[p2p-research] The Non-Corporate Fortune 500

[Michel Bauwens]

I think there is a (not so) quiet revolution going on, within capitalism, as
expressed by many different thinkers and doers, and it is closely aligned
with the p2p ethos

What is happening is that profit starts to be seen as a means, and no longer
as an end, that purpose and outcome drive new formats and entitities, for
which profit is not an end in itself, but a means of sustainability, it
involves social outcomes, participation, stakeholders, etc ... it is
naturally aligned with open p2p communities, for whom these new type of
entities should be preferred partners ..

I'm waiting for a grand alliances between the new social enterpreneurs, and
open design communities functioning as their common R & D infrastructure,

Unlike Ryan, I have rarely encountered a pure aversion to profit, but rather
problems with denying externalities, exploiting people and nature, infinite
growth in a finite system, destruction of the biosphere etc ... I think that
is an altogether healthy moral and practical point of view.

There are however left forces, with whom I disagree, who see all these new
social and natural capitalism developments as attempts to incorporate the
social in the neoliberal market sphere; while the dangers are undoubtedly
there, think of exploitative microfinance companies recently denounced in
Nicaragua, it is like greenwashing and sustainability washing, not something
that can deny the need to go green or sustainable,

These forces are our allies and friends, and we need them to make peer
communities and the commons sustainable,

Michel

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 3:54 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> One looks to an Age when money doesn't garner status.  That is a P2P tenet
> I should think.  Since the only worldview we have traditionally that holds a
> similar view is socialism, or more properly, communism, there is a natural
> bridge between P2P and socialism.  And since communism despises profit,
> there is great antipathy toward that word in the P2P weltanschauung.
>
> I could imagine a special focus on "for profit" P2P, but that would be an
> animal almost certainly pursued by an American...or one of those odd
> Mid-Atlantic Europeans who know their world but are also open to American
> possibilities.
>
> Nationalism/culturalism are like racism...always present, rarely
> discussed.  In the Cayman Islands people insist on Blackberry because it is
> subtly part of the Canado-British framework as a quality product...like the
> Austin/Cooper Mini or the Land Rover.  American products in those
> categories, even if superior, are disdained...like an iPhone. Of course
> Americans do the same things with less subtlety...they are, after all,
> Americans.  Subtlety is not a forte.
>
> It will be interesting to see if nationalism/culturalism are barriers to
> P2P.  But in areas like profit, the long fingers of history stretch into our
> minds and give someone from Belgium a different foundation than someone from
> Ohio.
>
> If only we engage across languages with South Americans, Africans or
> Asians...we could begin to know what the rest of the world thinks outside of
> the cultural colonialism Europe and the US have so expertly sold.
>
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:30 PM, J. Andrew Rogers <
> reality.miner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Most people also separate for-profit from P2P.
>>
>>
>> Is it really "profit" if all of the excess revenue is redistributed
>> back to the customers?  Being a resource-positive (i.e. a successful
>> and well-functioning) P2P organization is a good thing, irrational
>> aversions to being resource-positive notwithstanding. A P2P
>> organization based on intentional capital impoverishment is basically
>> a pyramid scheme.
>>
>>
>> --
>> J. Andrew Rogers
>> realityminer.blogspot.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
> P.O. Box 633
> Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
> Cayman Islands
> (345) 916-1712
>
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
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