Analogy with Software

An attempt to analyze the problem as an analogy to software.

The concepts of software, as little functions coming together to perform a bigger task, whose behaviours determine that particular system contained with a certain set. Applied this concept to society, implies municipalization of utilities, democratization of energy grids, cooperatives of consumers and producers - all systems that show the properties of agglomeration to perform a service while retaining the same properties of the blocks that comprise a bigger system.

Does cooperation provide us with a system that is more optimized - that achieve stated goals with minimal resources? Or even given a chance of defining those goals, how does it fare in achieving them. Any system that can plug in with their own set of rules but all the while scaffolded on a set of basic principles that can be specified and are attuned to solve some of the problems generated by the current system of organizations. The ability to model the current system and compare it with a cooperative model provide us with insights that are used to alter the specifications of the desired system.

Another way is to build real systems. Take for example a cooperative transport system. The objectives of the system are:

1. Reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
2. Provide the convenience of transport to everyone with shared transport as the primary medium.
3. Rules and the actual act of resource generation and service provision are federated, transparent and democratic.

How does this model contrast with the current system? Where do we begin to list the characteristics of the current system? Can we equate to a capitalist system where market is the ultimate optimizer? What does this model offer us and how do we feed to the desired model?

Where do I begin to understand the characteristics of the desired system? A model that rewards the people whose socially equal labor induces the commodities over another one that allows capital with market acting as a feedback to dictate the terms of rewards.

What is a just society? When I have the ability to lay on my back anywhere, with a beauty and without any pollution. What is the logical way to achieve this? The idea of Soviet that I learned from Nishad Patnaik, is based on rational thought. The idea that a rational system with inner logic can be used to build social movements and social structures is paramount. Using such soviets as building blocks, can a model allow anyone in a modern world an afternoon siesta in the open.

While we build this model, the history of cooperatives, will feed into it to strengthen the logic of being on the path towards an end. What is the sole motivation of labor unions? The resistance that is offered to the commodity makers is the inherent contradiction of capitalism. The income deflation at the heart of capitalism induces demand deflation; it is like shooting themselves in the chase for profit. Though the system tries to act as Sui generis, but forgets the people it is exploiting. It exhibits a flawed way of cooperation, because of the lack of self-conception of cooperation.

Similarly, in a world of soviets, if we claim that we can reason about it, why did structures of exploitation arise? How do we factor these aberrations into the system. The claim of part-whole logic fits well into a discipline like computer science. But when applied to social organizations with vast social structures, it throws up limitations. One such limitation is envisaging the whole, while part of it. Though the parts have their characteristics, the same are influenced by the whole. But the whole is always in a transition with internal movements whose direction and influence is hard to fathom before the effects are in bloom.

The limitations of the mechanical analogy forces us to acknowledge the existence of a current system; and the evolution of a new system works within the current system but also have the ability to affect such systems.

A realization of such a cooperating system is an open transport system. The fundamental characteristic of this is agglomeration via organization as a democratic federation. It ensures systems that exhibit a similar trait can also flourish along side undemocratic structures which is the reality. As a software what are the challenges that confront while building it. The challenge is not really envisaging the software system as a service but more about providing the ability to configure behaviours. How does the system encourage choosing services that have an intended purpose that lean towards our stated goal.