Platform Socialism and Web3
For this episode I spoke to James Muldoon (@james_muldoon_), a researcher at Autonomy in the UK, senior lecturer at University of Exeter, and author of the book Platform Socialism , coming out with Pluto Press on January 20th. You may have seen that I also reviewed Platform Socialism on my site so check that out as well if you want to know more about my thoughts and why I recommend it for those interested in DAOs. During the interview we cover the history of how Big Tech platforms have...
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Hello, everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast, and I have a really exciting guest. You guys may have heard about him because I recently published a review a book review, about the book, that he recently published. His name is James Muldoon. He's a researcher at Autonomy in The UK, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, and the author of Platform Socialism, which is out with Pluto Press. So hey, James. How are you doing? Yeah. Good. Thanks for having me on the show. Of course. Yeah. Before I started reading the book, when I reached out to you on Twitter, I was like super excited. I knew I had to read this book because I felt like, I mean, the concept of Platform Socialism itself sounded something that would really be interesting to me and the projects that I'm interested in. And reading the actual book itself, I was excited throughout the entire time. I was like, wow, wow, wow. Every time I was reading, like, the next chapter in the next paragraph. But maybe to start off, I think it would be really interesting to know from your perspective, what made you want to write a book like Platform Socialism? What do you think that the left has been sort of missing when it comes to the digital platform field?
Well, thanks for the praise. Always good to hear that people enjoy reading the book, and it's not just all marketing spin. So the book is about how we how we can create fairer alternatives to today's digital platform. So it's trying to answer the question, what would a more just, a more ethical social media network look like? What would a a better search engine look like? And how would these kinds of systems be organized? And I wrote the book because I wanted to offer a perspective of someone essentially outside the tech world looking in. So I wanted to start from the politics rather than the technology because I noticed that a lot of the the more critical perspectives on the tech sector that were starting to get, you know, mainstream attention, you know, following the tech lash and stuff, you know, tech insider turned critics like Tristan Harris and and more recently, Frances Haugen. You know, these people who who were kind of offering the dominant criticisms of of the tech world, were were people whose entire worldview, whose entire ideology, was shaped by the industry. And I think that really came across in the kinds of solutions that they were offering, in the way that they were framing the problem. And in many cases, I think that the kind of criticism and and and the, you know, solutions were basically just continuing the same logic, of platform capitalism.
Do you have any examples of, what maybe, like, some of these whistleblowers, like, proposed?
Yeah. So I think you could probably, like, to get more into this, I think you could probably, divide the kinds of criticisms that were being offered into a a a couple of main different perspectives. I think the most popular one is what I would call a tech humanist critique, and this is what you would have seen on that Netflix show, The Social Dilemma. I think this is kind of Tristan Harris' position, you know, the Jaren Lania, the the one of the cofounders of virtual reality. It's this idea that the problem is that there are these unethical uses of technology. Right? That that technology is is subverting our our psychology, that we're being manipulated, that we're like nothing more than automatons or lab rats, and that social media is kind of controlling us. So I think that's why this humanist element really comes to the fore. I think what this misses, because really the the proposal is basically like a very individualized, account. It's basic like, you should just stop using social media. You know, I think the the title of Jared Melania's book is like 10 reasons why you should, you know, turn off your social media accounts. And it's all about the businesses basically doing better, you know, that that the CEO should be more ethical. It's all about it's framed as, like, an issue of consumer choice. And I think what this misses is is the kind of structural incentives that the companies have to develop products in a particular way. And and what gets left out of these discussions is the the broader political economy of the sector and the fact that, look, these products are being created because they're profit driven companies, that they're incentivized to maximize growth and engagement, above all other considerations because, essentially, that that's them doing their job. So it's not really an issue of of kind of ethical CEOs, you know, needing to do better or or Tristan Harris becoming the the head of this new think tank. I don't think that's really gonna solve the problem. So that's like the tech humanist criticism. I think the other big dominant one, which is less about popular culture and more about the kind of governmental sphere about how to regulate big tech, is this anti monopoly agenda. You know? And the the real aim here is is about how to restore competition to the tech sector. You know? This slogan that, Elizabeth Warren had about breaking up big tech. So I think that's it's partly about, like, a kind of antitrust thing, so about preventing mergers and acquisitions, but it's also just about how do you regulate the tech sector. Right? Because I think and and so I think one of the problems with this kind of anti monopoly agenda is that even if you were to break up these big conglomerates, right, even if you were to separate Facebook, from some of its smaller companies, the smaller companies would still be forced to operate by these structural incentives in a very similar manner, due to the competition that that that would exist between the firms. And and so I think the anti monopoly agenda tends to frame the the the problem around questions of competition, about creating fairer markets. But, again, much like kind of, Shoshana Zuboff's ideas, in the surveillance capitalism book, a a lot of this the solutions are framed around strengthening markets, you know, creating better consumer rights, but this really risks further entrenching the marketization of these online spaces. And I think, you know, you can you know, some people do believe in a kind of more gentler, softer form of capitalism, but I think for those of us on the left, you really have to be trying to look more at non market based solutions about ways in which digital tools and their services can be organized, as part of digital commons, as part of public goods that are kind of offered, free at the point of use, and and digital services that that are kind of there to benefit everyone, not not to create a new kind of breed of winners and losers. So I think they're the two kind of dominant approaches that I see.
And the the first one really reminded me of, like, I guess, the way that, a very liberal Democrats may approach politics as well as if we just need to elect, like, the nicest person into office. Or if we just have, like, a nicer CEO, nicer people at the top, then the problem will be fixed. That if, I don't know. If if all the CEOs just sort of, and and politicians just sort of, like, smoked a joint with one another and then, like, you know, became friends, then all of a sudden the problem would be fixed. But I think if you're looking at this from, say, more structural perspective, if you're looking at the incentive mechanisms that are sort of built into, the economy itself, then it's sort of hard to say that just having a nicer person is going to fix the problem and sort of, like, you need to fix the incentive structure itself, maybe.
Yeah. I think so I think the the real contribution of the book is trying to shift discussion more to questions of power, and and also to, like, questions of ownership, right, and control. How who owns these these kinds of companies? It's not necessarily a question of, like, trying to fix Facebook. I think every time Facebook, or now Meta, you know, messes up, everyone's like, oh, how do we how do we fix it? How do we how do we make things better? And I think what we're not asking enough is, like, well, what alternatives exist out there? What prototypes do we already have? What traditions and histories can we can we draw on? And, you know, we don't have to accept the fact that, you know, all of this, infrastructure, which is now so essential to our everyday lives, is run by for profit companies. You know, there are alternatives that exist. And I think Platform Socialism, the book is about exploring these both alternative ownership models, but also thinking about the more participatory forms of governance that you could develop there. So that yeah. That's what I was really trying to do with the book. Yeah. And so maybe,
it would be really interesting to hear because in the in the beginning of the book, you had a really good, account of the history of Facebook and Airbnb and how they were sort of selling these utopian dreams for I mean, what now we look back as like Web two point zero. Could you explain a bit what like, how did they get away with selling utopia to us? And, like because to me, if I think about, I don't know, my life and, I mean, anybody, like, the past, ten years or so, like, these companies and platforms, they seem to have entered our lives so quickly and so, like, so fast and, like, forcefully. Like, I I remember one time, you know, everyone was taking taxis and then all of a sudden, like, boom, Uber was there. Uber was cheaper. You download it on your phone and, like, no one was taking taxis anymore. It was almost it was like it happened in the span of, like, I don't know, maybe, like, a month. I remember, in college, everyone was taking taxis, and all of a sudden, everyone was taking Ubers.
