Law of Equivalence

= as applied in the ranking of human relations

Discussion

Michel Bauwens:

"Capitalism uses market pricing to compare goods, but this ‘law of equivalence’, also allows us to compare people according to various external criteria and this rankism has been one of the key characteristics of modernity.

Peer to peer relationaly, by contrast, is based on the principle of Equipotentiality:

“This means that everyone can potentially cooperate in a project, that no authority can pre-judge the ability to cooperate, but that the quality of cooperation-through-contributions is then judged by the community of peers, i.e. through Communal Validation. In equipotential projects, participants self-select themselves to the module to which they feel able to contribute.” Persons are therefore seen as a varied collection of capacities, in some of which the person can excell over some others, but there is no overall ranking as compared to others.

The law of equivalence, which has dominated the modern period, is explained very well by anthropologist Harry Walker in this talk on the “Anthropology of the Common” (see [1])