PART I.
A. Emerging cyberspace capital
Just as human
capital or intellectual capital are created by building the
individual's capacity to act, it is well known that one level up
the chain of power social
capital is created when the patterns of relations between
people and institutions change in ways that facilitate actions,
by creating stocks of social trust, norms and networks that
people can draw upon to solve common problems. Human capital and
social capital have been depicted during the past decade as the
leading edge of the governing resources in the world, moving
ahead of the traditional dominance of finance capital, first by
American sociologist James S. Coleman in, Foundations of
Social Theory (1990), then by management guru Peter F.
Drucker in, Post-Capitalist Society (1993).
The relationship between human or intellectual capital and
social capital is illustrated in Figure 1.
(R) (R)
[A] ========== > [B] ========== > [C]
Figure 1. Graphic relations of persons [A, B, and C]:
human capital in nodes, social capital in relations (R).
These forms of intangible capital challenge the priorities of laissez faire capitalism guided by "free market" theory, which calls for an economic order without responsibility for the human spirit, social ethics, and ecological integrity. By the end of the 20th-century established power systems were voicing a willingness, however unrealized, to turn away from laissez faire policies and, instead, act now to realize the "New Dreams and Promises" of the global leadership institutions undertaken in cooperation with the United Nations to:
This great struggle has been moving back and forth between extremes during the last two-centuries. At the end of the 18th- century, democracy was introduced into the new world, overturning political control by the English Monarch and Church of England. At the end of the 19th-century, the antitrust laws turned back the greed and plunder of the Robber Baron trusts. Now at the beginning of the 21st-century discredited laissez faire capitalism, which has taken up the power vacuum left by the Church and Monarch during the last two-centuries, is at a turning point once again, emerging out of the ferment and collective actions of the civil sector, and from incommensurable paradigms, which are the outcomes of contemporary capitalism itself.
For example, a revolutionary
new dimension of media, "many-to-many," is embraced by
networked communications of the 21st-century. In his essay
addressing that topic media pundit Vin Crosbie observed that
"many-to-many" communications, "threaten the current media
aristocracies and status quo in much the ways that the advent of
democracy did to the aristocracies of two centuries ago."
This is the setting for the birth of potentially spectacular
resources of cyberspace capital, which is created when the
patterns of relations between individuals and organizations in
virtual space and time change to facilitate collective actions.
Cyberspace capital is fueled by global applications of
human striving limited only by collective interests across
virtual reality unbounded by time and place. Cyberspace
capital together with intellectual capital and social capital
can be expected to wreck havoc with the old instrumental guidance
systems, producing a transformation of global capital, of a new
kind, which is already breaking free of ideology in virtual
reality.
What humanity has learned during these last two-centuries, is that representation -- whether by King, Priest, Party Captain, Corporate Manager, Civic Activist, Professional Planner, or President -- is not the main fact of political life. The main concern of politics is modes of association, as first articulated by the early 20th-century philosopher and one of the first management scientists, Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), who is now celebrated as the "Prophet of Management." For "many-to-many" communications to succeed, and to create cyberspace capital, one must adopt the values of mutual trust and cooperation, which are derived from voluntary democratic actions serving the "will of the whole". Follett put these ideas together, in the following words:
Representation is not the main fact of political life; the main concern of politics is modes of association. We do not want the rule of the many or the few; we must find that method of political procedure by which majority and minority ideas may be so closely interwoven that we are truly ruled by the will of the whole. We shall have democracy only when we learn to produce this will through group association -- when young men (sic) are no longer lectured to on democracy, but when they are made into the stuff of democracy. (accent in original)
B. Building a technique of democracy
In the practical terms of building up organizational
resources for use in everyday life, many people recognize that
the knowledge of employees and their harmonious relations or
modes of association both internally and interorganizationally
are critical assets of their organization, but "fewer people know
how to translate these intangible assets into tangible, measurable
results." Obtaining such harmonious relations in a complex
technological civilization does not normally occur culturally or
by any traditional civil structures but we have seen that
successful integration of collective thought and action even in
complex situations can arise from the powerful striving spirit of
human beings, and most important, by applications of special
sciences, techniques, and training.
The early 20th-century American philosopher and polymath,
Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), reviewed in V.G. Potter,
On Norms & Ideals 22-23 (1997), described one of the
theoretical sciences of discovery as "idioscopy." This deals with
special sciences that depend upon special observation "which
travel or other exploration, or some assistance to the senses,
either instrumental or training, together with unusual diligence,
has put within its students." Follett also admonished that beyond
mere political rhetoric a "technique
of democracy" was essential to advance the ideals of
democracy.
The science of "idioscopy" and a "technique of democracy," as first anticipated by the genius of Charles S. Peirce and Mary Parker Follett, were advanced in practical forms during the last 2 decades of the 20th-century, by the leadership and creative efforts of (among others) Bela H. Banathy, John N. Warfield, and Alexander N. Christakis. This includes development of 3 bodies of scientific knowledge, and application of 3 key systems design methodologies:
The principle goals of this scientific knowledge and
professional experience is to competently manage the four stages
of group decision making in order to maximize the creative
abilities of the participants, as a whole, and their collective
achievement. This four stage process, as Christakis observes in
his paper on "People
Science" includes:
Stage 1: Defining the design situation or "What should
we do?"
Stage 2: Designing alternatives or "How can we
implement the intent of the design?"
Stage 3: Choosing the preferred alternative or "Which
alternative is the best for implementation and Why?"
Stage 4: Planning for action or "When will we do what
we can do?"
Contrasting with the scientific and technological strategies
that can successfully guide group action face-to-face, networked
communications are now developing along a fuzzy business learning
network track. Empirical support to facilitate action in
networked communications is being constructed upon the success
story of civic community building in the Italian Emilia-Romagna
region, population 4 million, utilizing flexible business
networks derived from an ancient 12th-century culture, as
reported by Jessica Lipnack & Jeffrey Stamps, Virtual
Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology
73-75 (2d ed. 2000). Lipnack and Stamps rely upon the seminal
work of Harvard professor of government Robert D. Putnam, who
examined the large scale implications of the Italian situation
for social science in, Making Democracy Work: Civic
Traditions in Modern Italy (1993). That experience was
successfully replicated during the 1980s in Denmark, a country,
population 5 million, about the size of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and is now being expanded into networked
communications.
However, it is unclear whether the Italian experience
reported by Putnam, in 1993, in which strong social capital leads
to strengthened democratic governance and economic prosperity,
will play out in a situation marked by
"the strange disappearance of social capital and civic engagement
in America," which Putnam brought to public attention in
1995. The observation that is most telling is that "Where norms
and networks of civic engagement are lacking, the outlook for
collective action appears bleak." [Putnam (1993), infra at
183].
Ironically, one can logically achieve progress in networked
communications, the present field of capitalist domination, only
by turning away from the command structures of laissez
faire capitalism, which are governed by greed and the pursuit
of wealth and power to serve the few. Modes of association that
are ruled by "the will of the whole," as anticipated by MP
Follett, is the new law of cyberspace capital.
Continued with PART II