Trebor,<br><br>Wonderful synthetic post.<br><br>As you mention the concrete utopia strategy implicit in peer to peer theory, I would like to share my reply to a recent question I got, on how this approach is related to anarchism and Marxism:
<br><br>Here it is:<br><br><span class="q">Question: Do
you believe that Peer-to-Peer in its political interpretation share
more views with traditional Anarchism than with Communism or
Capitalism, <br>which both aspire a central authority?<br><br><br></span>**<br><br>Reply: <br><br>Some
general remark first. Egalitarian ideals are both perennial and
historically bound. The whole idea of treating every human being as a
peer, is obviously related to other historical attempts and
formulations. But on the other hand, peer to peer is also something
new.
<br><br>First of all, I consider both Marxism and anarchism, to be
historical expressions of the egalitarian ideal in the industrial era.
Peer to peer is one of the expressions of this ideal for the "cognitive
era".
<br><br>My own efforts to formulate a theory of social change
attempted to start from 'scratch' as it where. Of course, nobody starts
really from scratch but what I mean is that I wanted to start from
observations of really happening trends, and not from an ideal of how
things should be. So it is not an abstract utopia that aims to describe
how things should be, with a design for large scale social change, but
rather a 'concrete utopia', that describes initiatives in various
domains of life, but aims to interconnect them so that they can
strengthen each other and learn from each other.
<br><br>Marxism and anarchism were both forms of paradigmatic
thinking, I consider peer to peer theory to be an attempt at
meta-paradigmatic thinking. This means that you take ideas and
practices wherever they come from, i.e. from different competing
paradigms, integrating them as you go along, without a priori bias. In
this way, peer to peer can find common ground between the ideals of
some on the freedom-loving left but also on the equality-loving right.
I have no a priori hostility to ideas coming from the liberal or
christian traditions or whatever.
<br><br>Marxism and anarchism are also strongly adversarial. This
partly stemmed from the historical ascendency of capitalism, and their
need to formulate an alternative. But today, we know that capitalism,
as a system of infinite growth in a finite environment, are numbered.
Many players in the system know and realize this, and hence, we see
attempts at change and new social practices in every domain, both
within and without the sytem, if there is such a thing as the latter.
Peer to peer theory simply notes that there are transgressive,
world-constructing and reformist/revolutionary new practices, both
adversarial and non-adversarial, and it is by itself pluralist. It
admits that nobody knows exactly how the world is going to change, but
that those that agree on the goal, can at least exchange experiences.
More importantly, peer to peer is not the 'solution' to anything, but
rather, a set of social processes that are better able to find such
solutions in different domains.
<br><br>Most
forms of Marxism and anarchism were strongly opposed to the market. We
now know that we can divorce the idea of the market from the practice
of capitalism, and that we can go for a steady state economy (we put
back in what we got out of the world system), and that a market for
scarce physical goods can co-exist with other modes of production, such
as the peer to peer production of immaterial goods and social
innovation. Peer to peer is not so much anti-capitalist (there is no
need to beat a dead horse), but post-capitalist.
<br><br>Anarchism chooses to focus its hostility more on the state,
and my own conception of peer to peer shares no such a priori
hostitlity to the state form. It believes that both the market and the
state can evolve through peer-arbitrage.
<br><br>Peer to peer certainly does not share though an exclusive
orientation to the state, and state solutions, as expressed by the
mainstream socialist and marxist traditions. But of course, starting
from what exists right now, it certainly prefers a state form which
redistributes from the rich to the poor (welfare statism), from a
system which redistributes from the poor to the rich (neoliberal
statism). But it is more focused on using the state form to enable and
empower the direct social production of value, and to transform the
state by systematically introducing multi-stakeholdership of
governance, including all those impacted by decisions; and it sees many
opportunities for the co-creation of policy between civil society and
the state form, while also predicting that the state form will
gradually loose its central role, as more and more human communities
choose direct peer governance.
<br><br>I'm interested in the reformulation of traditions, both
premodern and modern, for their fit with the cognitive era; and as long
as they aim to reinforce the dignity of the human being, and the
enabling of authentic peer to peer dynamics, they can be embraced and
extended in an integrative peer to peer theory.
