Monday, September 10, 2018

Notes for a quadriformist manifesto — #3 cont.: Kojin Karatani on four modes of exchange


In The Structure of World History (2014), Kojin Karatani fields his innovative idea to switch “from modes of production to modes of exchange” as a way “to rethink the history of social formations” from a Marxist perspective. Accordingly (see charts), “There are four types of mode of exchange: mode A, which consists of the reciprocity of the gift; mode B, which consists of ruling and protection; mode C, which consists of commodity exchange; and mode D, which transcends the other three.” He further observes that “These four types coexist in all social formations. They differ only on which of the modes is dominant” (2014, pp. ix-x).



Elaboration: Karatani’s framework results in a familiar evolutionary progression: Mode A characterized the rise of fixed-settlement agricultural communities, as their clans and tribes turned to reciprocal gift exchanges (including through arranged marriages) to assure mutual respect, solidarity, and security, both within and between settlements. These settlements were preceded historically by nomadic bands that depended on communal pooling and sharing to survive — not as “gift exchange” but rather as “pure gift” that Karatani denotes “nomadism U” and equates to Marx’s idea of “primitive communism”. What happens with the formation of fixed settlements, however, is that exchange principles take hold for the first time. Thus, “reciprocity is not so much a principle of community as it is a principle for forming larger, stratified communities” (2014, p. 5).

Centuries later, Mode B would take hold with the rise of the state, as it provided people with protection in exchange for obedience. As the state form grew, Mode B gained became even more manifest in centralized bureaucracies, public works, and codifications of law. As Karatani notes, the state arose originally through its power to plunder and redistribute; this endures in the modern era through the state’s power of taxation. Next, still more centuries later, Mode C became foremost, as commodity exchange became the key dynamic behind the development of the market system and capitalism — the realms of money, credit, trade, and class relations.

These three modes enable Karatani, drawing on Hegel and Kant as well as Marx, to propose shifting from Capital to Capital-Nation-State as the object of inquiry, the real force in society. Marxism has traditionally identified Capital as the decisive force, claiming that the material base of a society, i.e., its economic base and mode of production, determines its ideational superstructure, i.e., culture, politics, and religion — in Marx’s view, state and nation belong to this ideational superstructure. However, Karatani sees that the modes of exchange he identifies are all both material and ideational in nature, and that they operate with relative autonomy from each other. Indeed, “ideational superstructures such as religion are not just passively determined by the economic base, but rather have the power to actively alter the latter” (2017, p. 2). Thus, while Capital expresses Mode C, the Nation and the State express the enduring power of Modes A and B, respectively — and they are all knotted together. Hence, it’s the capital-nation-state as a triplex system that defines the modern era, not simply the Capital of traditional Marxism, nor the nation-state of common parlance. In light of this, once capitalism ends, then, contrary to traditional Marxism, the state won’t wither away, neither will the nation. Instead, they will be transformed and transcended through the rise of Mode D.

Mode D is difficult to describe (for me anyway). According to Karatani, Mode D will prevail in the future — as a future mode of exchange that partly spells a return of the spirit of gift exchange (Mode A), but even more so, a return to the older spirit of nomadism’s U form and its emphasis on pooling and sharing, before exchange became a requisite principle:
“Mode of exchange D is not simply the restoration of mode A — it is not, that is, the restoration of community. Mode of exchange D, as the restoration of A in a higher dimension, is in fact only possible with the negation of A. D is, in sum, the restoration of nomadic society. Yet this too does not appear as the result of human desire or intention, but rather emerges as a duty issued by God or heaven or as a regulative idea. In concrete terms, D arrives in the form of universal religion, which negates religions grounded in magic or reciprocity.” (2014, pp. xi-xii)
“Strictly speaking, D is not one of the modes of exchange. It is a drive that seeks to negate and sublate ‘exchange’ (whether of mode A, B, or C). It appears in the form of an ideational/religious power. Nonetheless, it is deeply connected to the economic base — that is, to exchange. It is precisely for this reason that D is able to oppose the various powers that arise from A, B, and C. It is not some imaginary being created through human desire or intention; to the contrary, it possesses its own ‘power’ of compulsion over humans.” (2017, p. 21)
“Mode D is not the return of mode A; it is the return of U.” (2017, p. 25)
Karatani affirms that, while Modes A, B, and C have their own religious aspects, Mode D is “undoubtedly religious in nature” (2017, p. 21). Indeed, its best early instances “are found in the communistic groups that existed in the earliest stages of universal religions such as Christianity and Buddhism” (2014, p. 8). He mentions “heretical movements” in particular, such as Thomas Muntzer’s. Hence, Karatani forecast sthat Mode D will probably arrive in the form of a universal religion.

