Structured Bibliography on P2P and the Commons
Ira Mollay and Michel Bauwens will work on this bibliography during the summer of 2019.
Module 1: The anthropology of peer to peer and the commons
P2P as a relational dynamic: new social relations, then and now
Commoning Against The Crisis. (Chapter 6)
By Angelos Varvarousis and Giorgos Kallis.
URL [1]
The commoning movement in Greece analysed along the lines of liminality as a catalyst following a rhizomatic pattern.
The Commons as an Institution
Understanding the commons: Institutional analysis and ethical arguments.
By Rafael Augusto Ferreira Zanatta. Master Thesis, International University College of Turin Master of Laws Program, 2015.
URL p2p wiki [2] URL later version [3]
The dissertation examines three different schools of the commons (Ostrom, Mattei, Benkler) and examines them for differences in institutional analysis as well as ethical arguments.
The Commons in History
The Silent Revolution: A New Perspective on the Emergence of Commons, Guilds, and Other Forms of Corporate Collective Action in Western Europe.
By Tine de Moor. IRSH 53 (2008), Supplement, pp. 179–212
URL [4]
Looking back at guilds and fraternities that formed in the late Middle ages to be institutionalized later on. The strong movement was bottom-up, required collective action and relied on tacit agreements between rulers and their subjects.
From Medieval Guilds to Open Source Software: Informal Norms, Appropriability Institutions, and Innovation.
By Robert P. Merges
URL [5]
The essay argues that some modern institutions show features of the medieval guilds, among them open source software development.
Blockchain Machines, Earth Beings and the Labour of Trust.
By Larry Lohmann. Corner House
URL [6]
Blockchain, smart contracts etc. in the context of their ecological history and pictures of labour, commons, and capital accumulation seen through different lenses from Marx to Wittgenstein.
Cooperation and morality
Is It Good to Cooperate? Testing the Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies.
By Oliver Scott Curry, Daniel Austin Mullins, and Harvey Whitehouse. Current Anthropology 60, no. 1 (February 2019): 47-69.
URL [7]
Morality-as-cooperation draws on the theory of non-zero-sum games to identify distinct problems of cooperation and their solutions, and it predicts that specific forms of cooperative behavior will be considered morally good in all cultures. The paper identifies seven cooperative behaviors as plausible candidates for universal moral rules.
Module 2: The Commons as a mode of production / the commons as economic system
Peer production / peer governance / peer property
Worker self-management: A sociocultural and historical perspective.
By Carlos Eduardo Martínez. Translated by Level Translation (Steve Herrick).
URL [8]
The article looks at the concept of "appropriate technology" as an enabling factor for sustainable self-management of workers. Its political potential can only be realized if accompanied by networks allowing various forms of alliances and exchange.
The Virtues of Moderation
By James Grimmelmann (April 1, 2015). 17 Yale J.L. & Tech. 42 (2015); U of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2015-8.
URL [9]
"This Article provides a novel taxonomy of moderation in online communities. It breaks down the basic verbs of moderation — exclusion, pricing, organizing, and norm-setting — and shows how they help communities walk the tightrope between the chaos of too much freedom and the sterility of too much control."
CrowdJury, a Crowdsourced Justice System for the Collaboration Era.
By Federico Ast and Alejandro Sewrjugin.
URL [10]
"This paper, we propose CrowdJury, a framework for court processes of adjudication adapted for the blockchain era. It combines the advantages of crowdsourcing and blockchain to create a system of justice both transparent and self-sustained. CrowdJury seeks to lay down the principles for a p2p court system based on collective intelligence."
Practising Communication Rights: Cases from South Korea and Honduras.
By Dorothy Kidd
URL [11]
The essay describes examples from Korea and Honduras that aim at the democratization of communication and media and strengthen communication rights.
Monetary Materialities of Peer-Produced Knowledge: The Case of Wikipedia and Its Tensions with Paid Labour.
By Arwid Lund, Juhana Venäläinen. TripleC, Vol 14, No 1 (2016).
URL [12]
The article discusses the discusses the explicit and tacit monetary dependencies of Wikipedia and sheds light on the strict perspective against commercial alliances by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Italian Community Co-operatives Responding to Economic Crisis and State Withdrawal. A New Model for Socio-Economic Development.
By Michele Bianchi and Marcelo Vieta. United Nations Task Force for Social and Solidarity Economy, 2019
URL [13]
This paper presents findings from an ongoing qualitative research project aiming to better understand the territorial and economic development impacts of Italian community co-operatives and their role in concretising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
DAOs, Democracy and Governance.
By Ralph C. Merkle. Version 1.9, May 31st 2016. Cryonics Magazine, July- August, Vol 37:4, pp 28-40; Alcor, www.alcor.org
URL [14]
The essay examines the question how to combine the expertise of all participants of a democracy without handing over control to “experts” and suggests Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) as a way to design a new form of government that is better able to meet the needs of its citizens.
Facilitatrice, protectrice, instituante, contributrice : la loi et les communs.
By Valerie Peugeot. "Contribution au colloque de Cerisy - VERS UNE RÉPUBLIQUE DES BIENS COMMUNS ? - Septembre 2016 – Version de l’auteur."