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the motivations for me writing the book was just, like, reflecting upon how profoundly reliant I was on all of these platforms and that, you know, the more I learned about it and the more I saw how unethical, you know, a lot of these services were and the kind of business models that underpinned them, you know, it really got me thinking about, like, yeah, how do these all work? What what's going on? And I didn't really realize at the time, but I think looking back, you know, at least those first few chapters that you're talking about, it is really a kind of history of Web two. You know? And one of the things I think I end up narrating, you know, and maybe this is very Hegelian, right? Because it's like it's only at the end of the era. The owl of Minerva flies at dusk, and you can only really understand what happens at the end. But I was kind of writing this in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and there is this it seems like there's this real turning point now. And I think one of the stories I tell in the book is how from really about twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen onwards, a lot of these platform companies started to pitch themselves as global community builders. And I I use examples of Facebook and Airbnb in particular, but it's kind of around the time of Trump and this kind of global shift in politics, perhaps away from a kind of classical left versus right paradigm to, you know, what some people describe as a more open, closed society. There are other ways of kind of dividing that. But the tech companies were all very keen to kind of sell them this feel good story of their products as enabling this new forms of digital social life. These you know, that they were gonna facilitate these online communities, you know, connecting people, bringing people together. And so I developed this idea in the book called Community Washing, and I think this is the kind of marketing strategy of framing a business through the language of community empowerment and and and fulfilling a social mission, that you're kind of passing off what is often a very, like, extractive business model, as this kind of, like, community banquet that that everyone's gonna come together. But the reality on the on or, you know, the reality of all this is that the infrastructure that these companies are running is basically feeding directly off the activities of these communities, often with very little concern about the actual reality of the communities that they're claiming to serve. And I think here, you know, with the rise of, you know, some of the Web three discourse around, criticisms of platform capitalism, I think this is definitely something that that I do share with them, that that the the business model of the platform companies is often incredibly extractive. And and I think I kind of define platforms in the book as, you know, what you could call value capture mechanisms or value capture devices that they're kind of there to to to create the environments within which people participate and interact and just scrape a little bit off the top. Right? They're the kind of rather than, you know, rather than, like, setting up a lemonade stand and selling a product, they they wanna be like the troll under the bridge that basically charges people to to to use it. And it's really about acting as that intermediary, that that gives the platform companies, you know, their huge profitability. Right? Because whether you're extracting, like, a subscription fee, a transaction fee, or you're just harvesting data to turn into advertising products, that whole business model of appropriating the activity of others is really what it's all about. And so I think this kind of like PR campaigns they were all running is just like super cynical. Right? Because you what you often see is that it's like the business has been around for five or ten years. By the time they come up with these campaigns, which is purportedly trying to, you know, tell you what the company's been about all along. But what's really noticeable about, you know, in the case of of Facebook and Airbnb is that, like, the images are designed after the tech lash is already ramping up, that that that they're they're kind of responding to the critical scrutiny. And it's only really when these companies are pushed and challenged and people start to try and regulate them, and there's, like, worker resistance and user resistance that they start developing these strategies to kind of diffuse the situation, you know, rebrand, paint themselves in a new light. And and, you know, something like Airbnb, for example, has been one of the most litigious startups of Silicon Valley and are really devastating a lot of cities with, you know, who are experiencing, like, unaffordable housing and gentrification and, you know, swamps of tourists and stuff. So yeah. So I think I think this idea of, like, selling utopia is, like, you know, a really important point about what they're doing because and and so this is another, you know, what I see is, like, a big contribution of the book. I think as the left, we need to start talking about how we're going to invent the future. What does a more desirable kind of digital future look like? What what kind of a society do we wanna live in? Because all of these new ideas that we're hearing about, and I'll just say, you know, metaverse and Web three as the kind of two master narratives that people are kind of setting up to be, you know, the leading lights of the twenty twenties. I mean, they're they're developed by venture capitalists to to sell predominantly to sell new products. Right? It's like the ideas that they're gonna hang a kind of new generation of products and services on. And and these are the innovative visions of the future. It's like people, like, worshiping Elon Musk and and these, like, people they see as as tech visionaries. I think what the left hasn't done very well is creating its own transformative visions of technology. You know, rather than just resisting, right, rather than just saying no or having this, like, really cynical, skeptical take on social media, I think we really need our own inspiring vision of of the future, of how people's lives will be better. How can we harness new technology for for socially useful ends? And because people wanna think that their lives are gonna get get better. Right. They want they want to to technology to be a part of that. And I think the most successful transformative projects that the left has had, you know, in in the past hundred, hundred and fifty years has been, you know, when people have come to power on the basis of a radical reimagining of of what society should look like. And these kinds of big transformative visions of, you know, going right back now, things like universal suffrage and women's liberation and health care, and these are about creating new forms of common sense for how we can organize society. And I think technology, at least like with the iPhone generation and the kind of, you know, two thousands versions of tech, I just think we've lost that kind of utopian imagination because it's just been so fast. Everything has changed so quickly, and people are barely trying to keep up with that. So I think we need to start talking about alternatives to this. I think that's really important.