Yet, partly because the effects of Mode D seem so uncertain and unclear compared to the other modes, Karatani sometimes refers to the social formation it may generate as “X” or as “associationism.” One book reviewer (Gemma Masson) characterized Mode D “as an amalgamation of the best parts of what has gone before” — interesting, but I haven’t been able to confirm that’s Karatani’s belief.

What Karatani does proclaim is that Mode D will result in the arrival of communism. Marx said that future communism would restore the bygone pooling, sharing, and gifting — “primitive communism” — that Marx associated with ancient clans and tribes living in fixed settlements. Karatani corrects Marx’s view by associating primitive communism instead with the even older nomadic bands, then heralds its return “in a higher dimension” represented by Mode D.

But Marxism and communism are not Karatani’s only reference points for Mode D. He is even more insistent that the rise of this final Mode would mark the end of the capital-nation-state and realize Kant’s hopes for a global “federation of nations”, a “world republic”, “the kingdom of ends”, and “perpetual peace.” Mode D is thus set to become a globally integrative mode.

Throughout, Karatani maintains that the four modes of exchange always co-exist and work together in relation to each other, inasmuch as each mode “produces its own unique form of power” (2014. p. 14). He clarifies that, while societies vary mainly according to which mode is dominant, they also vary within that frame according to the relative strengths and details — both material and ideational — of the other modes in the mix at the time. For these modes "do not exist independent of one another. Social formations are produced as assemblages of all of them. Accordingly, it is impossible to take up any one of them in isolation; one has to consider each together with the other modes of exchange” (2017, p. 14). He goes on to observe that,
“Accordingly, the history of social formations should be seen in terms of hybrid forms that include multiple modes of exchange. But the various modes of exchange themselves also undergo transformations within the transformations of social formations. The first social formation arises with clan society, in which mode A is dominant. Even at this stage, however, the germs of modes B and C are present, albeit to a barely noticeable degree. In state society, mode B becomes dominant, but this does not mean that mode A disappeared. It persists in the form of the agricultural community that submits to state rule. … [Later,] together with the establishment of a global market, mode C undergoes an explosive expansion. At this time, the modern social formation comes into being.” (2017, p. 14-15)
This leads to yet another significant observation: “Viewed in this way, it becomes clear that we need to see transformations in social forms not simply along the temporal axis, but also along the spatial axis” (2017, p. 15). Accordingly, the progression across the ages in dominance from Mode A, to B, to C, and ultimately to D is also a progression in territorial expansion — from localized “mini world systems” built by clans and tribes (à la mode A), to world empires built by states (à la mode B), to the modern world-economy system built by the rise of capital-nation-states (à la mode C), and onward next to a world republic grounded on a universal religion (à la mode D). Each mode of exchange facilitates a greater expansion of organized relationships.

There’s undoubtedly more that I should learn and heed about Karatani’s framework. But I’ve not read his entire book, only the first sections. That’s all I can handle right now. And it seems adequate for my immediate purposes.

Comparison to TIMN: Wow, what remarkable parallels to TIMN! With even more to P2P. We all seem to be moving in similar directions, though on different wavelengths. I find that quite reassuring.

Karatani’s four modes of exchange match TIMN’s four forms of organization pretty well (but see below). Other features of his framework — notably, that each mode has both material and ideational properties, that all four modes have existed since societies first took shape, that all societies contain mixes and combinations of all four modes, that societies vary according to which mode dominates when, that societies also vary according to the strength of the other modes, that the rise of a new/next mode modified the natures of the other modes, and that an historical progression can be identified from ancient through modern times — are embedded in TIMN as well. That makes for quite an overlap in framework design and system dynamics.

The similarities and disparities between our two frameworks are much like those I discerned between P2P and TIMN (see my prior post in this series). The best correspondence is between Karatani’s Modes B and C vis à vis TIMN’s Institutions and Markets forms. The correspondence between his Mode A and my Tribes form is pretty good as well. But my Tribes form is broader — in particular, its emphasis on kinship dynamics embraces the communalism he associates with nomadic bands (what he terms “U”) as well as the gift exchanges that define Mode A’s dominance in fixed settlements.