URL [15]
Protection of the commons and of property managed by communities without a legal entity is hard to embed into the current legislation based on private property. The article identifies ways that can act as leverage for legislative intervention based on examples from laws adopted in France.
Worker Cooperatives: Good, Sustainable Jobs in the Community.
By Virginie Pérotin. JEOD, Volume 2, Issue 2 (2013) 34-47
URL [16]
The paper examines research findings on worker cooperatives and their effects on the communities in which they are found, such as sustainable local employment.
Artificial intelligences and political organization: An exploration based on the science fiction work of Iain M. Banks.
By Yannick Rumpala. Technology in Society 02/2012; 34(1):23–32. DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2011.12.005
URL [17]
A series of science fiction novels as heuristic support for exploring new principles, e.g. a civilization based on anarchistic principles in which intelligent machines are largely responsible for handling community affairs
On the Political Economy of Copy Protection.
By Stefan Meretz. In: Tilman Baumgärtel (Ed.), A Reader on International Media Piracy, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 131-144. It is the English translation of Zur politischen Ökonomie von Kopie und Kopierschutz.
URL [18]
The article analyses the development of copying from the mere physical to analogous to digital, driving a separation of knowledge and competence and led to copy protection and fighting piracy. The next step should be towards general availability of products, thus abrogating private production and appropriation.
The commons and the market
The Wolf and the Caribou: Coexistence of Decentralized Economies and Competitive Markets.
By Andreas Freund and Danielle Stanko. J. Risk Financial Manag. 2018, 11(2), 26
URL [19]
Exponentially growing cryptocurrency returns may push competitive markets at risk of collapsing due to extraction of value. This paper explores novel ways for decentralized economies to protect themselves from, and coexist with, competitive markets at a global scale utilizing decentralized technologies such as Blockchain.
Going back to go forwards? From multi-stakeholder cooperatives to Open Cooperatives in food and farming
By Ajates Gonzalez, R., Journal of Rural Studies (2017)
URL [20]
This paper analyses the potential of multi-stakeholder cooperatives to recreate more sustainable food flows between rural and urban areas and to overcome the limitations of conventional farmer cooperatives that focus more on economic than social and environmental benefits.
Labour as a Commons: The Example of Worker-Recuperated Companies.
By Dario Azzellini. Critical Sociology 1 –14, 2016
URL [21]
The article argues that labour can be understood as a commons. This entails a shift towards a notion of labour power as a collectively and sustainably managed resource for the benefit of society. The article analyses examples of worker-recuperated companies in Latin America and Europe.
The commons and capitalism
Market and Labour Control in Digital Capitalism.
By Philipp Staab and Oliver Nachtwey. TripleC, Vol. 14, Issue 2, 2016
URL [22]
Based on basic assumptions of monopoly capital theory, the article argues that the expansion of digital control and the organizational structures applied by key corporate players of the digital economy are evidence for the expansion of capitalist labour, not its reduction.
Food as commons. Towards a new relationship between the public, the civic and the private.
By Olivier De Schutter, Ugo Mattei, Jose Luis Vivero Pol et al., December 2018. In Handbook of Food as a Commons, Publisher: Routledge, pp.373-395
URL [23]
The chapter unfolds how a tricentric governing model (an enabling public sector, a private sector not focused on profit maximization and self-regulated civic collective actions) could steer a fairer and more sustainable transition towards food systems that can nourish the entire human population, thrive within planetary boundaries and be regenerative enough to feed the generations to come.
Food: From Commodity to Commons.
By Gunnar Rundgren. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (Impact Factor: 0.94). 12/2015; DOI: 10.1007/s10806-015-9590-7
URL [24]
"... we need to find new ways of managing the food system based on food as a right and farming as a management system of the planet Earth. The solutions should be based on relocalization of food production and de-commodification of food and our symbionts, the plants and animals we eat."
Food as a new old commons. A paradigm shift for human flourishing.
By Jose Luis Vivero-Pol. World Nutrition, Vol 10 No 1 (2019)
URL [25]
Considering food as a commons anchored to the adequate valuation of its multiple dimensions of food to humans, can provide a discourse that embraces urban innovations as well as indigenous practices) food activities and challenges the obsolete industrial food system.
Epistemic Regards on Food as a Commons: Plurality of Schools, Genealogy of Meanings, Confusing Vocabularies.
By J. Vivero-Pol. Preprints 2017, 2017040038
URL [26]
This text discusses the different schools of thought that have addressed the private/public, commodity/commons nature of goods in general, and then explores how those schools have considered food in particular. The author uses diverse epistemic tools to re-construct food as a commons, based on the praxis to produce, consume and govern food collectively through non-market mechanisms.
3D Printers, The Third Industrial Revolutions And The Demise Of Capitalism.
By Ciaran Tully. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 1, 2016
URL [27]
The paper counters the idea that capitalism is nearing its end and will be replaced by a post-capitalist society through the forces created by new technologies. The paper uses 3D printers as an example to show that these notions do not hold up to scrutiny.
