When Ostrom Meets Blockchain: Exploring the Potentials of Blockchain for Commons Governance
When Ostrom Meets Blockchain: Exploring the Potentials of Blockchain for Commons Governance is a publication from DAO Harvard. It discusses the potential of blockchain technology in the context of commons governance, drawing inspiration from Elinor Ostrom's 8 rules for managing the commons. The article argues against the dominant discourse characterized by technological determinism and market-driven values, which tend to overlook the complexity of social organizations. Instead, it emphasizes the need to consider the role of traditional centralized institutions in enabling democratic forms of governance. To explore the transformative potential of blockchain, the article applies Ostrom's principles for self-governance in communities. These principles include tokenization, self-enforcement and formalization of rules, autonomous automation, decentralization of power in infrastructure, improvement of transparency, and the codification of trust.
The article also introduces the concept of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), which are blockchain-based systems that enable people to self-regulate and self-govern through a set of self-executing rules deployed on public blockchains. The governance of DAOs is decentralized, meaning it operates independently of central authorities.
The article focuses on the governance of Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) communities. CBPP communities are found in various fields and involve multiple examples, such as Wikipedia, a collaborative project for writing a free encyclopedia, OpenStreetMap, a project for creating free and open maps of the world, and Stack Exchange, a community for question and answer discussions.
The article also highlights the importance of mobilization in identifying the tasks that communities should undertake. This mobilization provides an opportunity to visualize often overlooked tasks, such as caregiving labor, and brings them to the forefront.