Even so, I appreciate his finding that Mode A endures in the formation of nations — that’s consistent with TIMN theory about how the tribal form endures through mutations across the ages. However, I’m dubious that Mode A, as he currently defines it, offers the best explanation for the rise of spirited nationalisms in the past, or the mean reversions to political tribalism we see in today’s world. What’s happened to communal kinship-like dynamics provides a better explanation than gift-exchange dynamics — that’s what I presently deduce from TIMN. In any case, Karatani’s capital-nation-state concept (reflecting Modes C, A, and B, respectively) aligns very well with TIMN’s concept of triform (T+I+M) societies — they’re both good concepts for capturing an essence of the modern era.

The biggest disparity is between his Mode D and TIMN’s Networks form. We’re both uncertain, indeed rather vague, about the exact future nature of our respective mode/form. He says the result will be “X” or “associationism” if not communism. It will suffuse and “sublate” all other modes and activities. It will also be the final form. My understanding of TIMN does not accord much with that. What I identify as the information-age networks form (+N) may be somewhat like associationism. Yet, TIMN’s dynamics indicate that, as a new form grows and spreads, it generates a distinct sector of activity. Best known for decades, if not centuries, are the public sector (from +I) and the private sector (from +M). My current sense is that +N will generate a new commons sector; P2P theory has long expressed a similar expectation (discussed in other posts). In contrast, Karatani never considers that Modes A, B, C, or D may generate a distinct sector, and I find no mention of a commons sector in his future vision. So, our frameworks are disparate on that score, organizationally. In contrast, Bauwens and other P2P theorists seem so attracted to Karatani’s vision that they identify more closely with it, philosophically.

What I find most engaging about Mode D is Karatani’s emphasis on X’s likely religious nature. He points out that all the Modes have religious properties, though none so much as D. This fits with TIMN (as well as P2P theory). I have long noted, but never fully elaborated, that each of TIMN’s forms has religious consequences: the T form in ancient pagan religions, the +I form in hierarchical Catholicism and the Papacy, the +M form in competitive varieties of Protestantism — plus a future implication that +N may favor the rise of a new interfaith approach, perhaps drawing largely on Buddhism. Bauwens has a rather similar but more detailed analysis of how various religions have expressed P2P’s four relational modalities. Beyond that, it occurs to me that Karatani’s vision for Mode D and outcome X resembles the partly-spiritual concept of the “noosphere” — globe-circling realm of the mind — fielded by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Edouard Le Roy, and Vladimir Vernadsky decades ago. It’s still a significant concept about the future (see Ronfeldt, 2018, cited below), and I should think it would interest Karatani.

A couple more comparisons to TIMN: Karatani shows how each mode in turn enables larger empire-building — from clan-based mini systems based on Mode A, through a global republic and universal religion based on Mode D. That observation overlaps with TIMN. I’ve observed, but don’t recall where I may have mentioned, that each form in the TIMN progression enables more expansive loose-knit systems to be built, from local to global levels in ways similar to Karatani’s layout of stages. Bauwens has observed this as well, based on his framework.

Furthermore, TIMN provides a reason for this: The rise and spread of each TIMN form is enabled by a different information and communications technology revolution. The rise of the tribal form depended on a symbolic revolution: the emergence of language and early writing (runes, glyphs), enabling the storytelling that is central to tribal cultures. The rise of the hierarchical institutional form — as in the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, the absolutist states, their vast administrative structures — rested on a mechanical revolution: the development of formal writing and printing, first penned script and later the printing press. This was important not only for keeping records and issuing commands, but also for inscribing laws that chiefdoms and states could apply to growing populations who were not kinfolk and often not well-known to each other. Next, the rise of the market form and its far-flung business enterprises was sped by the electrical technologies of the 19th century: the telegraph, telephone, and radio. Today’s spread of the network form extends from the digital revolution and its technologies, notably the Internet, fax machines, and cellular telephones, which are especially empowering for civil-society associations around the world and across the political spectrum. I should add that each successive information and communications technology revolution also modifies each of the older forms.

P2P theory likewise recognizes the importance of this technology for the rise of each of its relational modalities, in ways rather parallel to TIMN. Karatani seems not to recognize this. I’ve not read all the way through his book, but browsing it deliberately for mentions of such technology and its effects on modes of exchange, I find nothing. This, in my view, is a significant shortcoming of his analysis.

