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| '''''On "the P2P relational dynamic" as the premise of the next civilizational stage'''''
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| Author: [[Michel Bauwens]]
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| The essay is an emanation of the Foundation for P2P Alternatives, 2005;
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| it was written after several months of collaboration with Remi Sussan.
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| This copy is based on Draft 2.014, of July 3 2005.
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| In 2017, it was reformatted for the wiki, with a few small corrections.
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|
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| http://www.networkcultures.org/weblog/archives/P2P_essay.pdf (pdf);
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| http://noosphere.cc/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.P2pEvolution (wiki)
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| ==Table of Contents==
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|
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| 0. Executive Summary — below
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| 1. Introduction
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| 1.A. What this essay is about
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| 1.B. The use of a integral framework
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| 1.C. The Sociology of Form
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| 1.D. Some acknowledgments
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| 2. P2P as the Technological Framework of Cognitive Capitalism
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| 2.1.A. Defining P2P as the relational dynamic of distributed networks
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| 2.1.B. The emergence of peer to peer as technological infrastructure
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| 2.1.C. The construction of an alternative media infrastructure
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| 2.1.D. P2P as a global platform for autonomous cooperation
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| 2.2. Explaining the Emergence of P2P technology
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| 2.3.A. Placing P2P in the context of the evolution of technology
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| 2.3.B. P2P and Technological Determinism
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| 3. P2P in the Economic Sphere
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| 3.1.A. Peer production as a third mode of production and new commons-based property regime
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| 3.1.B. The Communism of Capital, or, the cooperative nature of cognitive capitalism
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| 3.1.C. The Hacker Ethic or ‘work as play’
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| 3.2 Explaining the Emergence of P2P Economics
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| 3.2.A. Advantages of the free software/open sources production model
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| 3.3 Placing the P2P Era in an evolutionary framework
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| 3.3.A. The evolution of cooperation: from neutrality to synergetics
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| 3.3.B. The Evolution of Collective Intelligence
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| 3.3.C. Beyond Formalization, Institutionalization, Commodification
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| 3.3.D. The Evolution of Temporality: towards an Integral Time
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| 3.4 Placing P2P in an intersubjective typology
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| 3.4.A. P2P, The Gift Economy and Communal Shareholding
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| 3.4.B. P2P and the Market
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| 3.4.C. P2P and the Commons
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| 3.4.D. Who rules? Cognitive capitalists, the vectoral class, or netocrats?
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| 3.4.E. The emergence of a netarchy
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| 4. P2P in the Political Sphere
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| 4.1.A. The Alterglobalisation Movement
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| 4.1.B. The ‘Coordination’ format
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| 4.1.C. New conceptions of social and political struggle
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| 4.1.D. New lines of contention: Information Commons vs. New Enclosures
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| 4.2.A. De-Monopolization of Power
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| 4.2.B. Equality, Hierarchy, Freedom
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| 4.3. Evolutionary Conceptions of Power and Hierarchy
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| 5. The Discovery of P2P principles in the Cosmic Sphere
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| 6. P2P in the Sphere of Culture and Self
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| 6.1.A. A new articulation between the individual and the collective
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| 6.1.B. Towards ‘contributory’ dialogues of civilizations and religions
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| 6.1.C. Participative Spirituality and the Critique of Spiritual Authoritarianism
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| 6.1.D. Partnering with nature and the cosmos
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| 7. P2P and Social Change
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| 7.1.A. Marginal trend or premise of new civilization?
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| 7.1.B. P2P, Postmodernity, Cognitive Capitalism: within and beyond
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| 7.1.C. Three scenarios of co-existence
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| 7.1.D. Possible political strategies
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| Appendix 1. Launch of The Foundation for P2P Alternatives
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| Appendix 2: The P2P Meme Map
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| Appendix 3: Reactions to the Essay: Kudo's
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY
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| <div class="noautonum">__TOC__</div>
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| =0. Executive Summary=
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| Peer to Peer is mostly known to technologically-oriented people as P2P, the decentralized
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| form of putting computers together for different kind of cooperative endeavours, such as
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| filesharing and music distribution. But this is only a small example of what P2P is: it's in fact
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| a template of human relationships, a "relational dynamic" which is springing up throughout
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| the social fields. The aim of this essay is to describe and explain the emergence of this
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| dynamic as it occurs, and to place it in an evolutionary framework of the evolution of modes
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| of civilization. We emit the hypothesis that it both the necessary infrastructure of the current
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| phase of 'cognitive capitalism', but at the same time, significantly transcends it thus pointing
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| out the possibility of a new social formation that would be based on it in an even more intense
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| manner. In chapter one, you will find an initial definition, an explanation of our methodology
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| for research, and some acknowledgements. The structure of the chapters consists of 3 parts: a
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| phenomenological description of the emergence of this social form in a particular field, an
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| explanation of this emergence based on the relative advantages of the format, and a discussion
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| of the succession of different phases in the evolution of this sphere.