Yeah. A 100%. I think, what I really liked about your book is that, you do, or you you don't do what a lot of left wing books kinda do, which is to, like, provide a wonderfully written critique and then sort of, like, one small chapter at the end of, like, a possible solution or, like, peaks at how it could be different. And while I think, you know, critique has its place and critique is good and, we need to critique, I think for a lot of people, if you want them to to join on your side, you start you like, if you want a lot of people, a mass amount of people to start joining your site, I think you need to and provide an alternative. Like, if you they may agree that, like, yeah. I also agree the world sucks, but, like, what's your solution? And if you can't provide something that looks better than what it is now, sometimes I think I think you lose a lot of people. I know some people maybe get might get mad at at that suggestion, but I think that is true generally when I talk to others who are not in the, you know, left wing bubble. But, I think what to what you're saying about, Web three, what I think is really, so I like, I have I have very, very, like, mixed, thoughts on it. Because I think the maybe the term Web three was at some point I don't know if it was really organic, but I think the the original term comes from Gavin Wood, who is, like, the founder of Polkadot, just a difference, just, Blockchain. And then it sort of, was co opted, because what I what I witnessed was that a lot of a lot of people who were not VCs, who were just sort of, like, people interested in technologies and, like, and blockchains were they started to use the term Web3. And then, like, I don't know, maybe a month later, like VCs were using it like crazy. Like, at least from my perspective, I see it I saw it a little bit more organic, maybe. But then now, like, it's very obvious that web that VCs have sort of, like, taken that narrative and are sort of, you know, morphing it into into what they want in a in a more, like, explicit sense than maybe they were before. But I think what Web three has provided a bit is an image about the future, Some sort of utopian image about the future, which is why it's so enticing for a lot of people and especially people who, maybe work in tech but are sort of dissatisfied with the current, you know, sort of like big tech landscape. I think there is a reason why a lot of developers are moving away from their big tech jobs into working in Web three point zero because they think that it is some sort of utopian vision. Even though there's a lot of, there are probably a lot of issues with how they're thinking about it and they're not coming at it from a very, like, political lens. Which is why, like in my review of your book, I strongly suggest that for people who are interested in things like DAOs to read your book, not because it is about DAOs, but because it provides like a more concrete political lens to look at the current, landscape of tech so that people can understand what that is, what the, like, common, tropes are, like, what what do these companies usually do? Like, what what is community watching? Because I think community is a word that is also popping up again in Web three. And there are, like, yeah, a lot of dubious, like, claims about community. So I think, your book is was really good at, showing what those problems are and what, some of those alternatives could be. So I think it would be interesting if you want to talk about maybe, a couple of the solutions, that you mentioned in the book and how they avoid as well, sort of like this common critique of, like, techno solutionism.
Yeah. It's funny you say that you're, like, you were glad that it wasn't this book that, like, tells you all the problems and kind of analyzes them, and then it has one chapter at the end where it likes the best because it is, like, the classic narrative structure of, like, a, I don't know, like a lefty verso book or something. Yeah. And to be honest, the first draft I wrote was exactly that. And I actually I submitted it somewhere, and and I had a a couple of reviewers, take a look at it. And one of the responses was, well, actually, the thing we like most about your book is some of these solutions at the end, but you just sketch them. And I think what makes it really stand out is the, you know, the the the kind of overview you give, and can you do that in more detail? So I, the book is actually written in 2019, which is why I say it's kind of this, like, web two point o black overview thing, And I actually rewrote it during the, the first lockdown in in 2020 and really basically turned this final chapter into, like, the the entire second half of the book. So now it's kind of, like, three or four chapters where a lot of principles and models are kind of sketched out. And I am really glad I did that because I it is one of my favorite parts of the book now. So, yeah, let me let me you you know, you you said, like, let's talk about one. So in the book, I discussed quite a few different proposals for for basically democratizing platforms. How how can you have a more democratic governance structure of them? How can these services be run-in a better way? And for me, the idea was to escape this notion that in order for a platform to be left wing or to be like an alternative to big tech, that it had to be nationalized. Now I propose this, you know, a range of ideas for for platform ownership and governance, and and I think one of the innovations is basically looking at how that can take place at different levels and at different scales depending on the function of the platform. So there are sketches from from, you know, things like local workers' cooperatives, you know, through regional and municipal kind of, ownership structures, right up to to national and international ones. So let me discuss one idea. This is a kind of meso level, related to, a ride hail platform. So kind of like alternative to Uber, shall we say. I think here, what really seemed to be most suitable is that this could be run at a municipal level. So that's either like a a kind of city city, council, city government, and and because I think here the infrastructure that you need to run a ride hail platform is quite difficult for for a local workers cooperative to operate. So I think while you can have things like food delivery services, maybe courier services, local kind of domestic cleaning, stuff like that, run by workers' cooperatives, I think as soon as you start really requiring big investment in the the digital infrastructure, it's often better to have someone with slightly deeper pockets to be able to do that. So I live in London. London has a very good and efficient public transport system, so I sketch a a kind of municipally owned ride hail platform in the book called RideLondon. And this would be an on demand service that that you could imagine being run out of, transport for London or TfL as it's known here. And I think the advantage of having TfL, run a service like this is because it can be integrated into the existing public transport options. So it's not just replacing, Uber or other ride help plat platforms like for like. It's actually opening up the question to a much broader idea of, mobility within a city and and what kinds of public transport options are available. Because often, the reason people are looking for these private options is because public transport is is, you know, inadequate. And so what I really think we need is, like, a lot more investment in public transport options so that when you think of the on demand needs people have for for motor vehicles, you can see how these could be much better integrated within trains, trams, buses, you know, other transport options within a city. And once you have a public body running a service like this, I think you can do you know, it has several really immediate advantages. Right? So the first one is about how the software is designed. Immediately, you can get rid of the whole crappy gamification of the the, experience and put workers' needs at the center so that, you know, the data that that workers are relying on can be made transparent to them. The algorithms could be more accountable as to how they're they're, operating, how they're matching riders with with workers. And, you know, drivers obviously should be able to receive a living wage for this, that they're not exploited, that they're not trying, to do this peace wage work, that that leaves them so vulnerable. So, you know, things and I think it's just this absolute myth that with flexibility must come precarity. Right? I think there's there's, you know, ways to organize it where that's, you know, completely not the case. Yeah. So another another advantage is, obviously, you could, you know, nudge people using the app towards more environmentally friendly options. Obviously, like, you know, Uber in itself is kind of a curse. Right? Like, it's quite it's quite, convenient, but it's not something we should be encouraging, people to do. I think it should be an option. I think, like, there are many people for a whole variety of reasons that need, you know, motor vehicle, access and and for, you know, a the ability to use that if necessary. But I think, you know, if you had an app that that integrated this service with other ones, you could kind of show people what other options were out there and kind of show them that, look, it might take two minutes extra, but you could take a tram and a bus and you'd you'd, you know, get there basically at the same time. Because I think, the the ride hail kind of boom has had this terrible effect in increasing traffic and congestion and and pollution. I think there are ways in which we can improve that. So I think, that kind of municipally run, ride hail platform is a really good start to doing that. Mhmm. Yeah. I think that's that's really interesting.
You're probably aware of, like, the drivers cooperative, in in New York City and, like, what what what they're doing. I mean, I think there's a lot of really interesting ways to go about, especially ride sharing. I mean, what I like is that, I think what you said earlier, like, sometimes nationalization or nationalizing is sort of, like, thrown as, like, the that's what we need to do. Just, like, nationalize everything, as sort of, like, a simplistic, answer to, like, how to facilitate all of our needs when in reality, we can probably be a little bit more creative and a little bit more, nuanced to fit the exact situation and, like, the the service that you're providing. Because, I mean, does it really make sense to need to have, like, a nationalized Uber? I mean, I'm a bit skeptical, like, that that someone would want that. So I think the taking a more local approach and, like, putting more, emphasis on, like, municipalities and, like, local, governments is something that's really interesting. And what I think what you the the model that you use that I remember in your book was sort of, like, this libertarian socialist model. I think it was like J. D. H. Cole. Yeah. J. D. H. Cole. That's it. The idea of, like, federating at at different levels and sort of, like, overlapping federations and sort of, like, a to me, seems like a very, like, hierarchical type of structure of different, like, feedback between different levels and and and such that that in a way should make sense. Happy New Year's, everyone. May 2022 bring more class consciousness and less Internet drama on big tech platforms. If you're enjoying the episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're you're enjoying the interview or find the content I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the newest patrons like Curtis, Andrew, Jacqueline, Josh, Peter, and Ishan. Any amount really helps since making the stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access to Patreon exclusive content like q and a episodes, where you can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer, and I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. In the next Patreon Q and A episode, I give my thoughts on the proof of stake versus proof of work debate from a socialist perspective. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain does not need to be used to further entrench capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. Consider as well that I also recently published a book review of Platform Socialism on my website. So if you go to the blockchainsocialist.com, you'll find it under the blog menu. It comes out January 20 through Pluto Press, so be sure to check it out. And I guess what I want to add as well, like like, what what makes this sort of, like, not techno solutionist?