In closing, an exhortation: Until Karatani appeared, Bauwens and I were alone in proposing quadriform frameworks about social evolution that have future implications. Now there are three of us — four if Raworth or someone else (George Monbiot?) adds more evolutionary theory to her doughnut-economics framework. Even though there are significant differences among our frameworks, and even though readers may prefer one over another, my grander point is that we are all quadriformists. I (we?) hope you will become one too. It’s a new way to break free and move beyond the aging gridlocked ever-more-tribalized triform frameworks that are presently failing us.

I will argue for TIMN’s advantages in the next post


SELECTED SOURCES:

Kojin Karatani, The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange, Duke University Press, 2014.
https://www.amazon.com/Structure-World-History-Production-Exchange/dp/0822356651/

Kojin Karatani, “An Introduction to Modes of Exchange,” unpublished draft article, 2017.
http://www.kojinkaratani.com/en/pdf/An_Introduction_to_Modes_of_Exchange.pdf

David Ronfeldt, In Search of How Societies Work: Tribes — The First and Forever Form, RAND, WR-433, 2007.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR433.html

David Ronfeldt, “Updated notes about the noosphere and noopolitik: draft of Section I for new paper,” Materials for Two Theories Blog, July 8, 2018.
http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2018/07/updated-notes-about-noosphere-and_99.html

Plus various reviews and summaries of Karatani’s book.


Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Notes for a quadriformist manifesto — #3 cont.: Michel Bauwens on four relational modalities


As elaborated by Michel Bauwens and his colleagues, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) theory is primarily about the rise of information-age peer-to-peer networks and their potential for transforming myriad aspects of society in the decades ahead. Yet it is also a theory of social evolution (past, present, and future). For these purposes, the P2P framework is based on four relational modalities identified by Alan Page Fiske (1992, 2005) which posits that all social relationships reduce to four elementary modes of interaction: Equality Matching, Authority Ranking, Market Pricing, and Communal Shareholding (see image). Fiske meant them as psychological constructs; Bauwens has adapted and elevated them to become sociological constructs that enable an evolutionary analysis.


Elaboration: From an evolutionary perspective, societies have developed their capacities for organization and activity in mostly the above order, according to Bauwens. Centuries ago, early bands and tribes coalesced around reciprocal gift-giving that reflected Equality Matching. Later, states (and the public sector) took shape around Authority Ranking. Then capitalism (and the private sector) emerged, based on Market Pricing. Only now is the fourth mode — Communal Sharing — coming into its own, potentially on a grand scale. This mode, also known as the P2P mode, is central to the P2P vision of the future, whereby a P2P-based commons sector will emerge from civil society, and commons-centric social, economic, and political systems will ultimately transform all of society.

In this historical progression, each modality first emerges in “seed form”; then its “new logic” takes hold and spreads so far and wide that it becomes the “dominant mode”. The older modes continue to play roles, for they too are essential to society — but they are modified by the rise of the new mode. Meanwhile, during phase transitions, “hybrids” appear that combine actors from the older dominant mode of organization with actors representing the emerging mode, in ways that benefit all partners to the hybrid, but that also help subvert the old order and generate the new one.

Accordingly, the market mode has dominated our era, in the form of capitalism. Bauwens and colleagues await a new era when the P2P mode grows strong enough “to supersede capitalism and to embed market structures in a higher ethical superstructure that acknowledges the common good.” During the phase transition, they expect “netarchical capitalists” to combine with P2P commoners to form “innovative alliances between break-away segments from the old system and adaptive segments from the emergent one.”

To my reading, P2P theory and its implications for the future seem mostly about economics, for Bauwens and colleagues have viewed the P2P mode as a “mode of production” that favors “commons-based peer production”. What their vision mostly identifies are implications for business and other enterprises, for sustainable production by “ethical entrepreneurs”, for collective ownership, management, and labor, for the usage of all sorts of natural, cultural, and digital resources, etc., often in Marxist terms. As for what will be the content of the new commons sector, it appears to include virtually any undertaking subjected to “commoning” — making that sector potentially almost boundless (or so I gather).

Bauwens and colleagues expect the P2P form to be the final form in the series. The commons sector will then be at the center of society, with all residual state, market, and other activities taking direction from it. This will spell the triumph of the communal-sharing principles that used to characterize nomadic bands in ancient times, even before tribes coalesced around gift-sharing principles. It will culminate a long, mostly Marxist vision of what society should be like for the good of people.