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| After a first initial definition of the peer to peer format, we start describing the emergence of
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| P2P as the dominant mode, or 'form', of our current technological infrastructure (chapter two),
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| as an alternative information and communication infrastructure, and as a global platform for
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| potentially autonomous cooperation on the basis of rapidly evolving forms of 'social
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| software'. We then describe its emergence in the economic sphere (chapter three), as a 'third
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| mode of production', neither profit-driven nor centrally planned, but as a decentralized
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| cooperative way of producing software (free software and open source movements), and other
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| immaterial products, based on the free cooperation of 'equipotential' participants. It uses
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| copyright and intellectual propery rights to transcend the very limitations of property, because
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| in free software, if you use it, you have to give at least the same rights to those who will use
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| your modified version, and in open sources, you have to give them equal access to the source
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| code.
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| Such commons-based peer production has other important innovations, such as it taking place
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| without the intervention of any manufacturer whatsoever. In fact the growing importance of
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| 'user innovation communities' (section 3.1.B), which are starting to surpass the role of
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| corporate sponsored marketing and research divisions in their innovation capacities, show that
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| this formula is poised for expansion even in the world of material production, provided the
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| design phase is separated from the production phase. It is already producing major cultural
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| and economic landmarks such as GNU/Linux, the Wikipedia encyclopedia, the Thinkcycle
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| global cooperative research projects, and a Writeable Web/Participative Internet/Global
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| Alternative Communications infrastructure that can be used by all, beyond the corporate
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| stranglehold on mass media. Finally, CBPP exemplifies a new work culture (section 3.1.C),
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| that overturns many aspects of the Protestant work ethic as described by Max Weber. It is
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| based on new temporal conceptions as well. In chapter three, we also discuss the evolution of
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| forms of cooperation (3.4.A), and of collective intelligence (3.4.B). It is also here that we are
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| starting to address key analytical issues: what are the specific characteristics of the ideal-type
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| of the P2P form (3.4.C), namely de-institutionalisation (beyond fixed organizational formats
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| and fixed formal rules), de-monopolisation (avoid the emergence of collective individuals
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| who monopolise power, such as nation-state and corporation), and de-commodification (i.e.
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| production for use-value, not exchange value); Using the fourfold typology of intersubjective
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| relations proposed by anthropologist Alan Page Fiske, we examine the differences between
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| P2P and the bottom-up market, then demonstrate that the format cannot be explained by the
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| gift economy model of equal sharing and 'exchange of similar values', but rather by a model
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| of communal shareholding (section 3.4.D), i.e. the creation of a Commons based on free
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| participation both regarding input, and output (free usage even by non-producers). Finally, we
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| end this third chapter by an analysis of the contermporary class configuration: we pay
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| attention to the current power structure of cognitive capitalism, with a discussion of the thesis
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| of McKenzie Wark's Hacker's Manifesto (section 3.4.E.) but conclude that both the
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| hypothesis of cognitive capitalism (accumulation of knowledge assets) and vectoralism
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| (ownership of information vectors) are inadequate and that we have to posit the birth of a new
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| capitalist class segment, the netarchists, based not on the control or ownership of information,
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| but on the enabling and exploitation of the participatory networks themselves.