Well, I mean, the whole book, I think, is really driven by a kind of politics first approach. Right. And, you know, I I don't make a secret of the fact that, like, I'm not a coder. I'm not a software developer. I'm like, you know, basically, like, a historian of political thought, essentially. All of my previous books have been on the history of the workers' movement, different organizational structures that have been used, how democracy has been practiced over the past hundred years. And so I wanted to bring that experience and the and the kind of research, to the tech world and trying to think about what kinds of democratic structures, what kinds of organizations, could we bring to that. And so you did, well, you mentioned GDH Cole, so I feel like I should I should quickly Yeah. Let's go let's go into it because I think it's a pretty interesting connection. To that because, like, that site I think really what I'm what I'm pushing the the cart that I'm wheeling along in this book is is basically a kind of what you could call an associational socialism. So a kind of, you know, you call libertarian socialism, which, you know, is also quite accurate, kind of left wing socialism, a decentralized socialism. And, you know, one of the primary reference points that I draw on in the book is this tradition of guild socialism, and it sounds very medieval, right? Because a guild, it's like a you know, collection of workers in a kind of pre capitalist society and they've like so I I it was kind of a joke, really. It was like a lot of things that I do start off as jokes because, like, one of the chapters is called Guild Socialism for the Digital Economy. And you can imagine this, like, medieval guild trying to figure out what's going on with it. But I think, like, there are these really prescient points, of of relevance that I think are really fascinating. So this idea of federalism and and decentralized thinking is one of them. But what what Cole what GDH Cole really, allows us to do is to think about, these more federalist and decentralized alternatives within socialism. Right? And, Cole was like this British socialist writing in, I think the four of his most popular works, like, written between 1917 and 1920. And he's like a a critic of the Fabian Society in The UK. Right? And he's really critical of these more statist visions of socialism, ones that really focus on the nation state. The Fabian Society was like a more So the Fabian Society helped found the UK Labour Party. The Fabian Society is a kind of, like, leftist organization which overlapped, you know, was around in the late nineteenth century and continues to exist today. They founded the, the Labour Party. They founded the, London School of Economics. And they're kind of like one of the main, dominant schools of reform, of of progressivism in in this time. And and Cole was a member of the Fabian Society. And this this kind of was, and and particularly in the early twentieth century, really dominated UK progressive political thought. And so Cole joined as a young man, but he quickly became a critic of the Fabians because he didn't think they had a proper appreciation of workplace democracy. So how local, decision making could be fostered, how people could have a genuine say in how their lives were were organized. You know, he thought that that the Fabian Society vision was way too statist, way too bureaucratic, and essentially would replace a bunch of, like, capitalist, owners with, you know, distant bureaucrats. Right? That it would just become this kind of status form of socialism. So, you know, Cole developed what I think you can see is one of the most important visions of this kind of associational form of socialism. I know that's a bit of a mouthful, but the the idea here is, like, there are all these major associations or or organizations that that are, like, constitute your life. So you've got your workplace, you might have a school or a university, your clubs, cultural centers. And the idea here is that these organizations should themselves be internally democratic. You should be able to have a say in them. You should be able to maybe vote for representatives, but have some kind of input into the governance. And and the idea is to create a more participatory society through these intermediary institutions. So it's not all about the state. And really, the Guild Socialist vision is about how the state could be reduced to something like a coordinating body, that that the most important decisions are being made at a much more local level, at these kinds of regional councils, and that you would see society as kind of constituted by these overlapping producer associations, you know, municipal associations, all of these different spheres of social life. And I think that's really the critique here is that the state kind of takes over and monopolizes all of these various authority structures that themselves should kind of have a lot more power. So there's this vision of people's participation in social life, of, these associations taking on a a bigger role, and, really, it's about extending democracy from this very narrow political sphere where you, like, vote for your MP and they kind of go off and represent you for five years and you never see them again, to a much more comprehensive idea of kind of democracy being much more present in your everyday life through these more distributed forms of of governance. Assess guild socialism. Right? And I think this framework gives you a really new perspective on thinking about the digital economy, and I think it actually transposes quite well because you can start thinking about all these online communities and user groups that use platforms, as various forms of, groups that should have a democratic say in how they operate. Right? And here, I think there's a lot of overlap to some of the work that you've been doing, and and other people. And I think what really I try to to to relate in the the Platform Socialism book is that guild theory points you towards the functions that are being performed by each platform. So it's really thinking about what is the nature of the community, what's the purpose of the platform, what kinds of socially useful ends is it designed to serve, And how do you build structures of democratic governance that that reflect these? I think that's why you can start to move away from this idea of one size fits all. You know, you have to have nationalization and and start thinking about a more complex ecosystem of different forms of social ownership. Right? So it's not just an individual venture capitalist unilaterally deciding where the investment gets made. It's much more about groups coming together and having a degree of control over the resources that that that they're using, and and a a say in what kinds of governance structures, the platforms are using. And so you can imagine, like, small social media ecosystems kind of being moderated by their users and and having kind of rules being developed. You can imagine small workers, cooperatives, deciding how their work gets organized,
and so on and so forth. Yeah. So that that was, like, beautifully said. But, like, what what is really interesting, like, when you say all of that, like, that this this is really at the moment where I was like, this is, like, a very good representation of, like, the idealist, you know, Web3, utopian. If I were to talk to, you know, the more, thoughtful, the more, like, like, non VC people in the Web3 space, I think they would, like, they would almost say the exact same thing or they would, I mean, maybe less in a less sophisticated way, maybe. But I think they would when you say all of these things, I think it is what they imagine how they would want, like, the Internet to be to be run. And, like, the the danger right now is just that these people being idealistic and maybe not having a political understanding, getting lost in sort of, like, the the venture capital hole. Like, sort of, like, getting getting getting convinced convinced by, like, Anderson Horowitz that, like, oh, yeah. We do have democratic control over this over this platform just because we have a token. But in reality, like, you know, the the vision should be much much grander than just, like, having a token. And I think some people know that and other people don't. But, like, what what you explained right there, I think, would resonate with a lot of the Web three idealists, let's say.
