Epistemology of Organizations in an Age of Complexity: Firms, Open Networks, and AI

As the global economy grows more complex, dynamic, and uncertain, the epistemic fitness of organizational forms—how they sense, validate, decide, and learn—becomes central to innovation capacity and long-term performance. This essay outlines a research program to develop a comparative framework for the epistemology of organizations. It contrasts centralized firms (pre- and post-digital) with open networks (peer-to-peer) and explores the transformative potential of hybrid AI–P2P epistemic models. Grounded in established literature from Coase and Williamson to Benkler and modern complexity theorists, this work situates its urgency in the context of rising systemic turbulence. The central argument is that in an era defined by uncertainty and complexity, the competitive advantage shifts from efficiencies of scale to efficiencies of learning, anticipation and coherent joint action, making organizational epistemology the critical determinant of future economic dominance.

Beyond Open Access: How Peer-to-Peer Principles are Building the Next Generation of Scientific Tools

 

The term "Open Science" is rapidly gaining traction in academic circles. For many, it signifies a move towards greater transparency and accessibility, primarily through open-access publications and the sharing of research data. This is a crucial and welcome development, breaking down paywalls and fostering a more collaborative scientific discourse. But what if this is just the tip of the iceberg? The principles underpinning open science are part of a much deeper societal transformation, one that is not only changing how we share knowledge but how we create, innovate, and produce?

This shift extends far beyond the university walls. We see it in the digital infrastructure that powers our world, with open-source software like Linux running the vast majority of web servers. We see it in our quest for knowledge, where collaborative endeavors like Wikipedia have built a comprehensive encyclopedia, contributed to by a global network of volunteers. We see it in media, finance, and manufacturing, where decentralized and collaborative models are challenging traditional, top-down institutions.

Are We Living Through Collapse? Complexity, Digital Technology, and the Future Beyond Capitalism

The word “collapse” usually conjures images of sudden catastrophe: cities abandoned, empires falling overnight, institutions crumbling in chaos. But collapse can also look much slower — a gradual unraveling where the signs are everywhere but hard to pin to a single moment. More and more scholars are beginning to argue that this is where we are today: global society is in the midst of collapse.

This doesn’t mean the world will end tomorrow. It means that the institutions and economic logics that sustained industrial modernity — capitalism, liberal democracy, and even state socialism — are increasingly unable to cope with the world they have helped create.

The Case for Collapse

The idea that we are living through collapse is not new, but it has gained momentum. In The Epochal Crisis of Global Capitalism (2024), William Robinson describes a multidimensional breakdown: economic stagnation, political disillusionment, deepening inequality, ecological tipping points, and rising geopolitical conflict. For Robinson, this is not just another downturn — it’s an epochal crisis, one that capitalism cannot resolve within its own logic.

Beyond the Ledger: Why Blockchain and DAOs Fall Short for Complex Economic Organizations, and How OVNs Point the Way Forward

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.

Dive into Sensorica's OVN model

 

The OVN model is documented on the OVN wiki.