[p2p-research] How does the idea of p2p / commonism differ from the socialist tradition?

[Michel Bauwens]

on the blog the 31st:



*How does the idea of p2p / commonism differ from the socialist
tradition?*<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=10363>
*[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]*

Michel Bauwens
31st August 2010


 *What is the connection between the historical tradition of
socialism/communism and the contemporary emergence of ideas and practices
centered around p2p dynamics and the commons?*

*1.*

*Let’s first tackle our understanding and interpretation of communism.*

To me it is basically the idea, probably born at the same time as
post-tribal class-based society, that an alternative human arrangement based
on equal relationships and without the inheritance of wealth and privilege
is possible. It is something that appears again and again in human history
as an expression of those that are not privileged in the existing social
arrangements.

A prominent example is of course the form of the Christian communities as
described in the Act of the Apostles, but it is a recurring theme across
history.

More importantly and recently, it became a driving idea of the labour
movement that was born at the same time as industrial capitalism, and it
would take various ideological and social forms, such as the utopian
socialist experiments of the 19th century, the social-democratic labour
movement that became dominant in Europe in the 20th century, the anarchist
movements that flourished before WWII, etc …

Unfortunately, after the social revolution in Russia and its regression
through isolation, it also became the ideology of a new ruling strata, which
installed a new type of class society based on a managerial elite using
state property, which used communism as an ideology to justify its
oppression, much as the hierarchical and feudal Church would use the ideas
of Christ to justify its own oppressive rule.

Today, the “idea” of communism is terminally contaminated with that
historical experience of social oppression.

*2.*

*What about peer to peer?*

Peer to peer is born from the generalization of the human experience of
voluntary aggregation using the internet.

It is the experience of creating digital commons of knowledge, code and
designs, based largely on voluntary contributions, and on making these
universally available, which has re-introduced the reality of communal
shareholding to wide strata of the population.

But is also the particular social expression of the new condition of work
under cognitive capitalism, where workers, after the long hiatus of
industrial capitalism where they were totally dispossessed of access to
productive resources and machinery, could again access a productive resource
under their control, through computers, the socialized network that was the
internet.

This generalized the experience of social practices that are characterized
by open and free input, participatory processes of production, and
commons-oriented output.

>From the contract between this strong experience of equality and liberty
(equaliberty) and the trans-individuality of being connected through
affinity, the desire naturally grows to extend this experience to other
areas of life.

>From this, social movements are emerging that seek to extend the reach of
this human experience.

The P2P Foundation, and the P2P Theory that we are trying to develop, is
merely one of the expressions of this general trend, but perhaps one of the
more ambitious ones since it aims not just to a partial implementation of
the new value system and social practice (as the free software or free
culture movements would attempt), but to its generalization across the
board.

*3.*

*What then, are some of the important differences?*

Peer to peer is not necessarily based on the belief of realizing a full
classless society, but on the extension of an already existing social
practice. Certainly for me, I would be extremely skeptical of any idea that
such a society could be realized. Therefore peer to peer politics becomes a
more pragmatic effort at extending the reach of this existence practice.
This does not mean however, that I do not contemplate that this social logic
may become the core of a new social order, but co-existing with a still
differentiated class society. However, it is definitely an effort to create
a more free, just, and equal world.

Peer to peer is not the expression of the industrial working class, but of
the new forms of cognitive labour. But this does not mean it is restricted
to full time cognitive workers, rather it is becoming part of the general
human condition under cognitive capitalism, and therefore has the potential
of becoming the culture and ideology of much wider social strata.

Peer to peer is therefore not a continuation of the socialist/communist
tradition, but a re-elaboration of emancipatory practice and theory under
new historical and social conditions. It’s a new start and reformulation,
that is not bound by the previous historical tradition, though of course it
is natural that new emancipatory efforts would look at historical
precedents. Peer to peer is not related to socialism as a reformation of it,
but is related to it in the same way as Christianity was related to the
paganism of the Roman empire, i.e. as a trans-valuation of its major
premises. Amongst other things, this frees us from the incessant bickering
of left-wing cults.

This of course does not mean that peer to peer can be entirely divorced from
the previous historical context, but it is not beholden to it as a
continuation of the same tradition.

*4.*

*What about the commons?*

It is around the issue of the commons that the differences with the previous
emancipatory tradition comes to the fore.

The labour movement became historically associated with the effort to
increase the reach of public and state property, and the idea of regulation
(social democracy) or planning of the economy (Marxism).

Peer to peer and the commons are about the direct value creation through
civil society, and are about new forms of governance and property that apply
directly to civil society groups creating this value. The forms of property
advocated are not based on private exclusionary property, but also not on an
alienation of property through the state. The commons are a form of property
where individuals remain direct‘shareholders’, they are not expropriated
from their contributions to the value creation, neither by the state nor
private corporations. The individual and his/her property does not
‘disappear’ in the collective as represented by the state.

The commons, not the state, becomes the core institution of the new
political economy. Both digital and material commons have their own
institutional formats, the latter managed by democratically governed trusts.

The p2p/commons approach does not abolish private property, but limits its
reach and subsumes it as an auxiliary form for the allocation of rival
goods, while also drastically reforming the formats of such private
ownership, away from the formats which deny any consideration of social and
environmental externalities.

The p2p/commons approach does neither abolish the state nor makes it the
sole proprietor in charge of central planning, but limits the role of the
state as a institution for the meta-governance of the common good, looking
at the equilibrium between public functions, the commons and civil society,
and private entrepreneurs. The new Partner State becomes the guarantor of
the new commons-based peer production, until that time as it can
hypothetically ‘whither away’ as more and more of its functions are taken
over by an increasingly egalitarian and autonomous civil society. But, we
are not holding our breath that this process can take place in historically
close times. However, we do believe that the necessary phase-transition is
merely a few decades away, as the urgency of biospheric destruction and
social dislocation does not permit the long-range survival of the present
destructive social arrangements.

*5.*

*What about p2p/commons as a political approach?*

The p2p/commons approach and the social forces representing it, does not
seek to replace the labour movement, or other emancipatory political groups,
but allies itself with all those protecting the common natural heritage of
mankind, and a more just redistribution of social value.

Hence the idea of the triarchical alliance for the commons, consisting of
those

- Directly fighting for free culture and the commons
- Directly fighting for the protection of the biosphere
- Directly fighting for social justice


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