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| We then turn to its political manifestations, and describe how P2P is emerging as a new form
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| of political organisation and sensibility, already exemplified in the workings of the
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| alterglobalisation movement (section 4.1.A.) which is a network of networks that refuses the
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| principle of 'representation', i.e. that someone else can represent your interests. In France, the
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| recent social movements since 1995 were led by "Coordinations" exemplifying exactly this
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| sort of practice (section 4.1.B). Thus the birth of new political conceptions such as those of
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| 'absolute democracy' (Negri et al.) or 'extreme democracy' (Tom Attlee et al.). A new field of
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| struggle arises (section 4.1.C), based on the defense and development of an Information
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| Commons, against the corporate strategies who are trying to replace this 'free culture'
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| (Lawrence Lessig) by a form of 'information feudalism' (described by Jeremy Rifkin in The
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| Age of Access). We then examine the evolution of the monopolization of power (4.2.A.), the
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| relations between the political ideals of freedom, equality, and hierarchy, and their practice in
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| P2P (4.2.B), and place this discussion in the context of the general evolution of power and
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| authority models (4.2.C)
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| Chapter 5 discusses the discovery of P2P principles at work in physics, and in particularly
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| in the physics of organisation, as developed by network theory, and its concept of 'small
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| worlds', and hierarchical vs. egalitarian networks. We discuss various subtopics such as the
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| 'long tail in marketing', and the mathematical laws of networks as explained by David Reed.
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| In chapter 6, we turn our attention to the cultural sphere. We claim and explain that the
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| various expressions of P2P are a sympton of a profound cultural shift in the spheres of
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| epistemology (ways of knowing) and of ontology (ways of feeling and being), leading to a
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| new articulation between the individual and the collective (6.1.A), representing a true epochal
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| shift. We then look at the spiritual field and how this affects the dialogue of civilizations and
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| religions away from euro- and other exclusionist views in culture and religions (6.1.B); as
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| well as to a critique of spiritual authoritarianism and the emergence of cooperative inquiry
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| groups and participatory spirituality conceptions (6.1.C), as theorized in particular by John
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| Heron and Jorge Ferrer. The new ideas related to cosmology and metaphysics are explained in
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| 6.1.D., centered aroud the demise of the subject-object paradigm in favour of partnership-based visions of our relationships with matter and nature.
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| What does it all mean in terms of social change? In chapter 7 we examine if all of the above is
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| just a collection of perhaps unrelated marginal trends, or rather, the view we espouse,
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| represents the birth of a new and coherent social formation (section 7.1.A). In section 7.1.B
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| we examine how P2P relates to the current system of cognitive capitalism (economics) or
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| 'post' or 'late modernity' (cultural sphere), concluding that it is both within and beyond. Three
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| scenarios are described (7.1.C): peaceful and complementary co-existence, the emergence of a
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| cooperative civilization, and the destruction of P2P in the context of information feudalism.
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| All of this leads us to concluding remarks on possible political strategies (7.1.D) to defend
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| and expand P2P models, and to the principles behind the launch of a Foundation for P2P
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| Alternatives (chapter 8).
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| =Appendix 1. Launch of The Foundation for P2P Alternatives=
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| We are now reaching the conclusion of our essay. If I have been successful the reader has a
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| descriptive, explanatory, and historical view of its emergence and potential.
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| Of course my purpose is also political. I believe that a P2P-based civilization, or at least one
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| that has much stronger elements of it compared with today, would be a better civilization,
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| more apt to tackle the global challenges that we are facing. This is why I propose that this
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| essay is not just part of a process of understanding, but that it can be a guide to an active
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| participation in the transformation of our world, into something better, more participative,
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| more free, more creative.
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| I therefore announce the creation of a Foundation for P2P Alternatives.
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| It would be centered
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| around the following conclusions, the support for which you can find in the essay:
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| * that technology reflects a change of consciousness towards participation, and in turn strengthens it
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| * that the networked format, expressed in the specific manner of peer to peer relations, is a new form of political organizing and subjectivity, and an alternative for the political/economic order, which though it does not offer solutions per se, points the way to a variety of dialogical and self-organising formats to device different processes for arriving at such solutions; it ushers in a era of ‘nonrepresentational democracy’, where an increasing number of people are able to manage their social and productive life through the use of a variety of networks and peer circles that it creates a new public domain, an information commons, which should be protected and extended, especially in the domain of common knowledge creation; and that this domain, where the cost of reproducing knowledge is near zero, requires fundamental changes in the intellectual property regime, as reflected by new forms such as the free software movement
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| * that the principles developed by the free software movement, in particular the General Public Licence, provides for models that could be used in other areas of social and productive life
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| * that it reconnects with the older traditions and attempts for a more cooperative social order, but this time obviates the need for authoritarianism and centralization; it has the potential of showing that the new egalitarian digital culture, is connected to the older traditions of cooperation of the workers and peasants, and to the search for an engaged and meaningful life as expressed in one’s work, which becomes an expression of individual and collective creativity, rather than as a salaried means of survival
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| * that it offers youth a vision of renewal and hope, to create a world that is more in tune with their values; that it creates a new language and discourse in tune with the new historical phase of ‘cognitive capitalism’; P2P is a language which every ‘digital youngster’ can understand
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| * it combines subjectivity (new values), intersubjectivity (new relations), objectivity (an enabling technology) and interobjectivity (new forms of organization) that mutually strengthen each other in a positive feedback loop, and it is clearly on the offensive and growing, but lacking ‘political self-consciousness’.
