[wordup] Agalmics: The Marginalization of Scarcity

[Adam Shand]

A little dry but fascinating ...

Adam.

From: http://www.openverse.com/~dtinker/agalmics.html

Also: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9904/ 
msg00042.html

The Marginalization of Scarcity

by Robert Levin

Thanks to all who have commented thus far. The comments from working  
economists and sociologists were of particular interest, and I can  
see that they are going to produce some changes in the essay. In  
particular, gentle reader, realize as you read that I do not consider  
agalmias to be gift cultures per se; traditional gift cultures are  
largely pre-industrial, and based as much on scarcity as any modern  
technological state.

Also, when you read my games-theory comments, don't infer that I  
believe economies are zero-sum games. While one or both "legs" of an  
economic transaction can most conveniently be expressed as a zero-sum  
game, that does not extend to economies as a whole, nor even  
necessarily to a single complete economic transaction. I'll plan to  
discuss these points in more detail in follow-ons to this essay.

Finally, frequent comments have led me to conclude that an important  
element is missing from the definition of agalmics. Agalmic goods are  
non-scarce goods, but they are often produced using scarce goods as  
raw materials. An important example is the initial programming work  
which goes into a free software application. At the current state of  
the human lifespan, programmer time must be regarded as a scarce  
good. I've added the words "production and" to the definition, and I  
hope you'll find this to be a clear and necessary improvement. We are  
now at version 3.0 of the essay.

Introduction

The recent growth of interest in Linux and "open source" or "free"  
software raises questions about the nature of the "gift culture" of  
the Internet. Why do people give away information? What do they hope  
to gain? How can the Internet continue to work, in a world in which  
politics based on shared ownership has serious, demonstrated problems?

The cooperative spirit of the Internet is not a historical fluke. If  
human beings allowed their aggressive, suspicious sides to dominate,  
we'd live in a world in which people took things by force instead of  
buying them. And how would anyone trust the printed word? How could  
education occur in the absence of cooperation? All over the world,  
students listen and educators teach. In a largely unrestricted market  
of record size, individuals freely trade goods and services for other  
goods and services of their choice. Ownership of private property  
remains largely undisputed by men with guns. We live in the  
cooperative state known as civilization.

Not every human activity is cooperative. Wars still occur. And the  
existence of laws implies that people do disagree about when  
cooperation is a good thing. But it's clear that voluntary  
interaction serves important human needs. The most successful  
economic systems on the planet are based on voluntary interaction.  
Variants of the "free enterprise" model have produced wealth and  
plenty on a vast scale. Political systems based on involuntary  
interaction, such of those of the Soviet Union and various Third  
World nations, have not been nearly so successful at meeting the  
needs and desires of their citizens as have systems which emphasize  
freedom.

But will technology change the way human beings interact over the  
coming decades? What trends do we need to understand in order to see  
where things are going? One clear trend in a technological society is  
the marginalization of scarcity. As time goes on, the technology of  
agriculture and manufacture teaches us how to produce goods with more  
efficiency, at less cost. The trend in technology is an exponential  
improvement of knowledge and capabilities. Make anything cheap  
enough, and it will no longer be scarce enough to be considered an  
economic good.

Contrary trends operate in the marketplace. Intellectual property, a  
system of law in which access to inventions and creative output is  
limited in order to reward their creators, has a powerful  
conservative influence on the market, slowing the adoption of new  
ideas and inventions. Patent law rewards inventors for coming up with  
useful technology; but the reward often comes in the form of purchase  
of the right to control who may use that technology. Large  
corporations, with large legal and accounting staffs and access to  
capital, have an extraordinary advantage in accumulating exclusive  
rights to new technologies. The nature of such organizations is to  
hold onto these assets tightly and release them slowly, so that the  
most efficient return on investment can be achieved.

But technological change continues to occur, in part because  
competing organizations often need the competitive advantage which  
new technology can provide. So we can be certain that, over time,  
more and more basic goods will become less and less scarce. With  
these changes, it becomes increasingly important to understand how  
human beings allocate non-scarce goods. Indeed, a sort of "economics"  
of non-scarcity becomes an important study. But economics is the  
study of the allocation of scarce goods. We need a new paradigm, and  
a new field of study. What we need is agalmics.

