks may find much more naturally attractive as more & more of us self select to evolve beyond the constraints of our "present-old economy".

If the etymological roots of the word "competition" exclude any notions of inherent adversity (& I believe they do : ) then let's seek and strive together as we learn to help one another collaborate more openly.

Happy Easter, Dude!

Peace,

paul

[Gerry Gleason]

On Sun, 2011-04-24 at 21:34 -0700, paul horan wrote:
> Tibi,
>
>
> Please pardon me in advance if I'm misinterpreting your reference "to
> go beyond the gift economy".
>

...
>
>
> paul
>

It is worth getting a bit more clear on what we mean by "gift economy".
I think Tibi is just referring to the idea that we need to be able to
catalyze flows of fiat (traditional/scarce) money in the context of the
gift economy. I wouldn't characterize that as beyond, but I suppose
many people think of the gift economy as exclusive of anything like
traditional commerce (trade). The gift economy extends and envelopes
the trade economy.

The critical thread that runs through a number of the theorists we have
been discussing in the chat is the idea of history. Much analytical
thought deprives the world of its history. Solutions to linear systems
are independent of initial conditions and consequently of the path or
history taken by the system. Non-linear systems have a history, the
current state depends on the "path" of the system. Benkler's work about
"commons based peer production" reference "path dependence in the
economy".

With De Landa, history is not just about a text, but is something that
spans all disciplines from geology to linguistics. Difference is
articulated in cycles of stratification of diverse elements that are
then articulated again at another level (scale) in a meshwork with
emergent properties.

The emergence of command hierarchies is probably endemic to the
emergence of history in the textual sense. As linguistic beings we have
aural and now written histories in language, and elements like command
and control, design and planning become part of what is sorted and
selected for and from in the universal processes of evolution and
emergence that De Landa illuminates. Biological evolution in genetics
is more similar to the linguistic processes, only the selection of genes
happens on a generational timeframe and for memes it can be much shorter
cycles. Note that biological evolution for micro-organisms is also on
shorter timescales, and we can observe genetic evolution in human
timescales in these organisms.

Many open questions here, I invite you to think about how we have been
sorted and stratified by the anti-markets ("firms" in Benkler,
corporations and other institutions more generally), and what sorts of
meshworks are emerging in the secondary articulation of these strata.

Gerry

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[paul horan]

Gerry,

Thanks for this invitation!

On multiple dimensions, this opportunity to participate in designing an inquiring system wrt "What is the Gift Economy?" is more attractively inviting than I've time to engage fully before needing to go to sleep, so let's please keep this baby of a conversation alive and humming via good nurturing ...

I must think, feel, reflect & anticipate about this a whole lot more! Nonetheless, here are a few general qualities I'm self selecting to assign as meaningful for an understanding response to your question "What is the Gift Economy?"

Gift economics is, by its actual nature, much more in tune with infinite possibilities than other approaches.

Gift economics emerges from pretty much the opposite kind of mind-set that led Sartre to suggest "Hell is other people."

Much obliged for your important invitational initiative here, 

paul

[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]

Gerry, thank you very much for stimulating the coalition to have a wider dialog on the economics of the social enterprise. 

I reviewed the Wikipedia page on Gift Economy and I included it into our Diigo knowledge base  http://diigo.com/0gvg5    If you have the Diigo extensions installed for your browser (use Google Chrome of Firefox, works better) we could also exchange right there, adding comments directly on the Wikipedia page.  

This is how I think about this problem

Although I recognize the role of cultures (including morality) in shaping human behavior, I also think that cultures depend on economical conditions. The distribution of sources of value (food, tools, etc.) and all the possible ways to get to value determine a space of social structures and cultures. The situation is degenerate, i.e. a set of economical conditions accepts a number (a finite spectrum) of possible social and cultural settings.

I am not talking here about social and cultural determinism. My model resembles more the quantum mechanical model, where a set of initial conditions (things that are necessary for humans to sustain life) determines a (confined) space of probabilities. Here I am also distinguishing between initial conditions and states. This is why I put economical conditions first and I consider social structure and culture as "effects" of economical conditions.  

This is how I think about choosing an economical model for a social enterprise. I first try to understand the economics within the enterprise. Second, I consider the social enterprise within the larger economical system and I try to understand all possible ways that our group can exchange with the rest of the world. When I refer to the larger economical system I am NOT thinking about the ideal capitalism. I am referring to the actual economics, taking into consideration what the new technology enables, and all forms of production and exchange existing around us.  

ProM can accept a blend of economical models and can sustain different cultures at once, with some of them being more important than others. My question is how much space can a gift economy occupy in a project like ProM? Notice that the word is can not should or  must.  

Tibi

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[paul horan]

Dear Tiberius & Gerry,

I've just enjoyed reading for the second time (& thus further grokking the meaning conveyed via : ) each of your messages = this is rich dialogue = THANK you, both!