Comparison to TIMN: P2P theory is more consonant with Karatani’s theory (see next post) than with TIMN, but the parallels between P2P and TIMN are profound. In both, social evolution is a function of four key forms, and P2P’s four correspond pretty well to TIMN’s — but with some disparities. P2P’s hierarchy-ranking and market-pricing modalities match TIMN’s Institutions and Markets forms just fine. But Bauwens aligns Fiske’s Equality Matching modality with TIMN’s Tribes, and his Communal Sharing with TIMN’s Networks form. I regard this as questionable if not partly incorrect — a first disparity. For P2P’s Equality Matching modality is about equal-status peer-group behavior, as seen in reciprocal gift-giving, as well as in feuding and revenge, per Fiske’s definition. That fits with aspects of TIMN’s Tribes form, but that’s not all that kinship tribes are about — they are also characterized by the Communal Sharing modality, which P2P theory reserves mainly for the future (thus correlating it to TIMN’s Networks form). I’m not sure how to rectify this disparity, but it does not invalidate the overall correspondence between our basic approaches to cardinal forms.

A second disparity concerns the historical matter of domination by one mode over another(s). P2P insists that social evolution advances through a progression of dominant modes, finally culminating with the dominance of the pro-commons P2P mode. TIMN recognizes that this may occur, but its design prefers that that no single form dominate as societies advance. The more any single form comes to dominate — be it the tribal, institutional, market, or network form — the more likely is a society’s evolution to become unbalanced and distorted. However, I have deduced from TIMN that monoform (T-only) systems get superseded by biform (T+I) systems, then these by triform (T+I+M) systems, and next by quadriform (T+I+M+N) systems. A kind of domination dynamic is embedded in there, but for now I’m supposing that a comprehensive multi-form approach to analysis will prove more correct. Indeed, TIMN can handle analyzing the widespread persistence of societies where the Tribes form remains so strong, via political clans, gangs, and related cultural dynamics, that it corrupts and constrains the development of proper of Institutions, Markets, and Networks. P2P theory, as far as I know, has said little about this frequent occurrence.

A third disparity concerns the nature of a future commons sector. As discussed above, P2P’s vision is of a largely economic, very expansive commons sector, one that is fundamentally geared to superseding capitalism and dominating the residual state and market sectors. By comparison, TIMN implies a commons sector that will be distinct, bounded, and specialized — as much so as TIMN’s tribal, state, and market sectors are from each other. TIMN’s view is that a +N sector will seek to address and solve problems that the triform system has created but is no longer suited to fixing well. Best I can tell right now, it will be a commons sector (or “social sector”) that assembles a variety of currently-dispersed efforts to find new ways to address and resolve America’s most complex social problems — notably, health, education, welfare, the environment, and related types of insurance. If so, these activities will eventually migrate out of the long-existing +I public and +M private sectors and coalesce into a new +N commons sector, It will operate differently from the other twt sectors, probably as a set of non-profits, cooperatives, trusts, platforms, and other associations committed to serving the common good, separate from but in cooperation with the existing household (T), public (+I), and private (+M) sectors. This new sector will be about the “assurances” (not “entitlements”) that an advanced quadriform society can and should warrant for the wellbeing and progress of its people. This is quite (but not entirely) different from the P2P vision.

There may be an easy explanation for this third disparity — a kind of fourth disparity. P2P and TIMN both suppose that transition phases, from one form or system to the next, will give rise to hybrids. Thus, for TIMN, chiefdoms bridged the transition from tribe-centric to state-centric societies; then, centuries later, mercantilism and statist enterprises bridged the transition to market-centric capitalist systems. P2P’s emphasis on transitional alliances among netarchical capitalists, ethical entrepreneurs, and commoners fits this hybridization dynamic — but then P2P theory seems to extend this hybrid it into the “dominant mode” phase. TIMN expects a similar transitional hybridization, but then, as quadriformism matures, a refinement if not a break as a distinct specialized commons sector takes shape that leaves less space for those transitional hybrids.

I wish my discussion here were not so long-winded. But the parallels between TIMN and P2P run deeper and wider than TIMN’s parallels to Raworth’s and Karatani’s frameworks. P2P thus strikes me as more important to delineate and discuss. Besides, I’ve read many more writings by Bauwens and colleagues than by the other two.