Yeah. I I really think so as well. And I was very conflicted when I started reading more about Web3 because on these questions of, like, freedom, and decentralization, and community, and democratic governance, the more progressive ends of that world do seem very much like stuff that I've been studying for years now, right? The history of kind of, you know, left wing socialism, essentially, that there would be these kinds of, like, more local forms of decision making and democracy. But the fear with some of the Web three stuff is is essentially that it's a bit of a scam, that that it's actually you know, the reality of what's going on is very different to to what's being sold to people. And that when people talk about, you know, democratic governance, I think it is really important, basically, to to look at the power structures that are actually there and to to look very closely at the political context rather than just the kind of glossy image because I think there's vast differences in in what's currently going on within the Web three space. And I and I think that, as you said before, it has kind of been taken over, and really is being driven by venture capital. And I think some of the things I've read does just sound incredibly confused, like ideas about, you know, this is a different kind of venture capital. VCs will have a different relationship to their communities, and I I think that is very fuzzy thinking. Right? I think that's when you're starting to really be drinking the Kool Aid a little too much. But that's not to discount the fact that there might be more interesting ways of using some of these technological developments.
But yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, definitely, like, a lot of the big stuff is sort of, and a lot of the, like, the biggest hype men are definitely, like, conflicted and and wrong. I do think that there are, though, some very, very interesting projects out there that don't have venture capital or who are, let's say well, yeah. That that don't get venture capital and are sort of antagonistic towards venture capital and are sort of, I think, in my opinion, are getting as close as we can to, like, a truly, like, community grassroots, like, building of some type of platform. It's definitely the minority. I think it's just like the it's the the problem is just like the problem of capitalism is that, like, oh, the people who have all the capital are at the top, and the ones, who don't are at the bottom, who want to actually build stuff. Usually, they don't have the money, and so they have to, sell their soul a little bit to venture capital sometimes, or they just have to find new ways of of raising money. Like, I think the, you know, the the, like, the ICO stuff, or, like, things that are similar to ICOs, initial coin offerings, for example, are, like, they're they they come from a place of, like, maybe wanting to have a more, like, democratic way of raising money. But the problem is that if you don't have a system of sort of, like, limiting the amount of money, like, one person can put in, which is, like, a difficult thing to do on a blockchain, then, like, it's it just becomes it just sort of, like, emulates the same power structures. But there are really interesting mechanisms with, for example, airdrops, where you only you give a token, for ownership of the platform solely based on how how much people use it, I think is an interesting approach and, like, having different ways of just moderating identity and people being unable to, like, create a bunch of bot accounts and things like that. I think there is interesting work, but that sort of gets overshadowed for people who are not very, very deep into it. It gets overshadowed by, like, what's at the front and center because venture capital and the money sort of, like, pushes those stories upfront, and they have the resources to talk about their projects. Whereas all these more community led ones,
they are all struggling to sort of, like, talk about what they're doing because they're all working on it. Yeah. But definitely still the minority. Yeah. I I can totally see where you're coming from. I think, like, for me, if there is one message to take away, it it has to be, like, for the for the Web three enthusiast to think critically about the kinds of projects that you're getting involved in because I it just feels like an absolute minefield. But, I I guess, like, it is kind of just sad what's happening with with kind of blockchain at the moment because it really so one of the things that came to mind is, you know, when you're talking about crypto leftism, is it really reminds me a lot of my experiences with Occupy, so Occupy Wall Street. So I'm like an elder millennial. I'm in my, like, late thirties now. So my you know, one of my formative political experiences doing, you know, this stuff are in Occupy. And it there was a similar vibe in that you had all these, basically people that were relatively new to the left that were deeply involved and a lot of more establishment organizations. So like center left political parties, trade unions, people in the advocacy and campaigning world just really stood right back. And I think just the reputation that crypto has, you know, firstly, because of the environmental impact. Right. And secondly, because it's, you know, it is primarily or has primarily been used as this, like, speculative tool. It's very unstable, blah blah blah. I think for a lot of people who are, like, already engrossed in the kind of campaigning and political stuff that's going on on the left, the whole space is just like this complete nonstarter. Right? There's no way you'll get them because of the optics, but also just like the the substance. There's no way you'll get them to go anywhere near there. And so you just have these new people that are are kind of, like, sometimes discounted completely or just written off by some of the traditional organizations on the left. And I think the shame is that you therefore have, you know, zero cross pollination between people who have all this really useful, you know, generational knowledge and experience and the history of, like, progressive movements and what workers have done, what feminists and and, you know, anti racist campaigners have done, and, you know, different generations of, like, capitalist development and organizing, and all that feels a little bit lacking sometimes in in this world. But, also, the the leftist just have no idea what's going on in in the kind of blockchain space, and and therefore, you know, just completely dismiss it most of the time. I think sometimes, with a lot of the more community oriented, groups that you were talking about, it's it it basically cedes the entire ground to the venture capitalists who become the only voices in the space. Right? And so they're talking about decentralization and everyone getting a token and being this radical redistribution of of wealth. And, obviously, it's not gonna be like that. Right? Because you don't become a venture capitalist to redistribute your wealth to to a bunch of, like, low level software people, but there's no one else contesting that. Right? Or there there's not enough people, kind of coming from different areas and and different traditions to to put their own spin on it or give a slightly different take. So, yeah, that that kind of yeah. I I think that kind of sucks a lot. Yeah. Definitely.
I I mean, I I sort of feel at the moment that it's, a lot of, like, I guess, anti crypto left critique is sort of, a self fulfilling prophecy a bit that, of course, all of these things that you say are that will eventually happen is going to happen if you just sort of, like, ignore it. If you just sort of, like if if you tell the left don't go near it, it it's going to turn into this, then it is going to turn into that because there is no contingency on the left to be there involved in it to sort of, reshape it or to, influence it. I think what's sort of, a huge opportunity at the moment that's being lost is for the ability of the left to influence, the developments of this technology, especially in the DAO space, the decentralized autonomous organizations. I think that is really, like, if I were to tell, people on the left who want to want to give influence, I would say, like, the DAO space and people who are interested in DAOs is the most probably openly friendly towards, our type of politics from from what I've noticed. And I think they would be very, very, easily influenced by it if we did. Because I think like what you said in the during this whole podcast with, and when you were talking about Guild Socialism and and the ideas of that, I think that would really like that that would be inspiring to a lot of people in the DAO space already. And I think that would begin to make them rethink or question some specific things that, like, maybe the left may have problems with or like to to help them when they are building technology or, you know, influencing others also in the DAO space and in the direction that it goes. So I think it's sort of without a contingency, of course, it's going to be a capitalist hell health hellscape. We live under capitalism. Like, what more can you ask for? What more can you expect if if you do nothing?
I think one one of the big questions I have around Daz is, you know, what kinds of new forms of democratic governance could be possible, on the blockchain? And I think that's really interesting because I I've seen a few like, the the biggest examples are not very interesting, at least things like, friends with benefits. What else is in the news? ConstitutionDAO. Like, none of those are really go going anyway with that kind of thing. I think friends with benefits literally still has the kind of one token, one vote. Right?
