conditions of possibility: introduction

Conditions of Possibility is a term introduced to open-org here. It highlights the notion of type of condition which is a neccesary prerequisite for something.

In political projects, especially those who dare to challenge, dream, and propose implementations, it is likely that some of such conditions will not appear to be possible today. I argue that open-org is such political project; and that since what appears impossible today, might be perfectly feasible tomorrow, we need a strategy to deal with such issues. So that we can continue working on practical and theoretical gains that we can acquire today, regardless of one, or some, of open-orgs neccesary prerequisites (conditions of possibility) not being immediately possible. Ben's valid addition to this is that we also need to develop ways to determine plausibility of such conditions.

possible steps to developing a strategy

After some discussion, below are proposed steps to develop strategy to deal with such conditions.

1) strive to identify conditions in which open-orgs will be possible

2) initially agree on, and then develop further, rough methodology to determine, as much as possible, plausibility of such condition i.e can we see enough arguments to place our belief into condition being fullfiled

3a) if we identify 1 for which we can have no reason to believe can be achieved via 2 (we conclude that it isn't plausible), we ought to change something about in open-org, to remove the dependency on such condition

3b) when an issue has been identified as an Open-Org condition of possibility, and when it has been agreed on as being plausible, but out of scope of the open-org project itself - we seek to collaborate with others whose work, from the similar value system, is focused on such issue, all with the goal of fulfilling the condition and thus creating the possibly for organizations with open-org processes and functional rules

one sentence summary of our task on this issue

I summarized the above into:

    a fine balancing act of INSISTING ON WHAT today APPEARS IMPOSSIBLE,
    WHILE PRAGMATICALLY DOING (and expanding) WHAT IS today POSSIBLE -
    all along with an ongoing investigation, and awareness,
    of Conditions of Possibility and their PLAUSIBILITY.

Relationship to Land as first such condition?

First such issue, for which we suspect is a condition of possibility, is relationship to Land.

It seems to me that, due to power ultimately lying in the hands of those who own the land on which we live, without collective (and here by collective i mean - as in cities, regions, states, or whatever forms supersede current ones) management of the Land, (possibly with no ownership at all) open-org's will not be possible. Their implementation will be partial, since when land ownership is highly concentrated, like it is today, most people are deprived of power to decide how to live. At best, people without land can successfully rent their labour, accumulate capital and buy some land back. Still, the only change that happens in that case is that they regain the position of power from previous land owner. Society at large does not benefit since overall self-determination and equality do not increase. Individual power (as power over others) changes hands, that's all. That is why ownership of the land is useless concept for societies which strive to equality through self-determination.

What remains to be clarified and expanded here is the link between land ownership and power over others. There has been a lot of talk about the rise of intellectual capital and change of the form in which wealth, power over (opposite of equality through self-determination), and their exploitatory ability lie. Although i can see that there's a lot of truth in it, in terms of new implementations of capital reproduction and accumulation, it is fundamentally misleading.

Crucial question, to determine validity of this Land proposition is: would power over, and exploitation, continue if the land wasn't owned, but just managed by the society at large, by the people organized with, and for, set of processes and rules aimed to equality through self-determination? In it's core, it is a matter of power_over and exploitation on one side, and equality through self-determination on another. The question we should try to answer it whether former can still prevail without owning, or controlling, the Land. I think not.

More on it on the openorg-dev list.

-- ToniPrug - 17 Jul 2004

Further discussion topics

Toni: strive to identify conditions in which open-orgs will be possible
Ben: This seems to assume that they aren't possible now. Why?
Toni: They are only partially possible. Whether that is good enough or not, i'm not sure. Limiting factors will be analyzed further.

Language

"a fine balancing act of INSISTING ON WHAT today APPEARS IMPOSSIBLE, WHILE PRAGMATICALLY DOING (and expanding) WHAT IS today POSSIBLE - all along with an ongoing investigation, and awareness, of Conditions of Possibility and their PLAUSIBILITY."

It's really not clear to me what this means. I think it might mean:

"Implementing our principles as much as possible now, while investigating plausible social changes that would allow more of our principles to be implemented, and working to bring about those changes."

Ben: Is that an accurate paraphrase?
Toni: Not accurate enough.
See ConditionsOfPossibilityLanguage for futher discussion.

Land

Toni: due to power ultimately lying in the hands of those who own the land on which we live, without collective (and here by collective i mean - as in cities, regions, states, or whatever forms supersede current ones) management of the Land, (possibly with no ownership at all) open-org's will not be possible

Ben: Why not? I agree that it would be a good thing for land ownership to change, and would enable all sorts of good things to happen, but I don't see why it's a prerequisite for open-orgs per se, especially since everything we propose comes from existing practices.

See ConditionsOfPossibilityLand^? for futher discussion.

-- BenjaminGeer - 18 Jul 2004

summary of prerequisites - ben's summary of prerequisites for open orgs

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