[ox-en] Re: Mathieu O'Neil * The social impact of online tribal bureaucracy

Hi Mathieu and all!

3 days ago Stefan Merten wrote:
> Legitimacy online
> -----------------
> 
> * Who rules in autonomous / distributed systems?
> 
> * Why do others accept their authority?

I'd like to ask the other question: Why should they not?

> => Leaders must *justify* their central position.

But isn't this the case for every leader?

For some time now I see leadership as one part of a system. If the
system benefits from leadership then leadership is accepted and often
leadership is even wanted by people.

In fact leadership - i.e. taking responsibility - frees those who are
led from making difficult decisions and caring about the complete
system all the time. In this sense I'd see leadership as one part of
freedom.

> Defining online authority:
> --------------------------
> 
> 1. sovereign authority (role separated from person)
> 
>   - bureaucratic (also rules, release schedules, official repositories,
>     written records): needs to be democratised to fit communal form
> 
>   - 'value-rational' (Weber 1978)
> 
>   - collective basis, will of the people
> 
>   See Debian: Project Leader, Constitution (organisation science:
>   O'Mahony & Ferraro 2007).
> 
> But does not account for...
> 
> 2. charismatic authority (role relinked to person)
> 
>   - charismatisation of meritocracy (expertise not bureaucratic /
>     hierarchical)
> 
>   - affective attachment to personal qualities:
> 
>     - brilliance of great founder (hacker-charisma) 
> 
>     - position of great node (index-charisma)

May be it gets a bit boring but the non-alienated character of
leadership in peer production projects is key to me. To me it is in
partcular this non-alienated character which makes leadership useful
for a project.

> Role of leaders
> ---------------
> 
> * Integrate contributions / adjudicate conflicts

I think another important function of leaders is to reinforce the
goals of the project and to keep the project on track.

> What replaces the market?
> -------------------------
> 
> - Capitalism rejected domination based on transcendence / tradition.
> 
> - Reversion to earlier models of exchange (closeness, mutual help,
>   solidarity): risk of reversion to precapitalist exchange
>   (role=person).

I don't think there is a really a danger here. IMHO mutual help plays
a minor role in peer production and solidarity is widely unknown
unless it goes against a common enemy. In fact I think it is dangerous
to measure peer production with measurements from the past. It *is* a
different society where contemporary ideals are transformed which may
mean they are void.

> - Tribal model: charismatic / traditional leader

Well, there are examples where leaders lost their position because
they tried to move the project on a track which seemed wrong for too
many. So I'd emphasize that even a traditional leader may loose
influence if s/he does to much wrong.

> Important questions remain: justice provision in relation to
> bureaucracy / State?

In which way do you think justice is necessary in peer production
projects?

> Connection to State? Possible? Desirable?

This is probably one of the most interesting question. For this
question I think we need to separate the phenomenon of State into
several aspects.

For instance a State cares about lots of regional and super-regional
infrastructure. That is a purpose which is certainly needed in a
post-capitalist society as well. How it will look like is of course an
open question. However, I could imagine that tasks like this are run
by peer production projects.

Another purpose or contemporary States is to monopolize power. This
includes the use of physical force (military, police, ...) as well as
making laws. An important element of this is to create a currency
backed by the power of the State.

Well, money is no longer needed for a peer production based society.
Do we need State laws? No idea. Do we need to monopolize power? No
idea.

> Expertise and identity
> ----------------------
> 
> - Tension between mass projects based on participation of amateurs and
>   elite projects based on participation of experts.
> 
> - In one case anonymity is accepted.
> 
> - But: is anonymity viable (no responsibility)?
> 
> - But: total surveillance? 
> 
> - User-centric IDM? Web of trust? Solutions?

May be one size doesn't fit all in this case. For some projects I
think responsibility is ultimately needed - and this works best if it
is done by visible persons.

But there are cases where you can live well with anonymity. For
instance IIRC there is a project where volunteers find unusual things
in photos from the sky - I think they are looking for meteors IIRC. In
a case like this you can simply evaluate an average over the input of
many answering the same question and get a quite good result.


						Grüße

						Stefan

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iQCVAwUBS2auSAnTZgC3zSk5AQI9owP8CzK8U+zc1Z1F5mQGQ1tvEaTTQYN+fiyP
S6fOMMUcxvYH8sWrl0SIV/ed9KDlTgnOJQpOHTvfvWPgMMNNj+sWV0fbws9JzT/H
Oj/BjSZ8TnSIb2NAtYPq83ckhuZce60TTWQAH3PU1jy1jVFf7lw5sfZs+vOu4Zx4
ZKig4zkW1cY=
=XLgQ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----