And that No. And token No. Not as long. Benefits, as far as as far as I understand.
Yeah. Yeah.
The like, the way you get in is you have to purchase, I think it's like 70 or 75 of the tokens. And then you get into the into the DAO. So, like and and when you buy the tokens, you also have to apply. So you apply as, like, a person and you give them your background. You say, I'm working on this and that. And I like this and that about Web3. I'm excited. I want to get involved. And then they let you in. So there is like a they have like a whole actually very intense vetting process, to let you into the DAO. And so then it's only one person, one vote at that point, because they they vetted you. You just have to own at least $70.75 tokens or whatever, which is at this point, because the price has gone up, it's, like, very expensive. I I was offered I was offered it at one point for, like, I think, $50 or something like that or maybe maybe or 200 or something like that. A a much lower amount than what it is now Yeah. To go in, but I was like, nah. It's not my thing. Do you do you regret that now?
Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. How do you not have any friends with benefits?
Yeah. So I'd like Yeah. Go for it. I would say it it it would have been, I mean, at the time, I just didn't get it. It's it it seemed just like a country club, that you that you, like, pay for. I mean, there is what is slightly different is that, of course, you can sell the tokens when you wanna leave. So, like, you can get your money back. So it's like you don't really lose anything necessarily unless, like, the price is lower when the time you sell it. But Yeah. So long as someone else wants to join. Right? Right. And so, like, there is a bit of, I mean, the it's yeah. They they they created FOMO to, like, get into the into the cool social club because there's a there are a lot of, like, people who are high up in in media and music and arts, as far as I understand. So, like, a lot of a lot of artists want want to be in there, or a lot of people, who want to be a part of that world want to be in there. And that's why I think if they've been able to to drive the price up. So, I mean, I'm not a 100% on I I think most of their governance, as far as I understand, is, like, not on chain. Yeah. It's actually mostly within their Discord group. It's just that you have to buy the token and and apply to get in and and be approved to get in. That like this is interesting, incredibly
undemocratic system to have a really expensive,
exclusive online community. I think I think that's the problem is that they I think they didn't expect the price the price of their token to go up so much. Yeah. And so now they're they're in this position where they, they they they want to be inclusive, but so many people want to get in. And I think my my could like, I can see why it looks bad because it looks like a country club. But I think at the same time, it still provides an interesting model in that, like, I think on the left, we also don't want it like fully open, fully permissionless, completely like non invites type of groups. Right? Like if if we let everybody in, you have the chance that you are letting in bad actors. Like, you can look at, decades of history to see, you know, CIA operatives joining all these different left wing groups or whatever. You want to have some sort of vetting process. Like, exclusivity is not necessarily a bad thing is what I would argue. I think it's really context dependent.
I don't know. I mean, I think the CIA can afford the entry fee. Right? If they wanted to get into the entry benefits, they could. For sure. I think my my biggest concern with Web three and and partly with DAOs as as kind of part of that is that inserting these digital token systems into online communities is really just gonna result in the further monetization and commodification of the space. Right? And so you talk about, like, not wanting to let bad actors in, but, like, charging for entry is not how you do that. That's not how you sort out questions of, like,
exclusive communities. I think I mean, I I agree, but I think that it's it like, that's not the like, what the examples are now are not the end all
of what is possible, I think. No. Of course not. Of course not. But when when we're talking about friends with benefits, I just think For sure. That's probably gonna be one of the main dominant kind of, like, I mean, the whole point of a DAO is that you you spend money to get in. Right? That you buy the token, you're investing in the community. But this is this is where I think is an interesting,
like, let's say, misunderstanding a bit is that it, it like you have to imagine, at least how I imagine is that, like the smart contracts and blockchains are sort of like a very open design space in which you can, you know, design your structure for how you, how you want it to reflect. Basically, what I'm saying is that that may be the dominant form at the moment because of lack of creativity, but it isn't, like, the only one. And you don't have to purchase a token to get in. You can still get a token via other means. Like so things like airdrops, I think, are a very interesting one where, you know, you release, let's say, a proof of concept product and those who are interacting with with your product get dropped a token, to be a part of it. So sort of like the idea of exit to community from from Nathan Schneider, I think is is a really interesting model for rethinking how you open, like a platform up to the community. Like, how do you give it to the community, to those who actually use it and not necessarily have to make it something that you purchase? Because being, being an open design space, you can say, okay, this token is non transferable even. You can say that this token cannot be sold. You can program that into the tokens that you decommodify it, I guess, or demonetize it if you want to in certain respects. So I think, like, that that sort of nuance is a bit missing in the, like, in the in the understanding of it. But I I completely understand why people think, like, why you why you're saying what you're saying because that is sort of, like, the dominant model and that is sort of, like, the the most, visible model.
Mhmm. Yeah. I think that there's, like, when you're talking about what are the what are the kind of affordances of the technology, like, theoretically, yes. It is possible to kind of demonetize a token insofar as it is, I don't know, freely given to a community, who who can then actively participate in governance on a kind of equal footing that there isn't the these kinds of, like, more commodified aspects, that it's kind of on this, like, essentially, like a stock exchange that the price is going up and down, that it's, like, pay for entry into the community. But, like, that's that's obviously not what's happening, and it's not what's gonna happen. Right? Like, the so I I think, like, I agree with you a 100% that that these alternatives are possible. But I also think when we're talking about Web three and what the kind of future of the Internet is gonna look like, there is this real risk that that when we're hyping up these kind of, like, alternative DAOs, that it's basically just going to give this cover for what will inevitably be like a cooption of the whole space. And if you have half the people in there running around talking about freedom and decentralization when what's actually happening is really, like, in many respects, like a continuation of the commodification of the web in Web two, right, that it it it there is a kind of huge problem there. And I think that I guess that's, this idea that, you know, Web three is like this kind of feel good concept that you have all these young people now who are, like, thinking that they're part of some kind of anarchist collective that are, like, gonna blow up a pipeline or something. That that's I guess that's my problem. So I guess we're we're we're kind of we we both agree that context matters, that the politics of it matters, and it's really just thinking about how power operates in these communities. And, you know, are they places in which people, have equal say? You know, is is the structure of the DAO set up in in a way that gives people is it more than just like one one vote, sorry, one token, one vote? Or is it like one person, one vote? How are those structures set up? Yeah.
Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. I think in, you know, what is interesting is that you have a lot of this type of experimentation happening, with different forms of of of voting and not and I think there is what is interesting, like a very skeptic, let's say at the top. So if you look at, I'm just thinking of like Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, is extremely skeptical of like token governance, of the fact that having your token sort of on the free market as something you can purchase similar to, like, a stock in which it can be very, very easily manipulated in price, etcetera, etcetera, as, like, not being an optimal form of governance. So I think there are, like, there are these different trends that are, like, I guess to me, just interesting that they are sort of agreeing with the critique from the left, whether they know that or not, about, like, the issues with with tokens and the issues of, like, mixing governance with the free market and how that's sort of, like, flawed. Mhmm. And then you have, like, more interesting things like, I don't know if you're aware of, like, quadratic voting and things like this that are that are interesting. They're not perfect, and they're not, like, a solution for everything. But I think it is it is a type of democratic structure that you cannot build reliably without a blockchain.
