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<p>Dave -</p>
<p>I really appreciate this offering. Your simplified model of
exchange here fits my own anecdotal experience well enough and
might provide a good armature for a expanded notional model of
exchange:commons:symbiosis that I've been thinking/working
around. <br>
</p>
<p>Please do send your full paper.<br>
</p>
<p>Until I can read/assimilate the larger work, I'd like to offer to
this audience another layer. Adding the spectrum of mutualistic
to parasitic symbiosis in exchanges, and a measure of the *health*
of a culture/community and its commons.</p>
<p>I believe that mutualistic symbiosis is key to all 3 of your
types of exchange. What you call general is more than altruism or
deferred repayment in-kind. It involves a positive sum exchange
both ways, where what is taken by each side has more value to the
receiver than to the giver, and vice-versa. What you call
balanced may well include an uncanny ability for each member of a
group to keep the same ledger (e.g. who is always "light" when it
comes time to pay) but I believe works best when the exchange
includes asymmetric value received. <br>
</p>
<p>I have friendship relations with people whose ability to pay is
unbalanced, in some of those I carry the heavy end, in others I
take the light end. This is usually done in qualitative
ways... when we eat/drink at an expensive restaurant, my
well-heeled friends (who might choose that class of place) offer
to pay and when I make the overture, we go to a place that more
evenly matches my means. Some of my friends truly can't afford
to eat/drink out, so they reciprocate by providing a more humble
or homemade meal at home and I might contribute an expensive (to
them) libation. If we were keeping track of $$ in either case,
there would be a lopsided asymmetry, but that is not the medium of
exchange that is important. This is how idealized communism
works "from each/to each".</p>
<p>The flywheel effect of the commons has two main effects, one is
that it allows excess resources to be "stored" somehow... whether
literally as a communal granary or by enhancing the quality of a
pasture, woodlot, or water source, to be retrieved later. This
also allows for smoothing over time and circumstance. In a
drought year, the community may draw more water from a reservoir
than the runoff replaces, and one individual or family may not be
able to do their full share of Acequia maintenance one year, but
still take their full share of water. In both cases, the implicit
ledger is there, maintaining a balance, but not the exchange is
not directly between individuals but between an individual and the
collective *through* a commons. <br>
</p>
<p>To the extent that the "commons" in question is a healthy
ecosystem, then it is incumbent on the group to seek a general or
balanced exchange with the ecosystem in many ways as if IT were
another member of the community, to maintain it's health. In
fact, more to the point, to join that ecosystem taking a mutually
symbiotic role.</p>
<p>You speak of asymmetries in power and information. These are
both culturally derived/relevant ideas. With enough abstraction,
one might caste the exchanges in an ecosystem into those terms,
but I think it is generally the wrong way to measure those
relationships. Predator/prey models ala Lotka-Volterra may fit
this well (the information and physical prowess/power asymmetries
allowing the predators to effectively hunt/kill/digest the prey
ant the prey being able to evade/defend/be-unsavory enough to
survive. But amidst this simplified free market economy "red of
tooth and claw" there is something yet more constructive afoot.</p>
<p>I wonder, using your terms of power and information, if the key
to this symbiosis and the apparent creative emergence of an
ecosystem, isn't the tension between these two abstractions (power
and information)? To the extent that information can be copied
with no degradation to the original and power is generally a
conserved quantity, there would be an interesting interplay.
The oxbird on the Rhino's back exchanges nourishment (eating
parasites like ticks, but also sucking blood from the wounds) for
freedom from those parasites (and possibly some healing through
removing contaminated blood?) but also provides an early warning
system through it's keener hearing and sound, alerting at early
signs of danger.</p>
<p>I think I owe Glen a response on the #2 branch of this thread,
but perhaps this branch provides more background to thread #2
which is less about exchange than about control of exchange
(ownership).</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/25/19 7:48 AM, Prof David West
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">Gary,<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">I sent it to your email. If anyone
else wants it,I can do the same.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div>On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, at 1:53 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" id="qt">
<div dir="ltr">Is your paper available?<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div class="qt-gmail_quote">
<div class="qt-gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at
7:11 AM Prof David West <<a
href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm" moz-do-not-send="true">profwest@fastmail.fm</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,
204,
204);border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1px;padding-left:1ex;"
class="qt-gmail_quote">
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Some comments that might be
intrusive (in which case, I apologize and please ignore)
or contributory as context to the "ownership" discussion.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> Two-years ago I presented a
paper, "Patterns of Humanity," at a social change
conference. Part of the paper dealt with "economics," —
in. quotation marks because not all of economics, but
practical efforts to set up alternative mechanisms for
economic exchange.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> All systems of exchange can
be derived from three human/cultural patterns of
reciprocity: general, balanced, and negative. Simplified:
General is akin to parent-child, value is given with
little regard for "repayment" except in very general and
delayed terms (kids take care of their parents in old
age); Balanced is implied by the name, exchange occurs but
is balanced among all members of the group - with
remarkably precise awareness of any imbalances, (we all
know which of us missed their turn to buy a round of
drinks when we are out partying); Negative is both sides
trying to maximize benefit at the expense of the other
party.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> The key factor in viability
of each type is social distance; general within family,
balanced among small groups, and negative the only one
that scales and includes strangers.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> Markets can be based on
balanced reciprocity, but only at relative small scale,
e.g. the village or a community like the Amish.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> Almost all markets with
which we are familiar and within which we participate are
grounded in negative reciprocity. Because these are
focused on asymmetric outcomes; they are enhanced by
asymmetry with regard the factors of the mechanism of
exchange. Two of the most common are asymmetry with
regards information and asymmetry with regards power.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> A concept of "ownership" is
but a tool for establishing or enhancing an asymmetry of
power. <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> Like Markets, a "Commons"
can be grounded in balanced or negative reciprocity. The
possibility of a "balanced" Commons is constrained, by
social distance. The only way to ensure the minimal social
distance necessary for a balanced Commons is some kind of
overriding Culture. So it works just fine in groups with a
strong defining culture like the Amish, Mennonites, and
pre-statehood Mormon communities.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> Commons derived from
negative reciprocity are doomed to "failure."<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> davew<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> On Thu, Nov 21, 2019, at
8:36 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Nick writes:<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > < Dogs seem to
have (or enact) a concept of ownership. > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Just have to bite on
this one: My cattle dog seems to think of her <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > collar as jewelry.
If I take it off she chases after me and tries to <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > get it back. <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > < This scheme is
known as altruistic enforcement because from a <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Darwinian modeling
point of view, it's hard to see why the dominant <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > individuals -- the
soldiers, if you will -- don't pool their resources <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > and take down the Don.
><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Each would have to
believe the new boss would be better than the old <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > boss, that it wouldn't
be them, and that someone will be the boss. <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > They've invested in an
organization that has a pecking order, and so it <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > would be dangerous to
suddenly abandon it in favor of a looser cabal: <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Everyone beneath each
of them might do the same. <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > Marcus<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> > <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> >
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