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| The Foundation for P2P Alternatives would address the following issues:
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| * P2P currently exists in discrete separate movements and projects but these different movements are often unaware of the common P2P ethos that binds them thus, there is a need for a common initiative, which 1) brings information together; 2) connects people and mutually informs them 3) strives for integrative insights coming from the many subfields; 4) can organize events for reflection and action; 5) can educate people about critical and creative tools for world-making
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| * the Foundation would be a matrix or womb which would inspire the creation and linking of other nodes active in the P2P field, organized around topics and common interests, locality, and any form of identity and organization which makes sense for the people involved
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| * the zero node website would have a website with directories, an electronic newsletter and blog, and a magazine.
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| =Appendix 2: The P2P Meme Map=
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| (read the table from the bottom up)
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| Compiled by Michel Bauwens, June 30, 2005
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| Level one represents the cultural shift in ways of being, feeling and knowing, as well as the
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| new core value constellations that underpin the shift to a peer to peer civilization.
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| Level two represents the technological distributed computing infrastructure, the P2P media
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| infrastructure which enables many-to-many communication, and the collaborative
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| infrastructure which allows autonomous groups to cooperate on a global scale, outside the
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| bounds of markets and hierarchies.
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| Level three represents the legal infrastructure. The General Public License (and Open Source
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| initiatives), which creates and expands the P2P technological infrastructure as a public
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| domain Commons; Creative Commons licenses achieve the same effect for content creation.
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| Technological protocols such as TCP/IP insure the participative nature of new technologies,
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| while P2P collectives set their own internally-generated frameworks of cooperation, within
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| the broader framework of internet-based civility (netiquette). Taking together they create a
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| common property regime of public goods outside the market and the state.
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| Level 4 represents new social practices that are thoroughly characterized by P2P principles (as
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| distinguished from non-P2P formats enabled by P2P infrastructures). The first strand is
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| represented by 'non-representational politics', politics which refuses representation, as
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| exemplified by the alterglobalisation movement and Social Forums, the coordination format
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| adopted by social movements. Peer production creates collective use value in the form of a
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| Commons, and is exemplified by free software, knowledge collectives such as Wikipedia,
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| collaborative publishing such as Indymedia. Participative spirituality represents a new way of
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| relating to religions, the cosmos, and nature and its beings, refusing authoritarian truths and
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| methods, sometimes practiced in the form of peer circles.
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| Level 5 are practices that are not full P2P themselves, but are enabled and strengthened by
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| P2P infrastructures: examples are P2P marketplaces which do not create a commons and are
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| run by for-profit enterprises, or who derive substantial value from user-created content
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| ('netarchical' enterprises who enable and exploit participative networks); gift economies or
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| sharing economies (the latter defined by Yochai Benkler), such as local exchange trading
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| systems and local currencies.
