Discussion

Rogier De Langhe:

How can we organize human solidarity in the p2p age?

One of the most common worries about P2P is that it will erode social rights. The key to understanding P2P solidarity is that P2P is not just a policy offering new solutions for existing problems, but a new system that changes the problems altogether.

Strong calls for income guarantees and social rights are specific to (and historically emerged together with) the system of industrial capitalism we know today, which reduces persons to isolated consumers trading in anonymous marketplaces. In a world of commons, income and social protection are much less problematic because

1) income is less important than access to networks: P2P cause a shift from ownership to sharing and hence from consumption of a good to participation in a network.

2) social protection is more straightforward in a world where everyone depends on one another.

Science fiction? No, actually it is typical for most non-capitalist societies. In many premodern societies social status is at least as important as personal wealth and for example the elderly continue to participate in society instead of being dumped in a retirement home.

It is a common mistake to assess new systems based on the standards of the old. Perhaps the absence of applications of P2P for income generation and social struggle does not signify a shortcoming of P2P, but its being hardwired to foster a society that is open and equal to begin with, thus removing further need for competition, conflict and struggle."

This is not to say that P2P is flawless by design, but simply that the challenges it will meet will be of a different nature. Needs will shift and classic social rights might well become meaningless and even counterproductive. How exactly this will play out is difficult to say. As with any genuinely new system, how exactly it will mesh with pre-existing structures and the tensions this will provoke are unpredictable and perhaps even unimaginable as long as the system has not been implemented on a large societal scale. New paradigms are only clearly articulated after they become adopted. As such we are bound to make the rules as we go along, just as unions and mutuals could only be conceived after the advent of capitalism.

In sum, to meet the very real worries about solidarity today, P2P can offer nothing more than vague promises about tomorrow. A paradigm shift always requires at least to some extent a leap of faith. A shift is never directed toward a clearly defined system, but an escape away from a clearly defined threat, a threat which sparked the need for social struggle to begin with. The reason why we are confident advocates of P2P is not because we know what is is, but because we know what it isn't.

Key Articles

• Using the Concept of the Social Commons to Rethink the Welfare State. Francine Mestrum.

• P2P Alternatives to Emergency Medical Services (on Street Medics and related initiatives)

Key Books

• Digital Solidarity. Felix Stalder. Mute Books and Post-Media Lab, 2013

• With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough. By Peter Barnes. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014

Background:

• Redesigning Distribution: Basic Income and Stakeholder Grants as Cornerstones for an Egalitarian Capitalism. By Bruce Ackerman, Anne Alstott, and Philippe Van Parijs. Verso, 2006. [1]

• Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.