The Future of "The Commons": Neoliberalism's "Plan B" or the Original Disaccumulation of Capital?
By George Caffentzis.
URL [28]
The essay claims there are two kinds of commons that are persisting or are in gestation: Pro-capitalist commons that are compatible with and potentiate capitalist accumulation and anti-capitalist commons that are antagonistic to and subversive of capitalist accumulation. This is considered an important discourse in the context of Neoliberalism using the tools of the commons to save it from itself.
The commons and post-capitalism
Anti-Authoritarian Metrics: Recursivity as a strategy for post-capitalism.
By David Adam Banks. Teknokultura, Vol 13, No 2 (2016)
URL [29]
This essay proposes that those seeking to build counter-power institutions and communities learn to think in terms of what the author calls “recursivity.” Recursivity is an anti-authoritarian metric that helps bring about a sensitivity to feedback loops at multiple levels of organization. The article spans topics from efficiency metrics to social conditions to the recursive beginnings of urban planning.
Thinking about Commons: A post-capitalist perspective for social work.
By Jef Peeters. In: A-L. Matthies & K. Närhi (eds.), The Ecosocial Transition of Societies: The contribution of social work and social policy (p. 71-88). Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4724-7349-3
URL [30]
Common goods managed by communities define a logic beyond market and state, based on the principles of sharing and cooperation. They can serve as a bridge between various alternative movements. The book aims at a broader horizon of transformational social change.
Rise of Alternative Currencies in Post-Capitalism.
By Boyd Cohen. Journal of Management Studies, 2016
URL [31]
The essay describes three forms of alternative currencies: local paper currency, timebanking and cryptocurrency and argues that alternative currencies discourage passive investment, and therefore serve as a powerful alternative to market-based capitalism.
The commons in the context of other alternatives
In search of an adequate European policy response to the platform economy.
By Brian Fabo, Jovana Karanovic, Katerina Dukova. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research / ETUI, April 6, 2017
URL [32]
Presenting empirical data, the paper argues that the current labour market and working conditions created by online platforms resemble 19th century laissez-faire and calls for the urgent creation of a regulatory framework along the suggestions presented.
On the Politics of Generative Justice: African Traditions and Maker Communities.
By Ron Eglash and Ellen Foster. Presented at “What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? MIT, November 13-15, 2014.
URL [33]
This paper describes some of the traditional African forms of generative justice and surveys maker spaces in Africa. The concept of human and non-human value circulation, rather than extraction, is essential in understanding how these contemporary maker communities are related to older African traditions of gift economies, and futures in which cultural and ecological survival can be mutually self-sustaining.
The commons in the context of the ecological crisis
Planning in and for a post-growth and post-carbon economy.
By John Barry. Chapter of the book: Routledge Companion to Environmental Planning and Sustainability, 2019
URL [34]
New ways of planning for a post-growth, post-carbon economy that include social justice ‘floors’ and ecological ‘ceilings’ and a more proactive state.
Module 3: The Institutional, technical and societal logic of the commons
The commons as a technical infrastructure
Introducing the four quadrants
Michiel de Lange , (2019), The Right to the Datafied City: Interfacing the Urban Data Commons
In Paolo Cardullo, Cesare Di Feliciantonio, Rob Kitchin (ed.) The Right to the Smart City, pp.71 - 83
URL [35]
The paper contrasts the cybernetic view versus a humanist view towards the role of data in the smart city. It suggests the commons-as-interface that productively connects urban data to the human-level political agency and allows for more detailed investigations of mediation processes between data, human actors, and urban issues."
How Can Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology Play a Role in Building Social and Solidarity Finance?
By Brett Scott. UNRISD, 2016. Working Paper 2016-1
URL [36]
A primer on the basics of Bitcoin, raising potential points of concern and suggesting an evolution of the technology that embrace more communitarian ideals for cooperation.
Free Software Philosophy and Open Source.
By Niklas Vainio and Tere Vadén. IJOSSP 4.4 (2012): 56-66. Web. 25 Aug. 2015.
URL [37]
A primer on free software philosophy and its foundations.
Surveillance capitalism / data capitalism
Crowdsourced surveillance and networked data.
By N. Lally, 2016. Security Dialogue. doi: 10.1177/0967010616664459
URL [38]
Based on the enhanced possibilities for crowdsourced surveillance, this case study describes how algorithms, internet cultures and surveillance imagery, among others, contributed to entangled political complicity and resistance.
Alternative Forms of Energy Production and Political Reconfigurations: Exploring Alternative Energies as Potentialities of Collective Reorganization.
By Yannick Rumpala. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, April 3, 2018
URL [39]
The article studies how energy choices (that always tend to be political choices) can be redirected by technological developments associated with renewable energy, thus contributing to a redistribution of opportunities and correspondingly to social reorganizations.
Governing the commons
The Path of the Blockchain Lexicon (and the Law). 36 Review of Banking & Financial Law 713 (2017)
By Angela Walch, 2017
URL [40]
The article lays out the forces at play in shaping the language of Bitcoin and the problems the language raises for regulators, including challenges in identifying the facts about the technology, as well as increasing the chances of regulatory capture. Special emphasis is given to the term “immutable” and its potentially misleading nature.