Definitions

agalmics (uh-GAL-miks), n. [Gr. "agalma", "a pleasing gift"]
   The study and practice of the production and allocation of non- 
scarce goods.

agalmic actor, n.
   An individual or organization engaged in agalmic activity.

agalmic software, n.
   Computer software written and distributed as an agalmic activity.

agalmia, n.
   The sum of the agalmic activity in a particular region or sphere.  
Analogous to an "economy" in economic theory.
Characteristics

To understand human behavior, we must find clear examples to study.  
Agalmic behavior involves the exchange of non-scarce goods, goods  
which can be found in the modern free software community. As we  
examine agalmic behavior, we'll frequently use examples involving  
free software. We can observe the following characteristics of  
agalmic activity:

It is transfinite. Economic trade is finite; when I give you a dollar  
I have one less than I did. Agalmic activity involves goods which are  
not scarce, so I can give you one without appreciably diminishing my  
supply.

It is cooperative. Economic activity often involves competition.  
Buyers must allocate their limited funds to the supplier who best  
meets their needs. Since it doesn't involve scarce resources, agalmic  
activity rarely involves competition. Efficient agalmic actors know  
how to encourage cooperation and benefit from the results.

It is self-interested. Agalmic activity advances personal goals,  
which may be charitable or profit-oriented, individual or  
organizational. An agalmia typically contains both individuals and  
organizations, with a broad mix of charitable and profit-oriented  
goals. Agalmic profit is measured in such things as knowledge,  
satisfaction, recognition and often in indirect economic benefit.

It is self-stimulating. Examples can be seen in free software  
communities, in which new programmers, documenters and debuggers come  
from the ranks of free software users.

It is self-directing. Free software users provide feedback to  
developers in the form of bug reports, patches and requests for new  
features. Software projects can be forked by users when an existing  
developer group is not responsive to their needs. Maintainers are  
then free to adopt the new work or go their own way.

It is decentralized and non-authoritarian. In a free software  
community, developer groups maintain their positions only as long as  
they are responsive to their user bases. No one is forced to  
participate in a project, and the projects people participate in are  
the ones in which they are interested. Involuntary activity places  
limits on exchange and creates scarcities. As such, it is non- 
agalmic. A particular agalmic group may be organized in a top-down  
fashion, and non-agalmic groups may act agalmicly. But alternatives  
are available and participation is voluntary. Authoritarian systems  
remove personal incentives for agalmic behavior.

It is positive-sum. In games theory, a 'zero-sum game' is one in  
which one player's gain is another player's loss. Conventional  
economics often describes zero-sum games. When two suppliers compete  
for the dollars of a single customer, or when two government agencies  
compete with each other for fixed budget dollars, a zero sum game is  
played. A 'positive-sum game' is one in which players can gain by  
behavior which enhances the gains of others. Efficient agalmics is a  
positive-sum game. For example, when a free software programmer gives  
his source code away, he gains a large population of users to report  
bugs; the users gain the use of his programs. By awarding the other  
players points, the player gains points.

It is not new. Gift cultures have existed during much of human  
history, and other, non-gift cultures have clear agalmic influences.  
Religious communities have engaged in agalmic behavior, as have  
governments, businesses and individuals. Charities, standards  
organizations and trade associations often act agalmicly. It may be  
argued convincingly that civilization itself is an agalmic activity.
Conclusions

The behavior of agalmias gives us useful information about the ways  
that societies can change and grow. Open source and free software  
communities provide us with excellent modern day agalmias for study,  
as does the Internet itself. But long term trends in technology  
suggest that material scarcity will likely become less common, and  
agalmic behavior more common. In studying the behavior of agalmias we  
can see intimations of our technological future.

Robert Levin
Woodland Hills, California, US
4 April 1999

Email: levin at openprojects.net

Online: lilo at Open Projects Net IRC

v3.0-Mon Apr 5 05:10:50 UTC 1999