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 Michel Bauwens: P2P and Human Evolution: Placing Peer to Peer Theory in an Integral Framework   
 

Peer to Peer and Human Evolution

On "the P2P relational dynamic" as the premise of the next civilizational stage

Author: Michel Bauwens, michelsub2003@yahoo.com

The essay is an emanation of the Foundation for P2P Alternatives, Draft 1.994, June 15, 2005; it was written after several months of collaboration with Remi Sussan.

However, it's always best to ask me for the latest version by email attachment, since I tinker with the essay almost daily.

A weekly newsletter, Pluralities/Integration, monitoring P2P developments is also available from the same author, free by email request. See the archive at IntegralVisioning.org.

The foundation website-in-progress is at P2Pfoundation.net ; a mailing list for the site's development is available at p2pf@yahoogroups.com / groups.yahoo.com/group/p2pf/join; a mailing list to discuss political strategy is available at strategic_p2p@googlegroups.com / groups.google.com.au/group/strategic_p2p

Table of Contents

0. Executive Summary

Peer to Peer is mostly known to technologically-oriented people as P2P, the decentralized form of putting computers together for different kind of cooperative endeavours, such as filesharing and music distribution. But this is only a small example of what P2P is: it's in fact a template of human relationships, a "relational dynamic" which is springing up throughout the social fields. The aim of this essay is to describe and explain the emergence of this dynamic as it occurs, and to place it in an evolutionary framework of the evolution of modes of civilization. We emit the hypothesis that it both the necessary infrastructure of the current phase of 'cognitive capitalism', but at the same time, significantly transcends it thus pointing out the possibility of a new social formation that would be based on it in an even more intense manner. In section one, you will find an initial definition, an explanation of our methodology for research, and some acknowledgements.

After describing the emergence of P2P as the dominant mode, or 'form', of our current technological infrastructure (section two), we then describe its emergence in the economic sphere (section three), as a 'third mode of production', neither profit-driven nor centrally planned, but as a decentralized cooperative way of producing software (free software and open source movements), and other immaterial products, based on the free cooperation of 'equipotential' participants. It uses copyright and intellectual propery rights to transcend the very limitations of property, because in free software, if you use it, you have to give at least the same rights to those who will use your modified version, and in open sources, you have to give them equal access to the source code.

Such commons-based peer production has other important innovations, such as it taking place without the intervention of any manufacturer whatsoever. In fact the growing importance of 'user innovation communities' (section 3.1.B), which are starting to surpass the role of corporate sponsored marketing and research divisions in their innovation capacities, show that this formula is poised for expansion even in the world of material production, provided the design phase is separated from the production phase. It is already producing major cultural and economic landmarks such as GNU/Linux, the Wikipedia encyclopedia, the Thinkcycle global cooperative research projects, and a Writeable Web/Participative Internet/Global Alternative Communications infrastructure that can be used by all, beyond the corporate stranglehold on mass media. Finally, CBPP exemplifies a new work culture (section 3.1.C), that overturns many aspects of the Protestant work ethic as described by Max Weber. In the world of development, it is exemplified by the emerging 'edge to edge development partnerships' as theorized by Jock Gill. In section three, we also discuss the evolution of forms of cooperation (3.4.A), and of collective intelligence (3.4.B). It is also here that we are starting to address key analytical issues: 1) what are the specific characteristics of the ideal-type of the P2P form (3.4.C), namely de-institutionalisation (beyond fixed organizational formats and fixed formal rules), de-monopolisation (avoid the emergence of collective individuals who monopolise power, such as nation-state and corporation), and de-commodification (i.e. production for use-value, not exchange value); 2) we then demonstrate that P2P cannot be explained by the gift economy model of equal sharing and 'exchange of similar values', but rather by a model of communal shareholding (section 3.4.D), i.e. the creation of a Commons based on free participation both regarding input, and output (free usage even by non-producers). We use Alan Page Fiske's fourfold model of intersubjective relationships to ground this comparison; 3) we pay attention to the current power structure of cognitive capitalism, with a discussion of the thesis of McKenzie Wark's Hacher's Manifesto (section 3.4.E.).

