Publications
Overview of the Publications published by the P2P Foundation or co-authored by P2P Foundation network members
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Our Publications
I. Introduction to P2P and Commons Dynamics
1. Political Economy of Peer Production. Bauwens, M. (2005). The Political Economy of Peer Production. CTheory. PDF
This is the foundational text that offers the definition and first analysis of the meaning of the emergence of peer production, and what it means for our human society and productive capacity. Peer production is essentially about ‘trans-local’ self-organization, a new capacity of humanity to coordinate voluntary work at a global scale. We ask the question of how this new capacity relates to the institutions and practices of the market, capitalism, and the state.
Keywords: #PeerProduction #CollaborativeEconomy #CommonsTheory #DecentralizedGovernance
2. Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy. Bauwens, M.et al. (2012). Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy. P2P Foundation & Orange Labs. PDF
In this report we explore the full set of collaborative economic practices that co-emerged with the internet and the web,, such as: commons-based peer production (Yochai Benkler), wikinomics (Don Tapscott), crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe), open innovation (Henry Chesbrough), and collaborative consumption (Rachel Botsman). We ask: how do these new horizontal practices impact hierarchical corporations and the global economy.
Keywords: #CollaborativeEconomy #PeerProduction #OpenInnovation #CommonsEconomics
3. Commons Transition and P2P Primer. Bauwens, M.et al. (2017). Commons Transition and P2P: A Primer. Transnational Institute (TNI) and P2P Foundation. PDF
In this simplified and illustrated presentation, we summarize the principles and practices of the commons, especially as to how it affects the state and market. The work presents a pioneering transition program that outlines this transformation in political and policy terms, based on the experiences of the P2P Foundation advising the Ecuadorian government, and the city of Ghent.
Keywords: #CommonsTransition #P2PEconomy #SocialGovernance #OpenCooperativism
II. Our Books
1. Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy. Kostakis, V. and Bauwens, M., (2014). Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy. Palgrave Macmillan. PDF
This was the first published book of P2P Foundation authors, in which we outline four potential scenarios for the emergent networked society.
In the first scenario, based on the centralized extraction of peer to peer dynamics in false commons, large corporations extra our data and attention, extracting rent from our own collaboration and exchanges.
In the second scenario, based on the emerging world of crypto and web3, the world and its infrastructures are design to that every citizen becomes an entrepreneur, potentially liberated from the control of big government and big finance
In the third scenario, bottom-up urban and rural commons projects, take control of the provisioning and use of food, transport, housing, etc .. based on the potential of p2p and commons dynamics
In the fourth scenario, global digital commons of knowledge, software and design, create common knowledge and cooperation protocols that allow local projects to scale and cooperate globally.
Bear in mind that these are four worlds that are co-emerging and mixing as we speak, but this is in our view the great ‘infrastructural’ struggle of our age. Which scenario will prevail?
Keywords: #NetworkSociety #CollaborativeEconomy #PeerToPeer #FutureEconomics
2. Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto. Bauwens, M et al. 2019. Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto. London: University of Westminster Press. PDF
What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions this book tries to answer. Peer to peer (P2P) is a type of social relations in human networks, as well as a technological infrastructure that makes the generalization and scaling up of such relations possible. We believe that these four aspects will profoundly change human society. P2P ideally describes systems in which any human being can contribute to the creation and maintenance of a shared resource while benefiting from it. There is an enormous variety of such systems: from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia to free and open-source software projects, to open design and hardware communities, to relocalization initiatives and community currencies. Thus, P2P enables a new mode of production and creates the potential for a transition to a commons-oriented economy.
Keywords: #UrbanCommons #ParticipatoryGovernance #EcologicalEconomy #PublicCommonsPartnership
III. Proposal for Commons Based Policy Transitions
1. Commons Transition Plan (FLOK version). Bauwens, M et al. (2014). The FLOK Report: A Commons Transition Plan for the State of Ecuador. P2P Foundation.PDF
In 2014, three Ecuadorian institutions asked to craft a transition plan towards a commons-centric knowledge society. With a team of six researchers, and after extensive consultations with political and social forces in Ecuador, several reports were published for transitioning different sectors of the Ecuadorian economy and society. Answering such questions as: which knowledge commons should be enabled for the agriculture, educational, industrial sectors, etc …
Keywords: #SocialKnowledge #CommonsEconomy #PeerToPeerPolicy #PartnerState
2. Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent. Bauwens, M., & Onzia, Y. (2017). Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent. P2P Foundation. PDF
In the spring of 2016, the mayor and the city council of Ghent, a city in northern Belgium (the Flanders), asked to craft a commons transition plan for the city. We mapped over 500 initiatives, inquired with 80 founders and leaders of such communities, and held 9 thematic workshops to coalesce their proposals in an integrated plan.
