[p2p-research] A joint statement on P2P and post-scarcity thinking

[Franz Nahrada]

We know we don´t speak for everybody, since we are a pluralistic community
and we seek commonalities  between divergent views, but that does not mean
that we don’t have a concern about the efficiency of what we are doing. In
this context, we feel the need to distinguish the P2P theory view from
post scarcity assumptions that have received such a prominent place on the
P2P research mailing list.
To make a strong statement: P2P (and also GlobalVillages) is not about
post – scarcity, but about restoring the right balance between scarcity
and abundance – which is an alltogether different thing.
It does not believe that technology by itself provides any complete social
solution, but it is always embedded in and driven by particular social and
political logics
For example, automation is very much driven by capitalist competition to
be more productive than other market players. It is absolutely not sure
that autonomous communities would choose to totally abolish manual work.
It is totally legitimate that communities or countries would choose
industrious development paths preserving and augmenting direct human
involvement in material production.
For example, an agricultural community may want to preserve its
traditional ways of life – and that is a freedom we want everybody to have.
Maybe we can say that our contacts with local activist communities have
made us aware that the identification with post-scarcity thinking is
politically problematic – in particular the image of the „magical
technical fix“.
We do not want to stop the dialogue, but we would like to make clear that
no consensus can be assumed on that - and as a movement we do not want to
be identified with it. It is not a central message, it is merely the hope
of some, of people that we do respect but also who carry a much stronger
burden of proof. People who make extraordinary claims are bound more than
others to show practical implementations.
All the material we have in the P2P wiki are actually existing projects
and it is out of the observation of these existing social practises that
we draw our conclusions.
STRATEGY
P2P is operating in a world which is characterised by 2 main factors,
mostly wrongly perceived:
- Scarcity of natural resources, which is increasingly accelerated by a
dysfunctional mode of production and is putting us into ever more serious
planetary management problems. We are in friendly terms with the
environmental movement(s) that adresses these issues and becomes more
practical every day (renewables, solar, distributed energy...)
- Our own priority as P2P movement is adressing the second factor, which
is the enclosure of the intellectual and scientific and cultural commons
which is being addressed by the „Open Everything Movements“.  Opening up
the realm of ideas and allowing the massive collaboration of the general
intellect of the world is an essential condition of mastering the
ecological crisis and to the fulfillment of the better promises and
achievements of our civilisation through the building of a new
civilisation or rather new culture.
But there is a third necessary factor that is crucial for a thrivable
solution which would allow for further human evolution:  without true
active participation of all in the design and production of our material
life, without the involvement of the majority of human beings into the
effort to find a new social contract, we will not be able to reach the
goals of a better life on this planet. Therefore P2P has to join forces
with the third mass movement on this planet, which could roughly be
characterized as the social justice movement, involving the struggles of
workers, farmers, entrepreneurs and knowledge workers.
We currenly see a strategic convergence of these three movements and we
think it is our own responsibility to help make it happen. We believe that
a perceived identification between P2P and post scarcity is counter to
that goal, because post-scarcity is intentionally ignoring important
issues raised by the other two movements, i.e. the ecological and social
justice movement.
Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation
Franz Nahrada, Global Villages Network