<br><br>So to conclude: obviously peer to peer shares a number of
ideals, such as expressed by Murray Bookchin, but I hope the reader can
also appreciate the altogether different space peer to peer theory is
coming from.<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/12/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Trebor Scholz</b> <<a href="mailto:trebor@thing.net">trebor@thing.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Bernie Roddy's defensive post lacks arguments but sure shows affect.<br>While some people feel more morally entitled than others, Bernie,<br>Michael and many of us on this list have something in common-- a strong<br>desire for collective action. We can listen, work together, and learn
<br>from one another.<br><br>Michel Bauwens "favors the tactic/strategy of 'concrete utopias', i.e.<br>identifying which existing innovative social practices have a<br>productive/ethical surplus, and supporting platforms where such
<br>initiatives can learn from each other." Fred Turner is curious about<br>ways of connecting networks and brick and mortar institutions. Chantal<br>Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau argue for temporary coalitions of people from
<br>different walks of life around a specific short-term goal such as<br>founding a kindergarten. They come together, make it happen and<br>disperse.<br><br>As a pragmatic utopian I write about (and lead teams building) specific
<br>participatory technologies. Descriptions of contemporary technological<br>phenomena, for me, need to lead to a critique of the social, cultural<br>and political forces that push them into existence.<br><br>In Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins describes himself as a critical
<br>utopian. "As a utopian, I want to identify possibilities within our<br>culture that might lead toward a better, more just society. My<br>experiences as a fan have changed how I think about media politics,<br>helping me look for and promote unrealized potentials rather than reject
<br>out of hand anything that does not rise to my standards." (p247)<br><br>Jenkins first lays out detailed case studies of fan communities of the<br>TV series Survivor and American Idol, Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars, The
<br>Matrix Trilogy, and Harry Potter. He describes in detail how these fan<br>communities formed, how they steered the content production of unfolding<br>media narratives, and how they migrated across media, convergence<br>
culture. Convergence means that content flows across multiple media<br>platforms, between old and new media.<br><br>Consumers appearing as fan communities, Jenkins elaborates, have a<br>bargaining power that they never had before and this collective action
<br>can force capitalists to change, he says. Instead of simply thinking of<br>the vote of the pocketbook, he is interested in possibilities of<br>collective intelligence and participatory culture. Collectively, fan<br>communities can make demands to corporate media producers. They can show
<br>us new ways of thinking about citizenship and collaboration, Jenkins<br>says.<br><br>I agree that consumer collectives can be sites of empowerment. Their<br>feedback and co-creations will indeed be listened to by corporate CEOs
<br>who try to improve their products and services in this new "economy of<br>affect." This collective consumer action, however, has nothing (or very<br>little) to do with civic participation.<br><br>"Too many critical pessimists are still locked into the old politics of
<br>culture jamming. Resistance becomes an end in and of itself rather than<br>a tool to ensure cultural diversity and corporate responsibility. The<br>debate is getting framed as if the only true alternative were to opt out
<br>of media altogether and live in the woods, eating acorns and lizards and<br>reading only books published on recycled paper by small alternative<br>presses. But what would it mean to tap media power for our own purposes?
<br>Is ideological and aesthetic purity really more valuable than<br>transforming our culture?"<br>(p249)<br><br>This speaks to the hybridity that I proposed earlier, a position that<br>goes beyond imagined ideological purity and autonomy, and yes, ... faux
<br>radicality. Are there other, perhaps more truly transformative examples<br>that tap power for our own purposes?<br><br>Trebor Scholz<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (
<a href="http://distributedcreativity.org">distributedcreativity.org</a>)<br><a href="mailto:iDC@mailman.thing.net">iDC@mailman.thing.net</a><br><a href="http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc">http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc
</a><br><br>List Archive:<br><a href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</a><br><br>iDC Photo Stream:<br><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/
</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer alternatives.<br><br>Wiki and Encyclopedia, at <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net">http://p2pfoundation.net
</a>; Blog, at <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a>; Newsletter, at <a href="http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p">http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p</a><br><br>
Basic essay at <a href="http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499">http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499</a>; interview at <a href="http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html">http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
</a>; video interview, at <a href="http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm">http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm</a><br><br>The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by
<a href="http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm">http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm</a>