The Invisible Politics of Bitcoin: Governance Crisis of a Decentralized Infrastructure
By Primavera De Filippi and Benjamin Loveluck, (September 29, 2016). Internet Policy Review, Vol. 5, Issue 4.
URL [41]
The article looks at the socio-technical constructs of Bitcoin and analyses the inherent invisible politics that display a highly technocratic power structure.
Cooperative Enterprise as an Antimonopoly Strategy
By Sandeep Vaheesan and Nathan Schneider (November 6, 2018).
URL [42]
As part of an agenda to tame corporate monopoly, governments should revisit the idea of ownership design and exemptions from antitrust laws in order to protect and enable the cooperative model across the economy. Trust and coordination form important pillars just like the necessity to rely on a small core of developers.
Res Publica ex Machina: On Neocybernetic Governance and the End of Politics.
By Felix Maschewski and Anna-Verena Nosthoff. Institute of Network Cultures, October, 2018
URL [43]
The article examines the extent to which neo-cybernetic concepts promote a rather reduced vision of politics and argues that current approaches to ‘smart’ states or cities and their corresponding models of governance mark no entire automation of politics but at least in certain respects, a pragmatic actualization of cybernetic visions of the state against the background of surveillance capitalism.
Urban Commons, with Case studies
The City as a Commons.
By Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione. Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2016
URL [44]
"In this article, we offer a pluralistic account of the urban commons, including the idea of the city itself as a commons. We find that, as a descriptive matter, the characteristics of some shared urban resources mimic open-access, depletable resources that require a governance or management regime to protect them in a congested and rivalrous urban environment."
City as a Commons.
By Christian Iaione.
URL [45]
"... What are the infrastructure and services that increase the quality of urban life and make people lives' worth to be lived and free to move around? What are the facilities and services that let people share or cultivate lifestyles more consistent with their own individual sensibility and with whoever lives in the same space? ... All these questions have a single identical answer: it is the urban commons, and that is urban spaces and services of common interest."
Common Space. The City As Commons.
By Stavros Stavrides. Zed Books, 2016
URL [46]
Common Space as a means of new forms of social relations and shared experiences through various lenses from public housing to public art and graffiti, revealing the hidden emancipatory potential within our urban worlds.
Case studies
Technopolitics, ICT-based participation in municipalities and the makings of a network of open cities. Drafting the state of the art and the case of decidim.Barcelona.
By Peña-López, I. (2016). ICTlogy Working Paper Series #3. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
URL [47]
The paper is about decidim.Barcelona, an ambitious project by the City Council of Barcelona (Spain) to increase engagement in the design, monitoring and assessment of its strategic plan for 2016-2019. The paper focuses on the socio-political environment of this subproject, namely Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain.
Cosmo-Local Production Commons, with case studies
Localized production
Exploring the Maker-Industrial Revolution: Will the future of production be local?
ByAnna Waldman Brown. BRIE, October 20, 2016
URL [48]
What happens to the ethnographic method when it goes open source?
By Alberto Corsín Jiménez and Adolfo Estalella. Ethnos, 2016
URL [49]
The article paints a picture of a long-term collaboration of digital artists and coders in Madrid, Spain, redefining existing projects into prototypes. This created new platforms for discourse and new infrastructural enabling factors.
Protocol cooperativism
Thwarting an Uber Future for Complementary Currencies: Open Protocols for a Credit Commons.
By Jem Bendell and Matthew Slater. Paper prepared for the IV International Conference on Social and Complementary Currencies: Money, Consciousness and Values for Social Change, 10th to 14th May, 2017, Universita Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, 2017
URL [50]
The paper explores the rationale and potential for practitoners in both complementary currencies and platform cooperatives, and their associated researchers, to consider the role of open protocols to grow the digital commons and avoid a digital dystopia of platform monopolies. The importance of developing open protocols in order to create conditions for new entrants to thrive, including “protocol cooperatives” is explained.
Case studies
(Smart) Citizens from Data Providers to Decision-Makers? The Case Study of Barcelona.
By Igor Calzada. Sustainability 2018, 10(9), 3252
URL [51]
This paper examines how the city of Barcelona is marking a transition from the conventional, hegemonic smart city approach to a new paradigm—the experimental city which increasingly considers (smart) citizens as decision-makers rather than data providers. Examining three different understandings of the commons and how they overlap with other movements.
Module 4: P2P as transformative emancipatory movement
The Commons as a political project vs history of emancipation
Emancipatory Commoning?
By Stavros Stavrides. Open! 2016
URL [52]
The paper argues that the commons redefine the public and can provide valuable tools for anti- or post-capitalist struggle.
Commons' Movements & “Progressive” Governments as Dual Power : The Potential for Social Transformation in Europe.
By Antonios Broumas. Capital & Class, 2016
URL [53]
Counter-movements in the neoliberal era do not take the form of revolutions, but protect and facilitate social revolution. Failure to do so leads to either failed states or progressive governments interrelated to grassroots movements. Dual power may prove to be the most effective revolutionary praxis.
