Kojin Karatani and the Commons: Why Relational Grammars Matter So Much
Presenting a vibrant conversation with O.G. Rose / Daniel Garner
I had a , in my opinion, extremely dynamic conversation with Daniel Garner, on the O.G. Rose Youtube channel,about the importance of the work of Kojin Karatani to understand the commons and the prospects of a commons-centric society and civilization. I hope you will watch it, and the video is linked below.
Bear with me as I explain some of the context, i.e. why having a concept of a grammar of relationships is important to understand the world we live in.
In the late 1990’s, before we started the P2P Foundation as an observatory of all things ‘commons’ and ‘peer to peer’, we had noticed a new relational form emerging in the world, related to new capabilities unleashed by digital networks: the peer to peer form. This meant essentially that people could, relatively independently of their geographic location, associate in real time with others, located in other parts of the world, and collectively work on the common construction of something they jointly believed in.
The second aspect we could see is that these peer to peer networks of voluntary contributors, also found it congenial and necessary to create a new type of commons, i.e. shared and collectively managed resources, related to the knowledge and rules of cooperation they needed to have in common. Since these people coalesced outside of a direct wage relationship or hierarchical dependency, they had to invent new practices, i.e. forms of peer governance, and forms of peer property, so that they could engage in this new practice of ‘commons-based peer production’.
But the problem arose of contrasting this emerging new social logic, with what it was complementing or eventually displacing.
It is in that context that I discovered Alan Page Fiske and his ‘relational grammar’, in a thick book, ‘Structures of Social Life’. Fiske maintains that at all times and in all regions, four different relational logics can be chosen, each with their own conception of value, and how to exchange it.
Recognizing in what value regime you are operating.
Fiske recognized four such value regimes.
Let’s hear how he explains it. It is slightly technical but I recommend reading this short excerpt:
“"People use just four fundamental models for organizing most aspects of sociality most of the time in all cultures. These models are:
Communal Sharing
Authority Ranking
Equality Matching
Market Pricing
Communal Sharing (CS) is a relationship in which people treat some dyad or group as equivalent and undifferentiated with respect to the social domain in question. Examples are people using a commons (CS with respect to utilization of the particular resource), people intensely in love (CS with respect to their social selves), people who "ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee" (CS with respect to shared suffering and common well-being), or people who kill any member of an enemy group indiscriminately in retaliation for an attack (CS with respect to collective responsibility).
In Authority Ranking (AR) people have asymmetric positions in a linear hierarchy in which subordinates defer, respect, and (perhaps) obey, while superiors take precedence and take pastoral responsibility for subordinates.
Examples are:
military hierarchies (AR in decisions, control, and many other matters)
ancestor worship (AR in offerings of filial piety and expectations of protection and enforcement of norms)
monotheistic religious moralities (AR for the definition of right and wrong by commandments or will of God)
social status systems such as class or ethnic rankings (AR with respect to social value of identities), and rankings such as sports team standings (AR with respect to prestige).
AR relationships are based on perceptions of legitimate asymmetries, not coercive power; they are not inherently exploitative (although they may involve power or cause harm).
In Equality Matching (EM) relationships people keep track of the balance or difference among participants and know what would be required to restore balance. Common manifestations are:
turn-taking
one-person one-vote elections
equal share distributions
and vengeance based on an-eye-for-an-eye, a-tooth-for-a-tooth
Examples include:
sports and games (EM with respect to the rules, procedures, equipment and terrain)
baby-sitting co-ops (EM with respect to the exchange of child care)
and restitution in-kind (EM with respect to righting a wrong).
Market Pricing relationships are oriented to socially meaningful ratios or rates such as prices, wages, interest, rents, tithes, or cost-benefit analyses. Money need not be the medium, and Market Pricing relationships need not be selfish, competitive, maximizing, or materialistic -- any of the four models may exhibit any of these features. Market Pricing relationships are not necessarily individualistic; a family may be the CS or AR unit running a business that operates in an MP mode with respect to other enterprises.