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| {| class="wikitable"
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| |-
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| # Empire/cognitive capitalism rests on distributed networking but instrumentalises it for domination
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| # P2P-based marketplaces and Long Tail economics: eBay, Zopa, self-publishing; supply and demand meat each other through the internet; creating millions of sustainable micro-markets
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| # Netarchical value creation / for-profit enablement and exploitation of participative networks: positive externalities of P2P create value for new type of businesses: Amazon customer evaluations, Google page ranking based on user linking; user-centric innovation; users create substantial content for the portals
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| # Bottom of the pyramid development schemes (Prahalad); microcredit (collective credit applications); citizen to citizen (edge to edge) development schemes (Jock Gill)
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| # Gift and sharing economy practices are enabled by P2P infrastructures: open money and local currency schemes, local exchange trading systems (LETS); carpooling becomes economical with distributed infrastructures; nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurships are enabled. Lower transactional costs strengthen enable fairer trade and economics
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| |-
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| |align="center"|
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| Level 5: P2P-ENABLED PRACTICES
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| |-
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| 1.A. Non-representational politics: networked alterglobalism, coordination formats for social
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| struggles, conceptual innovation of multitudes (Negri), creation as resistance (Benasayag),
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| revolution without power (Holloway)
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| <div style="text-align:center">=> CREATION OF ABSOLUTE DEMOCRACY MODELS</div>
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| 1.B. Autonomous social and cultural practices: internet-based affinity groups, self-help and
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| mutual support groups, non-expert dominated knowledge creation, validation, and exchange,
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| filesharing; open science projects and open access to scientific publications
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| => CREATION OF THE INFORMATION COMMONS
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| 2. Peer production (also called, Commons-Based Peer Production CBPP): Free software and
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| open source software (also called Free/Libre Open Source Software FLOSS): GNU/Linux;
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| Knowledge collectives: Wikipedia, Collaborative Media: Indymedia
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| => THIRD MODE OF PRODUCTION CREATES FOR-BENEFIT SECTOR
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| 3. Participatory spirituality: non-representational dialogue of religion, contributory theology,
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| cooperative inquiry practices (John Heron), plural mysticism (Jorge Ferrer), peer circles
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|
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| => PLURALISTIC CONTRIBUTORY SPIRITUALITY
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| |-
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| |align="center"|
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| NON-REPRESENTATIONAL POLITICS & AUTONOMOUS SOCIAL ORGANISATION //
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| PEER PRODUCTION // PARTICIPATORY SPIRITUALITY
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| Level 4: DIRECT P2P PRACTICES
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| # New Common Property Regime: General Public License, Open Source Initiative, Creative Commons, Art libre License allow for creation that cannot be privately appropriated
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| # Participative Technological Protocols: TCP/IP protocol for P2P communication, Writeable Web protocols allow self-publishing by everyone, Viral Communicator Meshwork protocols enable network building without infrastructures and backbones: Open Spectrum proposal would create Wireless Commons
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| # Participative Social Protocols: netiquette, project constitutions, social accounting and reputation-based schemes create transparency, participation capture turns self-interest into common resources
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| |-
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| NEW COMMON PROPERTY REGIME // PARTICIPATIVE TECHNOLOGICAL
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| PROTOCOLS // PARTICIPATIVE SOCIAL PROTOCOLS
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| |-
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| Level 3: P2P LEGAL INFRASTRUCTURE
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| 1.A. Distributed computing infrastructure (hardware): Internet, Grid Computing,
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| Filesharing, Wireless Meshwork, Viral Communicators
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| 1.B. Free Software / Open source software infrastructure: GNU/Linux, OS Desktop
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| applications, OS content management software, OS communication tools
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| 2. Distributed media infrastructure: Blogging (Writeable Web), Podcasting (audio),
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| Webcasting (broadband audiovisual)
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| 3. Distributed collaboration infrastructure: Wiki's, social software, groupware
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| DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING // DISTRIBUTED MEDIA // DISTRIBUTED
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| COLLOBARATION
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| Level two: P2P TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
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| |-
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| # New ways of feeling and being: participative cosmologies, the relational self,cooperative individualism
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| # New ways of knowing: connectivist learning, communal (not institutional) validation of knowledge, transparency (not objectivity)
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| # Primacy of Equality/freedom, the hacker ethic of self-unfolding 'passion-based' cooperation, abundance over scarcity, participation over exclusion, meritocratic servant leadership by example, coordination instead of command and control
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| # Desire for P2P Civilisation to be defined by: 1) Absolute Democracy: participation of all extended to all areas of social life, not just politics; a Pluralist Economy with a strong Commons sector along with a reformed market and state; a Participative Universe based on partnership with nature and its beings
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| |-
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| '''P2P ONTOLOGY // P2P EPISTEMOLOGY // P2P AXIOLOGY'''
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| (New ways of feeling and being // New ways of knowing // New core value constellation and
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| aspirations)
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| Level one: P2P CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS AND VALUE FIELD
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| |}
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| =Appendix 3: Reactions to the Essay: Kudo's=
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| ==A compilation of positive reactions on this essay and its expression of the P2P 'meme':==
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| '''George Dafermos, at http://radio.weblogs.com/0117128/'''
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| "Michel Bauwens is the author of the most visionary piece on peer-to-peer I've ever read,
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| published his much-awaited new essay on P2P, entitled P2P and Human Evolution: p2p as
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| the premise of a new mode of civilization. As expected, his excellent and
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| path-breaking
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| treatise is all-encompassing, critically exploring P2P in all its possible manifestations and
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| linkages, that is, with respect to its political, social, economic, spiritual, cultural, and
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| technological implications. It is at the intersections of all these spheres and their interactions
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| that P2P holds the potential to emerge as the basis of the new civilisation premised on
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| self-realisation, autonomy, creation, eros, and sharing. It's either that or a return to barbarism,
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| writes Bauwens. Read on and marvel at the mental syntheses that this essay invokes."