The Italian water movement and the politics of the commons. Water Alternatives 9(1): 99-119
By C. Carrozza and E. Fantini, 2016.
URL [54]
The article questions how question: how the notion of the commons has been understood, adopted and translated into practice in Italy around the example of countering the privatisation of water services.
Alternative Platforms and Societal Horizon: Characterisation and Strategies for Development.
By Guillaume Compain, Philippe Eynaud, Lionel Maurel, and Corinne Vercher-Chaptal, June 2019 Communication to the SASE 31st Annual Meeting; Fathomless Futures: Algorithmic and Imagined; 27- 28 June 2019 - The New School - New York City
URL [55]
A study that systematically looks at how platform coops combine elements of the open source movement (sharing knowledge), with those of the cooperative movement (protecting cooperative property. It highlights the emergent practices of Open Cooperativism
Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency
By J. Vivero-Pol in Food Transition. Preprints 2017, 2017010073 (doi: 10.20944/preprints201701.0073.v1).
URL [56]
By exploring the normative values in the transition landscape, this paper seeks to understand how relevant is the hegemonic narrative of “food as commodity” and its alternative of “food as commons” to determine transition trajectories and food policy beliefs.
Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm.
By David Bollier. Next System Project, 2016
URL [57]
The paper describes how commons offer possibilities for a new system integrating production, governance and participation to form much more than just an economic system. Its flexbility and adaptability towards the needs of the community would make the new system stand out.
Commons transition as a political process
Freedom Technologists and the Future of Global Justice.
By John Postil. 'The State of Power 2016', TNI, 2016
URL [58]
The article looks into the political successes and setbacks of different kinds of freedom technologists (geeks, hackers, online journalists, digital rights lawyers, Pirate politicians, etc.) particularly in Iceland, Tunisia and Spain and how to reconcile the pursuit of liberty with that of social justice.
From choice to collective voice. Foundational economy, local commons and citizenship.
By Filippo Barbera, Nicola Negri, Angelo Salento
URL [59]
Defence and management of local commons in the framework of Foundational Economy (FE) as referring to the «civic infrastructure» serving everyday household needs help reconsider citizenship as «the capacity and desire to act collectively».
Transition towards a Food Commons Regime: Re-commoning Food to Crowd-feed the World.
By Jose Luis Vivero Pol. Chapter 9 in book: Perspectives on Commoning. Autonomist Principles and Practices. Ed. by Guido Ruivenkamp and Andy Hilton. Zed Books, 2017, pp.325 - 379.
URL [60]
In this paper, the commons approach is applied to food, deconstructing food as a pure private good and reconstructing it as a commons that can be better produced and distributed by a tricentric governance system compounded by market rules, public regulations and collective actions. Examples of the implications for the governance of the global food system if food was considered as a commons.
Prototyping and the new spirit of policy-making.
By Lucy Kimbell and Jocelyn Bailey. Journal CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, Volume 13, 2017 - Issue 3: Special issue: Co-Design and the Public Realm, Pages 214-226
URL [61]
The paper examines the emergence of a design practice, prototyping, in public policy-making that have led towards greater flexibility, provisionality and anticipation in responding to public issues while further encroaching market logics into government.
A Civic Economy of Provisions.
By Marvin Brown. Next Systems Project, 2016
URL [62]
An economy of provisions encompasses three basic practices: providing for one another, protecting one another and creating meaning together. The paper takes through these ideas and exemplifies the food and the health care systems as systems of provisions that could be organized in a way that benefits and makes provisions for all.
Transforming Markets
Escaping the Polanyi matrix: the impact of fictitious commodities: money, land, and labor on consumer welfare.
By Gary Flomenhoft. real-world economics review, issue no. 74, 2016
URL [63]
Based on Polanyi, the paper argues that commodification of land, money, and labor is detrimental to a functioning market economy. The author introduces the "Polanyi matrix" to describe this commodification and argues that alternative economic concepts cannot be successful in creating prosperity and sustainability unless the operating system of the economy can be reformed in those three areas.
Contributive Accounting
Quantitative Metrics for Generative Justice: Graphing the value of diversity
By B.R. Callahan, C. Hathaway and M. Krishnamoorthy, 2016. Revista Teknokultura Vol. 13(2), 567-586
URL [64]
This paper introduces a quantitative data measurement, contributory diversity, which can be used to enhance the analysis of ethical dimensions of value production under the Generative Justice lens. It combines the traditional assessment of demographics with a measure of value generation. This mapping allows for previously unacknowledged contributions to be recognized.
Generating Community, Generating Justice? The production and circulation of value in community energy initiatives
By T.C. Dotson and J.E. Wilcox (2016), Revista Teknokultura Vol. 13(2), 511-540.
URL [65]
Building upon an analysis of New York energy policy and on-the-ground cases, the article explores the potential of community energy. What kinds of value are being generated by community energy systems and for whom? How could such efforts be more generative of justice across a broader range of values?
Blockchain and Value Systems in the Sharing Economy: The Illustrative Case of Backfeed.
By Alex Pazaitis, Primavera De Filippi, Vasilis Kostakis, published in: Technological Forecasting & Social Change.
