{"id":12534,"date":"2013-07-08T10:55:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T10:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/?p=12534"},"modified":"2018-07-10T11:54:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T09:54:43","slug":"yochai-benkler-freedom-power-practical-anarchism-and-an-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/en\/yochai-benkler-freedom-power-practical-anarchism-and-an-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Yochai Benkler \u2013 Freedom, Power, Practical Anarchism. And an Interview."},"content":{"rendered":"

Yochai Benkler was the speaker of the WZB Berlin Colloquium<\/a>\u00a0“Rethinking Law in a Global Context: Private Ordering and Public Authority” on 11 June 2013. Professor Benkler discussed his recent paper \u201cPractical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Based on several examples of working anarchies in the networked environment Benkler argued that peer mutualism works in certain contexts. Even though it is not perfect, it provides people with a new degree of freedom.<\/p>\n

As individuals inhabiting a world of interlocked imperfect systems, we are susceptible to power shaping our perceptions, preferences, policies and principles as well as our actions, outcomes and configurations. Peer mutualism offers us a new way to bob and weave between those systems.<\/p>\n

The core questions are how much of what people care about can be done in non-market, non-proprietary, non-governmental models? Do peer mutualism models offer enough of a solution space? And how corruptible are these nonhierarchical and noncoercive models?<\/p>\n

I had the chance to interview Yochai Benkler after the Colloquium. I asked him about current developments centered on issues related to internet and society, what conditions are needed for commons-based peer production to flourish, how the discussion of selfishness versus human capabilities to cooperate translate into the realm of science and whether openness in science provides us with a new degree of freedom.<\/p>\n

You can watch the interview below or listen to the audio version (mp3)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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