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|
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| '''Peer to Peer weblog / Unmediated at http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000653037158/ '''
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|
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| "Michel Bauwens has written a phenomenal essay entitled P2P and Human Evolution:
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| Placing Peer to Peer Theory in an Integral Framework. It's long and much of it goes far over
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| my head, but reads like a P2P manifesto” Bauwens even concludes by calling it a guide to an
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| active participation in the transformation of our world, into something better, more
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| participative, more free, more creative. Really quite fascinating."
| |
|
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| '''Integral Foresight Institute, Chris Stewart'''
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|
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| "What Michael Bauwens has achieved in a very short space fullfills the same function as the
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| Communist Manifesto once did: a call for a worldwide movement for social and political
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| change, firmly rooted in the objective and subjective changes of contempary society, and
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| articulated as a practical and insightful model of human value and power relations that is
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| ahead of its time. If we listen more carefully to Bauwens than we ever did Marx, however, it
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| just might lead to a smooth evolution for humanity rather than revolution, or at worst,
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| destruction. Bauwens has traced out real contours of hope for Western civilization. His
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| presentation of a P2P perspective includes a clear theory of human power and value
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| relations, a practical appreciation of its relationship to the current orthodoxy, and an inspiring
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| vision for viable, sustainable, and desirable futures. Just as Bauwens notes the limited social
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| acceptance of Marx at the time of his writing, it may well be that in years to come Bauwens’s
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| articulate and deeply considered insights will not only be as profoundly influential and
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| valuable but, crucially, a lot more workable."
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|
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| '''P2P and Integral Theory – Generation Sit weblog'''
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|
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| "I rarely encounter essays addressing Integral Theory in the context of emerging technology.
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| But if there's one thing out there worth reading, this essay is one of them – P2P and Human
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| Evolution: Placing Peer to Peer Theory in an Integral Framework (via IntegralWorld). This
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| very long essay describes P2P in detail, covering the interior and exterior aspects, and its
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| incompatibilities with Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory. There are a lot of heady stuff for
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| me to digest in this essay. And I'm still not done reading it."
| |
|
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| '''John Heron, Participatory Spirituality pioneer, author of Sacred Science'''
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|
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| "What I appreciate is your clarity with regard to the following: your basic definition of p2p; the
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| way you trace this definition, and any compromises and departures from it, within its many
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| manifestations; and toward the end of your account, forms co-existence and of possible
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| political strategies. All of this is very valuable food for thought and action. You make a most
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| effective and persuasive case for the widespread significance of the p2p phenomenon, in
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| diverse fields, and with due regard for the underlying epistemological shifts involved. This
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| work is indeed a major achievement of scholarship, insight, moral vision and political
| |
| imagination."
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|
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| '''Victor Lewis-Hansom, by email:'''
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|
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| "At first skim reading, I think that the spark you have created in our historical times, will be
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| historically significant and remembered. Thank you for putting so much of yourself into your
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| essay."
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|
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| '''Yves Simon at http://www.social-computing.com/showitem.php?ID=137'''
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|
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| "Michel Bauwens est un personnage connu du monde de la nouvelle économie. Il a rendu
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| public une dernière mouture de son essai courant mars 2005 : P2P and Human Evolution :
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| Peer to peer as the premise of a new mode of civilization
| |
| Un article dans la revue belge Imagine Magazine présente les conclusions de cette étude.