Just so you know, I'm needing to double check w/ each of you wrt some* of the points you're making here. Still, the general dynamic & direction this inquiry's offering me is magnificently appealing.

Admittedly, I've an ideal-like bias that strongly influences my participation in inquiries like this one exploring 'what IS gift economics?'. So, trusting you'll indulge me with a little extra leeway, I offer a few more general qualities for helping identify/clarify what gift economics might just mean for all of us = 

• As pattern languaging efforts appreciate ""the quality that has no name": a sense of wholeness, spirit, or grace, that while of varying form, is precise and empirically verifiable.", so do our efforts to grok gift economics.

• As Bucky Fuller supposedly claimed, "I learned very early and painfully that you have to decide at the outset whether you are trying to make money or to make sense, as they are mutually exclusive."

• As Kahlil Gibran composed "Work is love made visible." ( http://www.katsandogz.com/onwork.html )

• As one of my friends shared via her fb page several months ago,

"loveprimafacie

People were created to be loved

Things were created to be used.

The reason why the world is in CHAOS,

is because things are being loved,

and people are being used."  

*Gerry, I need to read that second link to DeLanda's work circulating via skype chat a few days ago to get a better understanding of his take on "geology to linguistics" & "universal processes of evolution and emergence"; which reminds me of a line from a song by The Incredible String Band = 

"Earth, water fire and air 

get together in a garden fair,

put in a basket bound with skin ...

if you answer this riddle you'll never begin ..."

Tibi, I need to discover with you how we might best play an infinite yet serious game featuring a more "Both = And" rather than just and "Either - Or" approach. For instance, when you say "... why I put economical conditions first and I consider social structure and culture as "effects" ..." I agree with your logic AND I also feel quite confident that (with self selected equal time & attention : ) appreciating social potential first enables us to appreciate "sources of value (food, tools, etc.) and all the possible ways to get to value" in various radically innovative and much more life affirming, thus much more sustainably thrivable ways.

Appreciatively,

paul

[Gerry Gleason]

I can't tell you how important the appreciation you give this discussion
is for me. This sort of appreciation is for me the most important
"flow" to be encouraged, it is this flow that helps me change my
direction when I most need to. It is the flow of appreciation that
cements a meshwork of human relations into a whole that can act together
with purpose as "friends collaborating under no command".

We don't need a meta-currency system for these intimate flows to
function in themselves, and in any case, we quickly realize that our
highest values cannot be put into words. In semiotics, it is explicit
that the sign can only point to something and in that action it can only
be partial. The interpretation is never complete. We need them to
extend the scale of these structures beyond the scope of intimate
relationships.

Paul hit on a critical point here, a gift economy is a meshwork. The
implication here is that a traditional "peasant" market economy is a
gift economy.

Tibi starts with the idea of what are the basic economic activities
available to the population, and hints that there may be many different
coherent sets that a given environmental context can support. From De
Landa, this is a lot like the nodes of auto-catalytic chemestry, it can
grow in complexity and richness by adding nodes in an exploratory drift
of the economic network as a whole.

JF Noubel talks about three levels of collective intelligence (CI),
Original (the small scale intimate group), Pyramidal (The various
hierarchical forms base on control, fear, morality, scarce money, etc.)
and Global CI, what we are trying to create.

Each of us needs an intimate structure to support us, a vessel with
holds for reserve and a crew with a range of skills and experience,
maybe some passengers and cargo or special equipment. The vessels and
ports are the nodes of a meshwork that can be flexiblly reconfigured for
a variety of collective tasks.

Each vessel needs to be locally self-sufficent, but they can re-supply
or exchange crew whenever they come together in ports, harbors and even
at sea. The meshworks also have to be collectively self-sufficient
having sufficient economic activities within its scope to support all
this vesseling.

Ports could represent local meshwork economies of place, and they would
be supporting the vesselling to support and enhance their local
relationships.

Tibi, did you notice how often that gift economies involve sharing food?
Any non-monetary valuation of how wealthy a given society is has to
relate to health and be founded on adequate nutrition for everyone.
Clearly health care, or care in general in terms of child care and
nursing are likewise foundational for gift economies.

Thanks for this discussion, time to get started with the day.

Gerry

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____________________________________________________________

[Wael Al-Saad]

This tweet brought me back here https://twitter.com/pospigos/status/1247998569543380993

Its fun, how good things kept growing along these years .. Personally I did not give up building what we intended to do back then.

we have a project where we want to build a new structure of integral collaboration between humans and earth .. the core of it is the NRP system Tibi build with other developers.
it a new-economy masterplan combined with a software solution without any funds yet. Our group is working hard to develop the business model, prototype and strategy ..

You can reach me on albayda...@gmail.com

Wael