Self-organization in Indigenous Cultures And what that can teach
us about self-organization in high-tech societies Slide 2 Both
Dutch colonists and later anthropologists assumed that this complex
irrigation system must be organized top-down. Lansing shows it is
not: farmers meet at water temples and cooperatively agree upon
irrigation schedule. Why dont we see the control hierarchy
predicted by Marx and others? Similar question: how is Open Source
possible? Slide 3 The potential for a control hierarchy is clear in
cases like this. The subaks at bottom (Kliki and Klutug) only get
water in dry months if released from Bukian. Bukian only gets it if
released from Bresela, etc. Why doesnt Taro demand tribute or taxes
or exert some other form of control? Slide 4 Slide 5 Slide 6 Slide
7 Mutual positive feedback in Indigenous Cultures Deity of the Weir
requires offerings from farmers who benefit from water flowing
through it Farmers come and go, but social unit defined by weir
waters persists Thus you avoid feeling like the dupe in prisoners
dilemma: your debt is to weir deity, not people Slide 8 Mutual
positive feedback in Indigenous Cultures Deity of the Weir requires
offerings from farmers who benefit from water flowing through it
Farmers come and go, but social unit defined by weir waters
persists Thus you avoid feeling like the dupe in prisoners dilemma:
your debt is to weir deity, not people Slide 9 Mutual positive
feedback in Open Source Community Sharing and Improvement: Public
access to remove bugs, tailor code to other purposes, and find
problems. Group recognition: When credit accrues to group,
individuals feel rewarded. The rediscovery of creativity, lost in
the mass production of commercial software products. Slide 10 What
about physical systems? 1) Money appears to be a self-generating
source of value 2) In fact, money disguises the true source of
value: self-generating capacity of labor and nature 3) In a barter
economy, we tend to see very little class difference. Money allows
the disguise by "condensing" the labor. 4) People who do not own a
means of production must compete to sell their labor: typically,
large labor pool = small income. 5) Exchange Value - Labor value =
Surplus Value (the value that has been extracted from labor). 6)
Corporations raise profits by "externalizing" costs of reproducing
labor and reproducing nature. Slide 11 Indigenous Cultures as
models for Industrial Ecology Slide 12 Note that the valuable
egalitarian structure of indigenous cultures is largely lost. How
can we return value to labor in the same way we are returning value
to physical systems in these ecologies?