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| Michel Bauwens estime que les technologies peer to peer ne sont que les prémisses de la
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| constitution d'une nouvelle civilisation de pairs qui doit bouleverser les modèles établis. Je
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| cite ci-après qq passages remarquables de l'interview conduit par David Leloup :
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| <blockquote>
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| "Il s’agit donc d’une grande transformation culturelle qui conduit à un paradigme participatif.
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|
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| Le P2P est d’abord un concept descriptif. Il permet d’analyser des nouvelles formes
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| d’organisation. Là où le concept de peer-to-peer devient encore plus puissant, c’est quand il
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| passe du statut d’outil descriptif à une utilisation normative. Comment le monde changerait-il,
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| comment ma vie et mon éthique changent-elles, quand je commence à exiger des
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| relations de pairs dans la totalité de mes actes ? Le peer-to-peer acquiert alors une
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| véritable puissance révolutionnaire. C’est par exemple ce que le mouvement féministe a
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| voulu et en partie réalisé : un refus d’accepter encore plus longtemps l’inégalité avec les
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| hommes. Il y a aujourd’hui un véritable exode vers les interstices du système : non
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| seulement il y a les «downshifters» comme moi-même, mais également des pans entiers
| |
| de la jeunesse qui refusent la féodalité intrinsèque de la structure des entreprises.
| |
|
| |
| Le peer-to-peer est en effet la structure même du troisième capitalisme : le capitalisme
| |
| cognitif, qui remplace le capitalisme industriel lui-même ayant remplacé le capitalisme
| |
| marchand.
| |
|
| |
| ...liée à la notion de «noosphère» de Teilhard de Chardin, c’est-à-dire la sphère
| |
| spécifiquement culturelle, humaine. Le peer-to-peer permet une interconnexion de tous
| |
| les cerveaux au niveau planétaire, et permet donc une action globale afin de répondre
| |
| aux énormes défis écologiques et autres. Avant l’avènement d’Internet, ce genre de
| |
| coordination globale était exclusivement réservée aux grandes multinationales.
| |
|
| |
| le P2P permet de créer un contre-pouvoir qui combine l’échange égalitaire et la création
| |
| d’une nouvelle sphère cognitive commune – ce que Lawrence Lessig appelle les «Creative
| |
| Commons»."
| |
| </blockquote>
| |
|
| |
| '''Marc Dangeard in http://casailor.blogspot.com/2005/04/p2p-et-societe.html'''
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|
| |
| "Je viens de lire l'essai de Michel Bauwens sur le Peer-to-Peer, et c’est extremement
| |
| interessant. Ca se lit vite, et ca en vaut l'effort: http://noosphere.cc/P2P2bi.htm
| |
| La conclusion est qu’il y a dans l’avenement du peer to peer une vraie opportunite de
| |
| changer le systeme dans lequel nous vivons.
| |
|
| |
| En relation avec cette analyse sur l’evolution des modes de communication vers un
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| modele peer to peer, et sur les modeles de societe qui peuvent en decouler, je suis
| |
| convaincu que la facon dont on peut ameliorer les choses en matiere de business,
| |
| d’enrichissement spirituel de l’individu au sein d’une entreprise, et de repartission
| |
| des richesses en general est de passer par la creation d'entreprises qui seront
| |
| construites sur des modeles nouveaux, ou les employes pourront participer
| |
| activement et volontairement aux process et ou la distribution du revenu se fera de
| |
| facon plus large, un peu sur le modele des stocks options qui sont distribuees
| |
| aujourd'hui dans les start-ups de la Silicon Valley (mais avec un twist). Rien de
| |
| radical, pas de revolution, plutot une evolution des modes de fonctionnement
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| existants mais pour des resultats qui seront eux radicalement differents; l'entreprise
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| de demain dont je parle dans un post precedent."
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY
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| Bard, Alexander and Jan Soderqvist. Netocracy. Financial Times Prentice-Hall, 2002
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| Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Routledge, 2001
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| Wilber, Ken. A Theory of Everything. Shambhala, 2001
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| Zafirian, Philippe. A quoi sert le travail. La Dispute, 2003
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|
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| ----
| |
|
| |
| to add and check:
| |
|
| |
| Gunderson and Holling, Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems
| |
| of Humans and Nature.
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|
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| ==Endnotes==
| |
| <references />
| |