URL [66], URL [67], URL [68], URL [69]
The article explores the potential of blockchain technology in enabling a new system of value that will better support the dynamics of social sharing. It discusses the solutions featured by Backfeed and describes a conceptual economic model of blockchain-based decentralised cooperation.
The dangerous dynamics of modern capitalism (from static to IFRS’ futuristic accounting).
By Jacques Richard. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Volume 30, 07-2015
URL [70]
Based on the history of accounting, the article claims that the evolution of accounting through three stages permits the acceleration of profit recognition and contributes towards financial crises.
Module 6: P2P Theory as Theory
André Gorz‘s Concrete Utopia of the Knowledge-Based Society.
By Andreas Poltermann.
URL [71]
A Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for Twenty-First-Century Work: The “Independent Worker”.
By Seth D. Harris and Alan B. Krueger. The Hamilton Project - Brookings, 2015
URL [72]
Jobs in the online "gig economy" do not qualify for the usual legal benefits and protections. The paper proposes a new legal category that covers the gap between employees and independent contractors.
Refounding Legitimacy. Toward Aethogenesis.
By Olivier Auber. Technoetic Arts Journal, 2016
URL [73]
Findings from an art project that looked into the legitimacy of an anoptical perspective. "... Therefore we could emulate a kind of Global Immune System that would prevent the takeover by some illegitimate bodies. Towards which direction? Nothing less than an new Singularity which would augur an era where the systemic predation of our species against itself and its environment would have vanished. I propose to call this era: Aethogenesis.“
Value, Rent, and the Political Economy of Social Media.
By Jakob Rigi and Robert Prey. The Information Society 10/2015; 31(5):392.
URL [74]
The article revisits Marx’s theory of value in connection with social media and informational capitalism and argues that value is not generated through the social interactions, but through primary revenue sources.
Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality.
By T. Dávid-Barrett, R. I. M. Dunbar. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Biological Sciences, 2013
URL [75]
The article explores information processing capacity as a limiting factor to social group size and the break-throughs that are enabled by an increase in the sophistication of information processing.
The Internet Revolution: From Dot-com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism.
By Richard Barbrook, with Andy Cameron. Institute for Network Cultures, 2015. Network Notebook No. 10.
URL [76]
With an introduction bringing things into a current perspective, this anniversary paper combines two essays from the 1990s, pioneering on Net criticism. Mass surveillance and the corporate take-over of the Net validated the criticism.
Secrecy and Unaccountability: Trade Secrets in Our Public Infrastructure.
By David S. Levine . Florida Law Review, 2014
URL [77]
With public infrastructure being increasingly provided by private entities, the doctrine of intellectual property with its ensuing trade secrets is intruding into public infrastructure, e.g. voting machines, telecommunication or the Internet at large. This conflicts with the democratic values of accountability and transparency.
Cryptosecession and the limits of taxation: Towards a theory of non-territorial internal exit.
By Trent J. MacDonald & Jason Potts. PUBLIC CHOICE SOCIETY CONFERENCE, March 2016
URL [78]
"This paper presents a model of partial internal exit that captures the competitive dynamic between incumbent and potential governments in a non-territorial political system."
The Corporation as Commons: Rethinking Property Rights, Governance and Sustainability in the Business Enterprise.
By Simon Deakin.
URL [79]
The essay discusses the question whether viewing corporations as commons would be a fit one. Conclusion: "Applying to the corporation the property rights and institutional design associated with the commons would help sustain the corporate enterprise and deliver benefits for all of its stakeholders and for society as a whole."
Theory of Unbundled and Non-Territorial Governance. RMIT
By Trent MacDonald. PhD-thesis.
URL [80]
The thesis aims to unbundle the functions of government and devolving responsibilities to non-territorial jurisdictions. It further explores non-territorial governance and describes how political systems and jurisdictions change
The very idea of democracy at work.
By Richard Hyman (2015). Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 22 (1). pp. 11-24. ISSN 1024-2589
Is democracy possible within an employer-employee relationship? Providing a historic and geographic overview, the article discusses how workers' rights have been reversed under neoliberalism and looks at ways to regain past achievements.
URL [81]
The Ontologized Commons.
By Joost de Bloois. Open! 2016
URL [82]
The author critiques the absence of effective leftist action and sees "ontologized commons" as a consequential cover-up and further argues that commoning plays into the neoliberal dismantling of public institutions.
Digitalisation of the economy and its impact on labour markets.
By Christophe Degryse. ETUI, 2016
URL [83]
This paper gives an overview of the possibilities created by digitalisation and examines its effects on the labour market as well as the role that trade unions can play.
The Quasi-Totalitarianism of Global Trusted Networks.
By Athina Karatzogianni and Martin Gak. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics (2015)
URL [84]
The article describes examples of the digital surveillance ideology and frames it in the challenging context for formulating digital politics: "the process of political disenfranchisement by corporations looking to profit, governments looking to regulate information flows, and coopted groups in civil society looking to appropriate the legitimate concerns of users for their own political and financial subsistence."
iCapitalism and the Cybertariat. Contradictions of the Digital Economy.
