This document summarizes two projects aimed at "infrastructuring the commons" through peer production and democratic funding models. The first project, Vertaisrahasto or "peer fund", aimed to democratize research funding through a model where donations received one vote each and research applications were anonymized. It required forming a cooperative, collaborative design project, and non-profit organization over three years of volunteer work. The second project, Robin Hood Minor Asset Management, aimed to create a "counter investment cooperative" to generate non-wage income and investigate financial capitalism. It involved a research community that launched a cooperative but was ultimately discontinued after tens of years of volunteer labor. Both projects struggled with the bureaucratic

1. ―What do you think
you are doing?‖
- two cases
Tere Vadén
Infrastructuring the Commons, 7.11. 2013

2. Background
– FOSS and peer production
• The Protestant ethic strikes back: Open source developers and
the ethic of capitalism
Teemu Mikkonen, Tere Vadén, and Niklas Vainio
First Monday, Volume 12, 2007
• Community created open source hardware: A case study of
―eCars — Now!‖
by Tiina Malinen, Teemu Mikkonen, Vesa Tienvieri and Tere
Vadén. First Monday, Volume 16, 2011
• 3D printing community and emerging practices of peer
production
Jarkko Moilanen and Tere Vadén.
First Monday, Volume 18, 2013

3. Entrypoint
- A need for a common(-resource pool)
- Some resources and capacities exist, but a key element is
missing (money!)

4. Two projects of ―infrastructuring‖
- with two shared problems
1.
- OS and ―commons-based peer production‖ projects are
sustainable collectively (as projects) but not individually (for
participants)
- Bauwens 2009
- OS career path
- compare science, research

5. 2.
― … radical projects tend to founder, or at least become
endlessly difficult, the moment they enter into the world of
large, heavy objects: buildings, cars, tractors, boats, industrial
machinery. This is in turn is not because these objects are
somehow intrinsically difficult to administer democratically; it’s
because […] they are surrounded by endless government
regulation, and effectively impossible to hide […]‖
- David Graeber, Revolutions in Reverse

6. Laitoksen nimi
7.11.2013
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7. Vertaisrahasto – ―peer fund‖
The goals:
- democratisation of research funding
- implying the one donation, one vote rule
- leveling of the institutional & expert hierachies of doing
research
- implying anonymisation and limitations to the size of the
application
- a more direct link between researchers, research topics and
people not affiliated with research institutions.
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8. How was it done?
•
•
•
•
•
Core group of volunteers
First round of donations
Launching a co-op (for the next step)
Collaborative design project at demola.fi
Launching a non-profit (ry)
 At least 3 layers of heavily bureaucratic org (co-op, demola
project, non-profit) for the bootstrapping
 At least 3 years of intermittent volunteer work
7.11.2013
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9. Laitoksen nimi
7.11.2013
9

10. Robin Hood Minor Asset Management
The goals:
• Democratization of finance
• “counter investment cooperative of the precariat”
• Create non-wage income
• New forms of organisation
• What brings people together? What is a precarious community?
Solidarity?
• Investigate financial/semiocapitalism
• “Is this art?”
7.11.2013
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11. How was it done?
• Research community on economy and art (Akseli Virtanen)
• Sakari Virkki working on observing Helsinki Stock Exchange
• -> core group of volunteers
• Launching a co-op
• Future Art Base, Aalto University
• Discontinued
 At least 3 layers of persistent and/or heavily bureaucratic
org (research community/activity, co-op, university res
center) for the bootstrapping
 Tens of years of volunteer labour
7.11.2013
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12. Principles?
• Opt-in community
• the community is elsewhere?!
• Nested action & governance (Ostrom 1990)
• Layers of different types of activity
• Most people want the action, but access to governance a condition
• Transparency
• People want/need more info than you have
• Friction with entities not keen on transparency
• Rules (Hess 2008) and more rules…
• for all the layers (different types of participants, co-op, non-profit)
• “the right to devise rules respected by external
authorities”(Ostrom 1990) -> the devising of rules not (obviously)
improper in view of external authorities
-
Compare Stadin Aikapankki and the tax authorities
Department of Art
7.11.2013
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