SELECTED SOURCES:

Michel Bauwens, “The new triarchy: the commons, enterprise, the state,” P2P Foundation Blog, August 25, 2010.
https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-new-triarchy-the-commons-enterprise-the-state/2010/08/25

Michel Bauwens & Jose Ramos, “Re-Imagining the Left Through an Ecology of the Commons: Toward A Post-Capitalist Commons Transition,” P2P Foundation Wiki, draft, January 2018.
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Why_We_Need_a_Post-Capitalist_Commons_Transition_Today

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis, Stacco Troncoso, Ann Marie Utratel, Commons Transition and P2P: a primer, The Transnational Institute, 2017.
https://p2pfoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/commons_transition_and_p2p_primer_v9.pdf

Michel Bauwens & Vasilis Kostakis, "A Manifesto for Post-Capitalist Transition: P2P and Human Evolution," Draft, 2016 (forthcoming, much revised, as M. Bauwens, V. Kostakis, & A. Pazaitis, Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto, London, UK: Westminster University Press, 2018).

Alan Paige Fiske, “The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations”, Psychological Review, 1992, Vol. 99, No. 4, pp. 689-723.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/pubs/Fiske_Four_Elementary_Forms_Sociality_1992.pdf

Alan Paige Fiske & Nick Haslam, “The Four Basic Social Bonds: Structures for Coordinating Interaction,” in M. W. Baldwin (ed.), Interpersonal Cognition, Guilford Press, 2005, pp. 267-298.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/RM_PDFs/Fiske_Haslam_Four_Basic_Bonds_2005.pdf

David Ronfeldt, “Updates about missing posts (3rd of 5): “Bauwens’ “partner state” (part 2 of 3) … vis à vis TIMN,” Materials for Two Theories Blog, April 3, 2014.
http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2014/04/updates-about-missing-posts-3rd-of-5.html

David Ronfeldt, “Bauwens’ “partner state” (part 3 of 3) … vis à vis TIMN,” Materials for Two Theories Blog, October 19, 2011.
http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2011/10/bauwens-partner-state-part-3-of-3-vis.html


Saturday, September 1, 2018

Notes for a quadriformist manifesto — #3 cont.: Kate Raworth on four realms of provisioning


In Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017), Kate Raworth lays out her concept of the “embedded economy” and shows that “it is typically made up of four realms of provisioning: the household, the market, the commons and the state” (see image below). All four are important, and she “wouldn’t want to live in a society whose economy lacked any of the four … because each one has distinctive qualities and much of their value arises through their interactions. In other words, they work best when they work together.” (p. 67)


Elaboration: In her view, enterprises will increasingly depend on their ability to connect to all four realms. But of the four, only the state and the market receive full recognition from mainstream economics; the household and the commons remain sorely neglected. So she urges that all four realms be recognized and attended to in ways that develop a better balance among them. This will help achieve the overall goal — to shift from an extractive to a regenerative economy.

The future of the “commons sector” figures prominently in her framework. Much like other pro-commons theorists, she defines commons as shareable resources that are collaboratively managed. And she distinguishes among natural, cultural, and digital commons — the “global knowledge commons” being one of her keen interests. Thus, instead of people continuing to opt just for “market and state solutions alone,” she urges learning to “harness the power of the commons” in order to redistribute wealth and wellbeing more fairly and productively (p. 140). She echoes Peter Barnes, author of Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (2006), and his call for creating a commons sector in which an array of “Commons Trusts” govern access to and usage of natural and other commons resources (p. 170).

Comparison to TIMN: While Raworth’s approach is less sweeping than the others discussed here, it parallels TIMN quite well. Her four economic realms correspond to TIMN’s four sectors. Moreover, she aims for all four to receive equal attention, and for their relations to be kept in balance — a basic TIMN principle — in part by strengthening the weaker two, households and commons. Yet, she is rather conventional about the composition of the commons sector, leaving it unclear as to what exactly it may contain in the future, other than what usually gets listed by commons advocates. Moreover, while she doesn’t offer an explicit evolutionary framework like TIMN and the other two reviewed here, she indicates that a proper recognition and development of all four realms could induce “the social and environmental transformation for which so many of us have been waiting” (Monbiot, 2017).

SELECTED SOURCES:

Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017).
https://www.amazon.com/Doughnut-Economics-Seven-21st-Century-Economist/dp/1603586741/

Lauren Mobertz, “Interview: ‘Renegade’ Economist Kate Raworth on Future-Proofing Business,” Conscious Company Media, July 18, 2017.
https://consciouscompanymedia.com/the-new-economy/interview-renegade-economist-kate-raworth-future-proofing-business/

George Monbiot, “Don’t let the rich get even richer on the assets we all share,” The Guardian, September 27, 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/27/rich-assets-resources-prosperity-commons-george-monbiot