The Global Economic Transition
We are witnessing a profound transformation in the architecture of global economic activity. The traditional capitalist system, rooted in firm hierarchies, proprietary assets, and market-based transactions, is giving way to a networked economy. This emergent configuration is typified by commons-based peer production (CBPP), open source collaboration, distributed knowledge networks, and peer-to-peer (p2p) collaboration. Examples abound: permissionless blockchains, distributed scientific research initiatives, decentralized media platforms, and open educational resources.
In parallel, the digital infrastructures enabling these formations are evolving. Initially celebrated as a breakthrough in decentralized coordination, blockchain technologies and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are revealing inherent limitations when tasked with modeling complex economic processes and sustaining full-fledged economic organizations. In contrast, newer agent-centric approaches—such as the Open Value Network (OVN) model built on Resource-Event-Agent (REA) accounting, the Valueflows vocabulary, hREA logic, and Holochain as a distributed substrate—are showing greater promise.
This blog post draws from the experience of real-world p2p production networks such as Sensorica, and analyzes the foundational limitations of blockchain/DAO-based systems while advocating for a hybrid architecture of economic coordination.