Keywords: #UrbanCommons #SocialEcologicalTransition #CivicEngagement #PublicCommonsPartnerships
3. Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions. Bauwens, M., & Niaros, V. (2017). Urban Commons Transitions. P2P Foundation in cooperation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. PDF
This report explores the revival of urban commons through both grassroots citizen initiatives and innovative municipal administration, focusing on the new regulatory and cooperative arrangements but citizen groups and the public administrations.. It begins by examining the historical and contemporary relationship between cities and the commons, emphasizing the importance of urban commons for achieving a social-ecological transition. The report reviews various grassroots initiatives in both the global north and south, but with a special focus on municipal coalitions in Barcelona, Bologna, Naples, Frome, Ghent, as well as Seoul. It concludes by proposing an institutional framework to support urban commons transitions, addressing how cities can meet new citizen demands, facilitate social-ecological transitions, and implement institutional adaptations to support these roles.
Keywords: #CommonsEconomy #UrbanCommons #PeerProduction #ContributiveEconomy
4. Mutualizing Urban Provisioning Systems Bauwens, M. Kranjc, R & Ramos, J. (2022). Commons Economies in Action. Chapter 16: Sacred Civics, Building Seven Generation Cities. Earthscan. PDF
A review of municipal policies in favor of individual and collective autonomy, through citizen-centric commons initiatives. It updates and expands on previous reports, looking at regulatory innovations such as partner cities, the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons, the quintuple helix governance models in Italy, the promotion of a sharing economy in Seoul, etc ..
Keywords: #Contributory Value ; #Commons Economics ; #P2P Accounting
IV. The shift towards a Contribution-Based Commons Economy
1. Value in the Commons Economy. Bauwens, M., & Niaros, V. (2017). Value in the Commons Economy. P2P Foundation, co-published with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. PDF
Our world faces significant questions about the evolution of value, especially in the context of resource allocation in human societies. This is particularly relevant in our increasingly digitalized and networked societies where knowledge commons play a vital role. Key questions include: What constitutes value in these contexts? How should value be defined in a world with ecological and resource constraints? Can a new value system incorporate diverse social, cultural, and institutional values that are often overlooked by traditional systems?
Keywords: #Distributed Ledgers ; #P2P Accounting; Perma-Circularity ; #Protocol Cooperatives; #Thermodynamic Accounting; #Multi-Capitalism
2. P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival. Bauwens, M. & Pazaitis A. (2019). P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival: Towards a P2P Infrastructure for a Socially Just Circular Society. Foreword by Kate Raworth. P2P Foundation. PDF
With the creation of a universal ledger, i.e. originally the blockchain associated with the creation of the Bitcoin currency, we now have an open global accounting system which can allow multiple agents to coordinate their economic and social and labor activities in a shared system. This is in contrast to the closed accounting systems of corporations and states, which are only able to see their own profit, but not the impact on ecosystems and human and non-human communities. In addition, the peer production and crypto networks that are using these new methods of economic coordination are inventing a new accounting system that can account for 1) contributory value and negative impact ; 2) the real thermo-dynamic, i.e. matter and energy flows, and 3) how their transactions take place in a open collaborative network. This is creating a economic and societal revolution that allows for ‘context-based sustainability’., allowing human groups and individuals to make decisions that take into account the natural limits of the planet.
Keywords: #Commons Economics ; #Thermodynamics of Peer Production ; #Biophysical Economy; #Resource-Balanced Economy ; #Contributory Economy ; #Valuing Care
3. Introduction to Commons Economics Bauwens, M. Kranjc, R & Ramos, J. (2022). Introduction to Commons Economics. P2P Foundation. PDF
This report outlines ‘principles of operation’ that should be at the basis of a new type of economics that takes into account the natural economy, abundant, renewable and self-growing resources, and not just scarce resources subject to a tension between supply and demand. Commons economics should be 1) biophysical 2) based on ‘abundance’ engineering rather than scarcity engineering 3) recognize contributions (and impact), 4) recognize commons-based practices and institutions, etc … For each of these seven principles we highlight really existing examples undertaken by pioneering production communities.
