Schlagwort: public goods

liquid autonomy

I’d like to present, dis­cuss, test the idea of ‘liq­uid auton­o­my’. That is to say a con­cept for self-gov­ern­ment of pub­lic goods and infra­struc­ture in the dig­i­tal age.

The coined term of course affil­i­ates and same time dis­tin­guish­es ‘liq­uid auton­o­my’ to the con­cepts of liq­uid feed­back and liq­uid democ­ra­cy. It’s about some­thing else and about more. It’s about autonomous self-gov­ern­ment of stuff that is impor­tant to all of us, pub­lic media, uni­ver­si­ties, health insur­ances, tele­com providers, pub­lic trans­port, the social insur­ance sys­tem, parts of munic­i­pal admin­is­tra­tion like urban devel­op­ment or waste man­age­ment, schools, the­aters, muse­ums, pow­er sup­ply and so on.

The thought is basi­cal­ly that all users have equal rights to par­take in the admin­is­tra­tion of pub­lic goods and infra­struc­ture and the idea is that they all have to have equal access to the means of self-gov­ern­ment too.

The mod­el of ‘liq­uid auton­o­my’ as it stands now dis­tin­guish­es four dimen­sions or facets of liq­uid self-gov­ern­ment:
(1) gen­er­al debate of all issues brought up,
(2) mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol­ling of the whole orga­ni­za­tion,
(3) ongo­ing deci­sion-mak­ing as well as
(4) elec­tion and appoint­ment of new mem­bers of the man­age­ment.

We all as own­ers of pub­lic goods, users of pub­lic infra­struc­ture in this mod­el form asso­ci­a­tions of par­tak­ers that gov­ern admin­is­tra­tion units. In a com­plex sys­tem of checks’n’balances we col­lec­tive­ly appoint, entrust and autho­rize, we over­see, ques­tion and strip-off. We dis­cuss, come up with ideas, task our admin­is­tra­tion units, decide on elab­o­rat­ed plans, scan eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. We have access to dis­cus­sions, data, reports, mem­bers of the admin­is­tra­tion units and our fel­low par­tak­ers. We have respon­si­bil­i­ties, pos­si­bil­i­ties to par­take in the ongo­ing self-gov­ern­ment as well as pos­si­bil­i­ties to del­e­gate.

So that’s what I would like to lay out and dis­cuss. And fur­ther­more, if pos­si­ble, it’d be great to use the work­shop to col­lec­tive­ly improve the mod­el, maybe bring the ‘liq­uid autonomy’-concept to a degree where it’s worth spread­ing around, where it can ignite debate, become a pop­u­lar polit­i­cal demand.