Quadratic voting is when you can transfer your vote on one issue to another one. Right?
No. It's more that it's more like the so let's say, let's say, for example, everyone gets a 100 points, and they get, like, 10 different choices that they can do. And you can distribute your your vote into different issues. So you can, like, distribute all your votes to one issue. Right? Potentially. But if you do that, if you so if you put all of your votes on one issue, it counts less than if you were to spread it out across. So that there's, like, a Yeah. You know, you use a function to to to measure the power, which I think it's it's it's an interesting view, of voting. But there, you know, there's also conviction voting, which is another one where instead you're voting through time rather than through, like, immediate preferences, if that makes sense. There's a lot of experimentation like that that I think
would be interesting to the left as well. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I I remain Web three skeptical, for the record. But I'm I'm glad that people like you are out there doing the hard yards, you know, figuring out what what might be possible with some of these, systems.
But one of one of the other systems that I wanted to mention, because I thought it was really interesting, is that you talked about the Fediverse, a bit. Yeah. And sort of how it resembled guild socialism. And, you know, I'm on Mastodon, so, like, I've used the Fediverse quite a bit. And what I found sort of frustrating is that I don't see very many people on the left that are on Mastodon. Like, a lot of the big Twitter profiles, of of left wing celebrities, none of them are on Mastodon as far as I know. I don't see them on Mastodon as, like, good. I'm on Mastodon. I'm not very active there because as as you rightly point out,
no one else is on there. But, yeah, I think that is a problem, right, that we don't see many people, like I don't know. Sometimes I feel like the the, you know and or, like, tech critical leftist is, like, the main the main thing that you're doing is just self promoting on all the tech platforms. Is that kind of, like, tech criticism in practice? So I think it is it's like yeah. As I said before, it's like, what are the alternatives? And even if they are a little bit buggy and very small scale, I think it's really important to look at what is out there. And so I I gave you earlier an example of what I think, like, a municipal ride hao platform would look like. In the case of social media, I don't think that a a nationalized kind of state run social media service would be ideal because it's missing all of those decentralized affordances that that kind of seem native to the whole idea of having, like, a a social network. Right? And, obviously, you you don't want, like, a state network that it only allows people from one country. That's kind of goes without saying. But I also don't think a government or even an administrative an administrative body at arm's length from the government is is the right kind of organization to run something like that. So what I find striking is when you look at the kind of federal organizational structures of people that are involved in guild socialism, for example, but also other federal examples on the left. Right? So a lot of the anarchist tradition really moves in these kind of federal spaces. Hannah Arendt, who's someone that I kind of did my PhD on, also kind of has this federal model of what she thinks the kind of ideal political organization would look like. That starts to resemble in really interesting ways the kinds of prototypes that are coming out in the Fediverse. This side and I think that one of the key principles here is thinking about how you can maintain a kind of broader network while still giving a degree of autonomy and independence to the the nodes within that network. I think that kind of is a way of balancing freedom with authority in many ways that that people could have some say in how their node works, but still have access to and still communicate with and coordinate with, these these other kinds of, actors within the network. So, you know, the example that I give in the book is that I think, look, as socialists, we should be thinking more about these federal alternatives to social media. I think something like the Fediverse and I know there are other examples of, like, software that's being developed, but, obviously, Mastodon is, you know, one of the most, like, user friendly at the moment. It's one of the ones that you don't need that much or or any really experience with the kind of technical side of things to kind of get involved with. The only problem is none of my friends are on it. So it's hard. I I didn't I didn't know your honor. I'll I'll find you, and we can we can, you know, to to each other. But I think this idea of, like, a decentralized alternative within the social media space is is really important. I think, yeah, more people on the left should think more about the Fediverse, and and do do kind of find me there if if you if you join.
Definitely. I think, and what's also cool is what I did to make it a bit easier as I go back and forth between the two. Because I mean, for me, the idea, I think for a lot of people as well, to have another social media account for another platform is, like, overwhelming. It's already Twitter itself is already overwhelming enough. So, like, you can, there's some bot. I need to I need to look up the name now. I'm forgetting. Oh, there's, like, auto post stuff? Yeah. The the auto post any tweet that you do also goes on to Mastodon. And you can also you can also do it the other way around on Mastodon. You need to show me that after this after this podcast. Yeah. I think it's and that's so I think having these, these type of tools to like help you transition is also really like I like I think that is that like these type of things should be in the toolbox for left wing organizing, you know, like as as as like maybe silly and maybe sounds in the beginning, but like really, you know, to try your best to try to, transition into more, decentralized tech alternatives is, like, a worthwhile a worthy, like, left wing thing to do, I think. Yeah. Definitely. So for the creation of platform socialism as a, let's say, a political project to come forth, you mentioned so so we talked about both of these things. We talked about, the creation of alternatives and regulations, being put in place from from the state and not necessarily saying that we're, you know, this is not like making clear. It's not like a statist project in the way that like the Fabian society was maybe. Yeah. How do we like, how do we think about which one comes first, and maybe how do we overcome things like regulatory capture?