By Ursula Huws. Monthly Review, Volume 66, Issue 08, January 2015.
URL [85]
The current period sees the commodification of new areas of life impacting daily lives, labour and consumption.
Socialisme ou Barbarie: From Castoriadis’ Project of Individual and Collective Autonomy to the Collaborative Commons.
By Evangelos Papadimitropoulos. Triple C, Vol 14, No 1 (2016)
URL [86]
The content of socialism in relation to collaborative commons.
A New Printing Revolution? 3D Printing as an Agent of Socio-Political Change.
By Yannick Rumpala. International Journal of Technoethics Volume 7 • Issue 2 • July-December 2016
The paper asks whether 3D printing could have socio-political effects by examining its promises, its challenges to the current economic order and friction points that might affect future trajectories.
Socialism and the Blockchain.
By Steve Huckle and Martin White. Future Internet 2016, 8(4), 49
URL [87]
This paper argues that blockchain technologies are not just a Libertarian tool, they also enhance Socialist forms of governance.
Fifty shades of open.
By Jeffrey Pomerantz and Robin Peek. First Monday, Volume 21, Number 5 - 2 May 2016
URL [88]
The word “open” has been applied to a wide variety of words to create new terms, some of which make sense, and some not so much. This essay disambiguates the many meanings of the word “open” as it is used in a wide range of contexts.
Openness as social praxis.
By Matthew Longshore Smith and Ruhiya Seward. First Monday, Volume 22, Number 4 - 3 April 2017
URL [89]
This article builds on “Fifty shades of open” by Pomerantz and Peek by offering an alternative understanding to openness — that of social praxis. It provides a contextually sensitive understanding of openness by focusing on three social processes: open production, open distribution, and open consumption. Further, it points towards an approach to developing a practice-specific theory.
Confusion and collectivism in the ICT sector: Is FLOSS the answer?
By Abigail Marks, Shiona Chillas, Laura Galloway, Gavin Maclean. Economic and Industrial Democracy, March 13, 2017
URL [90]
This article examines broader forms of collectivism for Information and communication technology (ICT) workers, drawing on survey and interview data. The focus is on social class, attitudes towards unions and professional bodies and participation in the broader ICT community. Despite the absence of formal organization, there are opportunities for collectivization particularly with regard to participation in FLOSS communities.
Social Democratic and Critical Theories of the Intellectual Commons: A Critical Analysis.
By Antonios Broumas. TripleC, Vol 15, No 1 (2017)
URL [91]
The article deals with theories of the intellectual commons as the productive force of our intellectual commonwealth coming in contrast with the dominant notions of the social intellect, which advocate the establishment of private monopolies over intellectual works.
Transient Solidarities: Commitment and Collective Action in Post-Industrial Societies.
By Charles Heckscher and John McCarthy. BJIR, Volume 52, Issue 4, December 2014, Pages 627–657
The article studies changes in solidarity over time and examines whether these new solidarities can be mobilized into effective collective action. It further suggests mechanisms rather different from traditional union mobilizations.
Patterns of Peeragogy
By Corneli, J., Danoff, C.J., Pierce, C., Ricaurte, P., and Snow Macdonald, L. 2015. HILLSIDE Proc. of Conf. on Pattern Lang. of Prog. 22 (October 2015), 23 pages.
URL [94]
The article describes nine patterns developed in the Peeragogy project for designing a roadmap for the future of learning with a focus on collaborative management of open learning projects.
The subject of history: p2p class theory
Marketization, Social Protection, Emancipation: Toward a Neo-Polanyian Conception of Capitalist Crisis.
By Nancy Fraser
URL [95]
The essay adds emancipation as a third given to Polanyi's double movement of marketization and social protection as a mediating element between those two political projects.
The possibilities and constraints of engaging solidarity in citizenship.
By Jelena Vasiljević. FILOZOFIJA I DRUŠTVO XXVII (2), 2016
URL [96]
The is interested in solidarity as a politically operational concept around questions like: What does it mean to base a political community on the principles of solidarity? Can acts of solidarity be used not only to help (support) others, but with the aim to change power relations and constitute new political orders as well? One of the conclusions: Citizenship is a simultaneously inclusive and exclusive notion.
P2P Governance
Liquid Democracy and the Futures of Governance.
By José Ramos. Grundversorgung 2.0 Project, Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana Universität, http://cdc.leuphana.com. Chapter 11 of the book published by Springer 2016: J. Winter, R. Ono (eds.), The Future Internet, Public Administration and Information Technology 17
URL [97]
The chapters clarify the significance of Liquid Democracy and web technologies for transforming social interactions and decision-making in the context of democracy and governance as well as develop scenarios for the futures of governance.
==P2P Infrastructure
Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook
By JC Plantin, C. Lagoze, P. Edwards and C. Sandvig, (2016). New Media & Society. Pre-publication version, August 2016
URL [98]
Platform-based services acquire characteristics of infrastructure, while both new and existing infrastructures are built or reorganized on the logic of platforms.
Distributed Network Architecture
"Reclaiming the Internet" with distributed architectures. An introduction
By Francesca Musiani and Cécile Méadel in a First Monday Special Issue.