Keywords: #Thermodynamics of Peer Production ; #Biophysical Accounting ; #Resource-Balanced Economy ; #Commons Economics
V. Cosmo-Localization: Producing for Human Needs while Respecting the Planet and Life
1. Thermodynamic Perspectives on Peer to Peer and the Commons as a Path Towards Transition. Piques, C. & Rizos, X. (2017). Peer to Peer and the Commons: a path towards transition. A matter, energy and thermodynamic perspective. P2P Foundation. PDF
The first volume of this research explores how scientists and thinkers have come to realize that thermodynamics teaches us that economic theory must take into consideration the constraints of our ecosystem. It also articulates why contrary to what classical economics implies, the possibility to decouple growth from resource use is a myth, and why the commons and commons-based peer production are the right paradigms for the new economy. The second volume surveys current practices in agro-economics and the dynamics of resource replenishment. It is also a basis for undertaking a future structural analysis of the thermodynamics of relocalization. It shows scenarios applied to food and fiber, non-renewable resources, and energy, how the commons economy helps us overcome the impasse of unlimited growth.
Keywords: #Cosmo-Localism ; #Subsidiarity of Material Production ; #What is heavy is local, what is light is global and shared
2. Cosmo-Local Reader. Bauwens, M. et al. (2021). Cosmo-Local Reader. P2P Foundation / Futures Lab. PDF
“‘What is heavy is local and what is light is global and shared’. This is the new principle of production which combines localized and mutualized production for human need, with cooperation at the global scale through knowledge commons. This report presents 40 global case studies of applications of this principle in really-existing projects, but also a historical and theoretical perspective of why this is a necessary next step for human civilization. It contains the seminal essay, The Pulsation of the Commons which highlights the crucial historical role of the commons as regenerative institution.
Keywords: #Cosmolocalism #PeerProduction #GenerativeJustice #CommonsEconomy #OpenInnovation #CollaborativeEconomy
Access to the key essay: Pulsation of the Commons
Placing the Commons in a Temporal Framework: The Commons as a Planetary Regeneration Mechanism. By Michel Bauwens and Jose Ramos.
Narrative Overview
Michel Bauwens:
"I am summarizing the fifteen years of research efforts we have undertaken through the P2P Foundation, and in which I have been personally involved as author and researcher.
The context is the following. After a career that ended with the creation of digital startups in the nineties, and working as director of strategy for digital adaptation for a large telco in Belgium, I had come to the conclusion that all the markers of our global civilization were moving in the negative direction, that something had to be done, and that in my corporate context, I would be more part of the problem than part of the solution. But what was the best way to change a society ? The classic Marxist scenario of taking political power to drive through what turned out to be authoritarian and top-down imposed change obviously did not offer a satisfactory solution, and was likely worse even than a status quo. So the first step was to undertake a two year sabbatical to study civilizational change. Of course, two years is an awfully short time for such a weighty subject but bear in mind I had some decades of societal reading behind my belt already.
My first conclusion was that the scenario of political revolution was very exceptional, even in the ‘capitalist revolutions’ that upended feudalism, and that in any case, where they occurred, they had been preceded by centuries of structural change. My conclusion tended to focus around the concept of seed forms. Basically, when the old societal logic stops functioning, and society fragments, more and more people seek solutions outside of the former institutional logic, and it is this experimental seeking of adaptive solutions that create the new logic. Bear in mind the systemic logic of a succession of relatively stable systems, followed by periods of ‘chaotic transition’ (which in some cases turn out to be long-lasting dark ages), followed by a new consolidation), which then lead to a new relatively stable system. Another way to look at it is to analyze the transition in terms of an exodus out of the old categories (such as classes), which ends up in a new consolidation. For example, there was an exodus from Roman slaveholders and slaves, towards feudal lords and serfs, and in a next transition, towards capital owners and workers. But the key is the seed forms.
In the transition from feudalism to capitalism, this would have been ideological hacks such as purgatory, which allowed Christians to lend money without going to hell; the invention of the printing press, which destroyed the monopoly on knowledge of the Catholic Church; and the invention of double entry accounting, which facilitated the creation of entrepreneurial entities. One way to say this is that there would be no capitalism without capitalists, i.e. a merchant class which over time, created a society at their image; similarly, I would posit that today, a commons-centric society may result from the efforts of digital and cosmo-local commoners to create a society at their image. Around this change in practices, and social desires and imaginaries, changing jurisdictional alliances will eventually lead to a new institutional order. In this process, we go from adaptive experimentation, to the creation of subsystems which connect to each other, and to eventually a qualitative change through which this subsystem becomes the dominant system. During this sabbatical, but following many years of working as a strategic and scenario planner, I also consolidated my vision that this time around, the seed forms were centered around the social ‘peer to peer’ logic of trans-local cooperation through digital networks, which created the possibility of producing powerful commons of knowledge, software, and design, which had the capacity to create trans-local value systems.