Examples are:
property that can be bought, sold, or treated as investment capital (land or objects as MP)
marriages organized contractually or implicitly in terms of costs and benefits to the partners
prostitution (sex as MP)
bureaucratic cost-effectiveness standards (resource allocation as MP)
utilitarian judgments about the greatest good for the greatest number, or standards of equity in judging entitlements in proportion to contributions (two forms of morality as MP)
considerations of "spending time" efficiently, and estimates of expected kill ratios (aggression as MP)."
You will see that once you get the hang of it, it really helps to understand in what kind of exchange you are engaging. We repeat, they exist everywhere and at all times, but in different relationships of dominance. I.e. there are societies and situations where the dominance of one ‘mode of exchange’ dominates.
But let me translate it in my own words.
Generally speaking, when you engage in your family, you do not trade or engage in commerce, you share with the whole unity that is your family; you do not expect your children to pay you. In fact, you may feel that the giving is the receiving. Here, you are engaging in commoning, though at the small scale of a family.
But you also have an extended family and friends, with whom you may share some festivities. In this context, you are giving Christmas presents, but you also somehow expect to get a gift in return. Here you engage in the gift economy.
Then you go to work, and your labor contract indicates that you have a boss with authority over your duties at work. This is authority ranking or hierarchy.
Your company is engaged on a market, selling goods or services for a price, this is of course, ‘market pricing’.
Kojin Karatani’s breakthrough, in his work Structures of World History, is to have historicized them. At different periods of history, some modalities clearly dominate the others, and forces them to adapt somehow to its own logic.
To understand Karatani, it is important to realize his naming convention, which slightly complicates things:
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.
Notice two things:
Karatani does not clearly distinguish between Communal Shareholding and Equality Matching, i.e. the Gift Economy.
So I differ with him, I believe Communal Shareholding is dominant in smaller hunter-gathering bands, but that once humanity starts practicing sedentary agriculture, the gift economy becomes the way to maintain peace and create mutual obligations. Once you are no longer a nomad, but not yet subjected to the dominance inherent in a civilizational context, sharing is replaced by formalized gift giving, which creates social obligations.
One conquest sets in, this generates tributary and feudal regimes, i.e. an exchange between the rulers and the ruled; those that guarantee peace and protection get a higher rank in the distribution of value. You owe them for your protection.
And the safety of the state-based regimes then create the conditions for vibrant markets, which eventually become dominant themselves.
This then brings us to Mode D, the return of Mode A, but as an integration of all the intervening modes. If you are familiar with our work, then you know that this is the position that we take in the P2P Foundation. In other words, we believe we are moving to a commons-centric world and political economy, which is indeed also an integration of previous modes of exchange.
So just to rephrase Karatani in my own words and understanding:
As a hunter-gathering, I share with my family, or band, I am engaged in commoning. In a sedentary village federation or larger tribe, I am engaged in various acts of giving and receiving, which creates mutual obligations. Once I am subjected to an authority in a class-based society, in return for the peace of a civilization, I have obligations to that authority, but that authority also has obligations to me, but in an unequal relationship, in which each of us receives according to our recognized social status. We also may live in a commercial society, in which our rank is now determined by our possessions and our skills in business.
This is what we talk about in this wonderful and vibrant conversation, with O.G. Rose, and we examine how illuminating Karatani’s work is in that context.
Here is the video:
Very good, Michel. It is great to see Karatani's thought so well explained!
I do have one clarification. I think Karatani does clearly distinguish between Communal Shareholding and the Gift Economy. He just doesn't consider the communal shareholding - what he calls "the pure gift" to be a mode of exchange.
Here is an excerpt from his book Isonomia, from the chapter summarizing modes of exchange:
"It has generally been accepted since Marcel Mauss that mode of exchange A (gift reciprocity) was the principle that governed archaic societies. However, it was not likely that anything like this principle existed in the earliest nomadic hunter-gatherer bands. Because their mobile lifestyle made the accumulation of goods impossible, things had to be pooled in common and distributed equally. This was a pure gift and not a return enforced by the reciprocal principle of gift exchange. As a result, the power of the group to enforce behavior in the individual was weak and conjugal relations fluid and impermanent. Consequently, each member of the group was free, at the same time they were equal."
(p. 138, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy).
Outstanding piece, my friend, and the conversation was a joy and honor to participate in. Looking forward to more!