URL [99]
The paper explores the political, social and legal implications of distributed network architectures and introduces the challenges that these architectures pose.
Blockchain technology as a regulatory technology: From code is law to law is code.
By Primavera De Filippi, Samer Hassan. First Monday, Volume 21, Number 12 - 5 December 2016
URL [100]
With the advent of blockchain technology and associated smart contracts, code is assuming a stronger role in regulating people’s online behavior. The paper describes the shift from code having the effect of law to the concept of law being defined as code.
Economics of Blockchain
By Sinclair Davidson, Primavera De Filippi and Jason Potts. (March 8, 2016).
Illustrated with a case study on Ethereum-based Backfeed, the paper argues that Blockchain facilitates new forms of governance and economic organization. Seeing Blockchain in the context of public choice economics models blockchain as a new technology for creating spontaneous organizations.
URL [101]
Infrastructural gap: Commons, state and anthropology.
By Dimitris Dalakoglou, Jan 2017
URL [102]
The paper explores a framework for a paradigm shift in understanding infrastructures’ governance and function, based on the example of Greece where innovative forms of civil activity emerged around the infrastructural gap brought about by the Euro crisis.
Fractal Organisation Theory.
By Janna Raye. Journal of organisational transformation & social change, Vol. 11 No. 1, April, 2014, 50–68
URL [103]
Fractal organisation theory recognises an emergent human operating system that mimics nature in its capacity for creativity, adaptation, vitality, and innovation. At all levels of a fractal organisation, members share information iteratively and make decisions collectively in response to constantly changing conditions.
Is There a Global Digital Labor Culture? : Marginalization of Work, Global Inequalities, and Coloniality.
By Antonio Casilli. 2nd symposium of the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication (PARGC), Apr 2016, Philadelphie, United States.
URL [104]
The Real World of the Decentralized Autonomous Society.
By J.Z. Garrod. Triple C, Vol 14, No 1 (2016)
URL [105]
The article argues that Bitcoin technology neglects the power that capital holds over us and that a decentralized autonomous society (DAS) might be a far more dystopian development than its supporters comprehend.
Patterns that connect: Exploring the potential of patterns and pattern languages in systemic interventions towards realizing sustainable futures.
By Helene Finidori. ISSS Journal – 60th meeting. Advanced Author Paper presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences - "Realizing Sustainable Futures" - University of Colorado – 23 - 30 July 2016
URL [106]
The article explores possible roles that pattern language could play for systemic change and transdisciplinary collaboration.
Distributed Biotechnology.
By Alessandro Delfanti. Forthcoming in Tyfield, D., Lave, R., Randalls, S., Thorpe, C. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, New York: Routledge, 2017
URL [107]
Distributed biotechnology includes amateurs as well as an emergent set of companies that provide laboratory equipment and digital platforms designed to foster citizen contribution to biotechnology research.
In Defense Of The Digital Craftsperson.
By James Losey and Sascha D. Meinrath. Journal of Peer Production, Issue #9: Alternative Internets
URL [108]
The article argues that the increasing control of the Internet limits its generative potential and creates barriers for end-user innovation. The paper analyzses control along five dimensions and suggests how open digital platforms could offer an alternative in support of the future digital craftsperson - someone with the desire and the ability to innovate.
Spiritual theory
Participation and the Mystery: Transpersonal Essays in Psychology, Education, and Religion.
By Jorge Ferrer. SUNY Press, 2017
URL [109]
Human beings as active cocreators of spiritual phenomena and the introduction of a participatory philosophy of education of mysticism and embodied spirituality are the main strands of this book.
Spiritual Teachers as Moral Educators: Shifting Patterns of Religious Authority And Praxis.
By Zachary Stein.
URL [110]
The paper explores contemporary structures of religious authority particularly in educational contexts in the post-industrial West.
No Time to Think. Reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship.
By David M. Levy. Ethics and Information Technology, December 2007, Volume 9, Issue 4, pp 237–249
URL [111]
The paper argues that the accelerating pace of life is reducing the time for contemplative scholarship at a time when scholars, educators, and students have gained access to digital tools of great value to scholarship. It explores what this says about the nature of scholarship, and what might be done to address this challenge.
Back to the Future: Toward a Political Economy of Love and Abundance.
By Margaret Stout. Administration & Society 42(1):3-37 · March 2010
URL [112]
The article presents a reconceptualization of public administration framed around a in a relational rather than material understanding of “progress” using collaboration and cocreation as its main methods, thus replacing degenerative principles of scarcity and fear with the generative ones of love and abundance.
Participatory Public Policy Microcosms: Diversity and Empathy as Generators of Creative Wholeness.
By Rosa Zubizarreta. Spanda Journal, 2015, VI:2. Pre-publication version of article published in Spanda Journal, 2015, VI:2 ; full issue available through spanda.org
URL [113]
MacLean'w "Canadian experiment", South Africa's Mont Fleur and Vorarlberg's (Austria) Civic Councils serve as examples for a new mode of discourse that works creatively with differences and creates societal learning, systemic insights and powerful convergences.