In terms of the question of strategy, I have this framework within the book of resisting, regulating, and recoding. Right? So that's like the three r's. I think I get this from, I got the framework from Mark Graham, who's this, professor at Oxford in their, like, Internet institute. I don't I don't even know if he uses those exact r's, but I remember him using the three r's of some description. But the way I see it is, it gives you this really nice model of, like, bottom up, top down, and building alternatives. And and I think rather than seeing these as, like, things that will come, one after the other, I think they need to be kind of pursued at the same time because and that they kind of help they they build off each other. Right? Because on the one hand, you have, like, resistance. You have bottom up resistance from workers who are kind of on the front lines in the platform you know, delivering meals, working on the the back end software, cleaning the data, working in these companies, that they can actually join unions. They can build their power. They can kind of name and shame companies, from the ground up. Right? And you can have this as a kind of, and also, like, users. Right? Users of platforms can also engage in building collective power and and and building these forms of resistance. But at the same time, I think it it can't all I think things like boycotts and, like, user, you know, collective actions sometimes can lack teeth because the platforms are basically too big to care. Right? That even if, like, big advertising companies pull out, it it's like a drop in the ocean for them. So I do think that you can't limit it to just these kinds of bottom up tactics, that actually regulation matters. And for whatever criticisms, you know, I or others might have of a kind of anti monopoly or, like, a liberal agenda, obviously, things like protecting workers' rights, limiting the power of companies to kind of become these big conglomerates. All of this is super important. Right? So most recently, we're seeing the EU directive on platform work, which came out in December, that is about trying to prevent abuse from these companies as acting as digital gatekeepers. There was a really interesting, aspect of that where they wanted to have a presumption of employment status for for, workers in the the platform economy, which I think is really important, and I was writing about that at the time. But these two things, resisting and regulating, are also mutually are also interconnected and independent because when you do get these big pushes from civil society, it it basically emboldens regulators and politicians to take a stronger stance. Right? Because they think it's gonna be popular. They think it's gonna help their chances of getting reelected, and it's gonna go down well. But also the regulations often help protect workers, and they they help support them in their struggle against the platforms, and they give them the basis for building more democratic power. And so finally, the third r in that is recoding. And maybe it's this aspect of it which I think is is slightly more innovative because I think this idea of building prototypes and alternatives to the platforms is something we don't talk about enough, and it's something that we don't do enough. And so I'm interested in platforms that are kind of run on either as public goods or as a, like, a commons based model of social production. And I think the most important it's potentially the most important aspect of the strategy. Right? Because you're basically going into circles if you're just talking about putting a few more regulations on them, you know, resisting them. It's still basically not contesting the fact that these, you know, digital infrastructure companies are basically, like, the the the way in which our lives run these days and that that's basically for profit service. Right? If you believe in public services and in offering goods free of charge to people who need them, then you need to talk about what kinds of alternatives we could develop. So I think it's kind of it's a question if we're talking about political strategy, it's always gonna come back to questions of power. What are the points of vulnerability of the big tech platform companies? And and I think this is really interesting. Something I try and point to in the book is that because they act as these intermediaries and gatekeepers, even though they look like some of the most powerful people in the world who've achieved the position of such dominance, kind of unseen, by any corporation ever, there is a weakness there because it's it's they're very reliant on us, like all capitalists are. They're reliant on our labor, on our lives, our cars, our houses, our activity, and it's really through us that they make money. Right? Because they essentially are skimming a little bit off the top. They're acting as intermediaries, but they can be replaced. Right? If you develop the software to be able to, you know, run your own, food delivery service, to be able to have community led and community run services. It's us that actually do all the work. Right? So it's and I think one of the questions is therefore, like, a coordination problem. How do you make the switch? Because the companies make it so damn hard to have interoperability, to be able to be on on Mastodon and basically slowly, you know, coerce all your friends to come on with you because it's so hard to communicate between platforms. And, you know, these platforms can be very sticky. Once you're on, Sunny, it's very hard. It's hard to stop using you know, Amazon will send you the product the next day or two days later. It's hard to go back to the local bookstore and be like, hello, boys. You know, here I am again. And so I think forcing them to be interoperable could be a really interesting regulatory strategy. I think, who mentions this? The, the sci fi writer, Corey, Doctor O. Doctor O. Yeah. So he has this great essay on interoperability and kind of gives you the example of, I think, telephone lines, and and the way in which, you know, the early Internet providers basically built on the back of the telephone companies kind of against their wishes. I think that kind of that kind of framework is is very interesting and important.
I think what's interesting about that that framework and approach is that it is, multi pronged for me. That it's not that it's not like sometimes, with some people that I, you know, get into online debates with, unfortunately, when I get sucked in, like, it's sort of like it's almost it feels like they think that I'm having an argument that, you know, no, we should do x versus no, we should do y as a way to bring socialism. When in reality, I think, like, the world is just way too complicated for us to do one thing to fix the problem and that we have to think about a lot of different types of approaches at the same time. And it's sort of, sad to see for me, at least, whenever someone is trying to do maybe the, I don't know, the recoding part, but they're really obsessed with the the regulating part, then, like, you're you're sort of you're, hurting your friend a bit. Or like you're you're, you know, you're sort of preventing one of the other r's by sort of over emphasizing
the r that you are really into by, like, for some reason, wanting to prevent the other r's. Yeah. And and I think you also, like, if if it's not too immodest, I think one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I did wanna try and show how a few of these different tendencies could be brought together. Right? Like, people have essentially, there was, like, there was no positive project. There was various forms of anti blah, but it was very hard to get people to to kind of come together on something. And it's also important to to kind of think that we all have different roles in the struggle as well. Like, it's okay for some people to be, like, these software, nerdy, you know, online community types that are doing the the kind of, like, experimental stuff, while others are, like, off, you know, trying to work their way up the greasy pole in, you know, various governmental spheres, trying to to fight for for better regulation of these things. So and then people doing all kinds of different things. And yeah. And sometimes, as you say, they they can actually be, you know, helpful to each other, and it's it's important to to acknowledge that and and to kind of see that, yeah, they can often, yeah, work hand in hand.
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I I figured the last thing I would want to to ask I would love for you to share maybe a bit more about, what you're doing at Autonomy. So I think it's a it's a really interesting, group that you're working for around the future of work and planned economy and maybe where people can keep up with you and your work.
Sure. So, yeah, I work at this fantastic think tank called Autonomy. It's a research organization that focus on how work is changing, and is providing these analyses to support a post work future. So the think tank has produced some really interesting studies on things like a shorter working week, a basic income, more recently, what have we done? Artists artists as workers, some stuff around care work and night work, stuff around the right to disconnect. And I work in a unit of the think tank called Autonomy Digital, about tech stuff, with, collaborator Phil Jones, who is you you might know him. He's the author of, Work Without the Worker, Labor in the Age of Platform Capitalism. And we have done a couple of studies together on platform cooperatives and the digital economy. And at the moment, we're working on the first study of micro workers in The UK at the moment. So hopefully, that'll be out soon, just looking at some of the survey data. And you can check out autonomy@autonomy.work. That's the website address. Yeah. It's really great. I love working there. You can follow me on Twitter, I guess, James Muldoon. You can kind of find me on Mastodon. It would be good to have more lefty friends on Mastodon. I'm easy to find on both. And I have a personal website, jamesmaldoon.org. I don't I'm not an organization, but jamesmaldoon.com was already taken, and I didn't want to pay any money for so yeah. But, yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It's been really great. Really good chat. Really love talking about Web three and, you know, the possibility of socialist DAOs.
Yeah. I mean, thank you so much for for coming on and for writing your book. It was a really interesting read and a really helpful read for me, for thinking about, like, where what what should we do with this technology now that it's already out there and how do we mold it in a more socialist lens? I think, you know, it was it was really interesting to hear your your thoughts on web theory right now, and I think it's sort of up to up to the people who are making the technology to make working with the technology to make a point on whether or not socialists would come on board or not. It's sort of our job to speak with people who are skeptics and to, build the types of things that these maybe, well, these skeptics who are maybe on the same side politically to prove that they should join us in sort of reshaping the technology and to think about the technology more. So I know that's that's that is on me. And your book was a really, really great read. It's out, with Pluto Press. And so I highly recommend anybody who is interested in DAOs to pick up Platform Socialism because it is really good, and it will provide a good political understanding about the technology, that you may want to build with your, hopefully, socialist DAO.
Fantastic. Well, I'll be watching this space closely, and I hope we get the chance to to work together more in the future. For sure.