Here are a number of other ‘finds’, that I made during this period, and which you can find by looking at the summary document called, ‘Sources of Peer to Peer Theory’: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Sources_of_P2P_Theory
It may be fruitfully combined with the specialized bibliography of commons literature, entitled, ‘What You Should Read To Understand the Commons, here at https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/What_You_Should_Read_To_Understand_the_Commons
Here are some major theoretical finds of this early period, which changed my understanding:
A shift in analysis of historical change from dominant modes of production to modes of exchange. These findings follow the relational grammar of Alan Page Fiske (Structures of Social Life), the historicization of these dynamics by Kojin Karatani (in his Structure of World History), the institutional grammar of David Ronfeldt (Tribes, Institutions, Markets and Networks), as well as the views of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler (Capital as Power).
· This work resulted in a first book, Network Society and Four Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy, which proposed four concurrent outcomes, namely
o netarchical capitalism, a centralized control of such networks, with a shift of capitalism towards neo-feudal ‘rent’ income, resulting in a value crisis resulting from the exploitation of unpaid contributory work and which massively uses the productivity of the open-source revolution;
o distributed capitalism, which has now become the crypto-economy and creates trans-local ecosystems of coordination and that aim to create functional equivalences to a world state;
o a revival of relocalized urban commons based on the mutualization of provisioning systems;
o and the emergence of global open-source communities.
We documented these projects and experiences in a massive database now containing 25,000 articles (https:wiki.p2pfoundation.net)
· In the process of achieving this first synthesis, we undertook an in-depth observatory and analytical work around open-source peer production in knowledge, software and design; on urban commons, i.e. the mutualization of relocalized provisioning systems as a reaction to the crisis of 2008 (finding a tenfold expansion in a decade), and the emerging open systems of collaboration developed by both peer production and crypto-centric communities.
The open-source movement created a globally scalable cooperation model to create massively shared knowledge commons which are at the basis of huge technological and societal creations, which dwarf the capacities of states and corporations. These productive communities operate ‘stigmergically’, i.e. through mutual signaling in open ecosystems.
But after 2008, and the massive unemployment this created including in the advanced countries, this led to an explosion, i.e. a tenfold increase in the number of initiatives, in urban commoning. With these models, groups of citizens or consumers ally with producers to create commons-centric ecosystems of collaboration, and take control of provisioning systems for food, transport, housing, etc. .. achieving massive gains in the use of matter and energy in the process. The evolution went from the mutualization of consumption, to actual models of cosmo-local production, i.e. the commons-centrical creation of value.
Finally, the crypto movement created socially sovereign currencies outside of the state and banking apparatus, which allowed shared production in open ecosystems, which for the first time allowed a direct coordination of allocation and economic production, using various new accounting technologies for mutual coordination.
This work resulted in policy initiatives, i.e. we were called by three governmental institutions in Ecuador to write up a Commons Transitions Plan for a ‘Free, Libre, Open, Knowledge Society (2014), and by the city of Ghent to undertake the formulation of a urban Commons Transition Plan (2016). We were later asked to do a synthetic overview of urban commons policies for the city of Seoul. This means an expansion from the analysis of the institutional logic internal to the commons, to the link with policy and public institutions; while at the same time, looking at the generative or extractive logic of the entrepreneurial coalitions that work around and with these emerging commons.
· This led us to a next stage of work in which we looked at environmental and social constraints. We analyzed the value dynamics (Report: Value in the Commons Society), which we call ‘contributory’: this means we believe that we are transitioning from a system based on commodity-value, centered around scarce goods, to a system based on contributory value, i.e. the joint creation of commons which allow interdependent entrepreneurial activities to occur.
We then examined the ‘Thermodynamics of Peer Production’ after a study of biophysical economists; and looked at the emergent responses to the ecological crisis and the problem of value distribution. The key question here is how can humanity attend to its vital needs and cultural evolution, in a way which doesn’t require us to overshoot natural boundaries, and destroy the ecological balance of the planet. The thermodynamics of peer production, through the mutualization of provisioning systems, can achieve a Factor 20 Reduction in the use of matter and energy by humanity.
The report P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival, looks at emerging post-capitalist accounting systems, nl. the contributory accounting practices in peer production communities (P2P Value), the flow accounting within the entrepreneurial coalitions in open source or crypto production (f.e. the Resources, Events, Agents REA protocol), and crucially, the matter/energy accounting systems that can be integrated into such flow accounting, with particular attention to practices such as Musiasem, and R30’s ‘Global Thresholds and Allocations’ proposals. Contributory accounting allows such communities to recognize all those that create value for the network, even if they don’t directly realize market value, but help indirectly to achieve it; flow accounting allows to see value flows in a three-dimensional ecosystem, integrating all the players, permanent and temporary; Finally, the direct visualization of matter and energy, allows for the use of resources within established parameters. This is addressed by the proposal (and experimental practice) for a Global Threshold and Allocation Council, which is a scientific council which tracks the availability of resources, their bio circularity (re-use capacity), and the negative pivots that would create supply crisis through overuse.
Around that time, we organized, under the umbrella of the Commons Strategies Group which I co-created, deep dive dialogues with the degrowth movement. We also looked at the various forms of impact accounting, such as the Common Good Economy.
· If the tenfold increase in urban commoning was mostly focused on mutualizing consumptive practices, in the case of first energy and food/agriculture, productive coalitions started to take shape, which we call ‘Cosmo-Local Production’. In this modality, networked coalitions of producers, suppliers and consumers relocalize material productive activities, sometimes with distributed manufacturing technology, but combine this with global open designs, trans-local ‘protocol cooperatives’ which manage translocal cooperation and coordination. In some cases, local ‘quintuple helix’ coalitions are involved in the support mechanisms, led by local authorities. We published the Cosmo-Local Reader, which highlights 40 cases studies of modes of value creation in which ‘the heavy is local, and what is light is global and shared’.
- Relocalizes production closer to human need, thereby saving vast amounts of resources that are currently used for transportation
- Uses circular economy techniques, biodegradable raw materials, production on demand, eventually using distributed manufacturing models, based on shared open designs, free software, etc..
- May use cooperative or regenerative institutional and economic models
- Cooperate on a translocal and transnational scale using global for-benefit associations which protect the joint code, enable cooperation through standard protocols, etc
· My essay in this collection is called the Pulsation of the Commons and defends a historical hypothesis that commons re-emerge during the declining B-phases of various societal cycles. This is based on a thorough review of macrohistorians, world-systems analysis, and Big History, particularly augmented with the material from the Russian school which publishes the Evolutionary Almanac and the Kondratiev Almanac, with the synthetic work of Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev, around the common ‘evolutionary’ multilinear dynamics and ‘emergent complexity’ phase transitions in the organizational forms governing matter, life, and culture. We rely heavily on the empirical research of Mark Whitaker, and his in-depth look at societal transformations in Ancient China, Medieval Japan, and post-Roman Europe. (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Political_Origins_of_Environmental_Degradation_and_the_Environmental_Origins_of_Axial_Religions )
· Finally, this has led me to my current project, nl. a Synthesis of Mutual Coordination Economics. This work is intended,
- after a historical review of the failed cybernetic planning in the Soviet Union, the Cybersin experiment, the Yugoslav and Chinese experiences, the planning experiences of Multinational Corporations;
- followed by a look at the record of the current market-centric societies and their more state-sovereigntist rivals (following the analysis of Michael Hudson in the Destiny of Civilization).
- and to contrast these with the newly developing capacities of the mutual coordination economy, i.e. the open source and crypto-based models of global cooperation
The not so immodest aim is to arrive at scenarios for the optimal coordination of various allocation methodologies, but under the umbrella of translocal and commons-centric global Magisteria of the Commons, which would have the power to constrain the resource usage of productive entities worldwide. This, in our opinion, would address the contemporary ‘commons gap’ which exists at a translocal scale. With the societal reform and transformation blocked at the nation-state level, due to the excessive power of financial rentiers, we believe the constitution of a transnational power bloc of productive commons-centric civic alliances, will be an essential part of creating a counterpower that can operate for systemic change at the translocal level. The aim of this work is to look at the optimal combination of the institutions and practices of the state, the market, and the commons, in a translocal commons-centric world regime that protects the regenerative capacity of non-human matter and life. In this model, the coercive protective capacity allows for the maximum amounts of freedom within the limit of the non-destruction of planetary capacity."
(https://4thgenerationcivilization.substack.com/p/what-we-can-learn-from-seed-forms)