We then turn to its political manifestations, and describe how P2P is emerging as a new form of political organisation and sensibility, already exemplified in the workings of the alterglobalisation movement (section 4.1.A.) which is a network of networks that refuses the principle of 'representation', i.e. that someone else can represent your interests. In France,the recent social movements since 1995 were led by "Coordinations" exemplifying exactly this sort of practice (section 4.1.B). Thus the birth of new political conceptions such as those of 'absolute democracy' (Negri et al.) or 'extreme democracy' (Tom Attlee et al.). A new field of struggle arises (section 4.1.C), based on the defense and development of an Information Commons, against the corporate strategies who are trying to replace this 'free culture' (Lawrence Lessig) by a form of 'information feudalism' (described by Jeremy Rifkin in The Age of Access). We then examine the evolution of the monopolization of power (4.2.A.), the relations between the political ideals of freedom, equality, and hierarchy, and their practice in P2P (4.2.B), and place this discussion in the context of the general evolution of power and authority models (4.2.C)

Section Five discusses the discovery of P2P principles at work in physics, and in particularly in the physics of organisation, as developed by network theory, and its concept of 'small worlds', and hierarchical vs. egalitarian networks.

In Section Six, we turn our attention to the cultural sphere. We claim and explain that the various expressions of P2P are a sympton of a profound cultural shift in the spheres of epistemology (ways of knowing) and of ontology (ways of feeling and being), leading to a new articulation between the individual and the collective (6.1.A), representing a true epochal shift. We then look at the spiritual field and how this affects the dialogue of civilizations and religions away from euro- and other exclusionist views in culture and religions (6.1.B); as well as to a critique of spiritual authoritarianism and the emergence of cooperative inquiry groups and participatory spirituality conceptions (6.1.C), as theorized in particular by John Heron and Jorge Ferrer. The new ideas related to cosmology and metaphysics are explained in 6.1.D., centered aroud the demise of the subject-object paradigm in favour of partnership-based visions of our relationships with matter and nature.

What does it all mean in terms of social change? In section 7 we examine if all of the above is just a collection of perhaps unrelated marginal trends, or rather, the view we espouse, represents the birth of a new and coherent social formation (section 7.1.A). In section 7.1.B we examine how P2P relates to the current system of cognitive capitalism (economics) or 'post' or 'late modernity' (cultural sphere), concluding that it is both within and beyond. Three scenarios are described (7.1.C): peaceful and complementary co-existence, the emergence of a cooperative civilization, and the destruction of P2P in the context of information feudalism. All of this leads us to concluding remarks on possible political strategies (7.1.D) to defend and expand P2P models, and to the principles behind the launch of a Foundation for P2P Alternatives (section 8).

1. Introduction

1.A. What this essay is about

The following essay describes the emergence, or expansion, of a specific type of relational dynamic, which I call peer to peer. It's a form of human network-based organisation which rests upon the free participation of equipotent partners, engaged in the production of common resources, without recourse to monetary compensation as key motivating factor, and not organized according to hierarchical methods of command and control. This format is emerging throughout the social field: as a format of technology (the point to point internet, filesharing, grid computing, the Writeable Web initiatives, blogs), as a third mode of production which is also called Commons-based peer production (neither centrally planned nor profit-driven), producing hardware, software (often called Free Libre Open Sources Software or FLOSS) and intellectual and cultural resources (wetware) that are of great value to humanity (Wikipedia), and as a general mode of knowledge exchange and collective learning which is massively practiced on the internet. It also emerges as new organizational formats in politics, spirituality; as a new `culture of work'. This essay thus traces the expansion of this format, seen as a "isomorphism" (= having the same format), in as many fields as possible. The common format in which the peer to peer dynamic emerges is the format of the "distributed network", which, according to the defintion of A. Galloway in his book Protocol, differs both from the centralized network (all nodes have to pass through one single hub), and from the decentralized network (all nodes have to pass through hubs). In a distributed network the nodes, as autonomous agents, can connect through any number of links. Hubs may exist, but are not obligatory.

The essay tries not only to describe, but attempts to provide an explanatory framework of why it is emerging now, and how it fits in a wider evolutionary framework (not in the sense of an inevitable natural evolution, but as an intentional moral breakthrough). Note that within the sections, the first subsection is descriptive, the second is explanatory, and the third is evolutionary. In the latter, I use the triune distinction premodernity/modernity/postmodernity, well aware that it is a simplification, and that it collapses many important distinctions, say between the tribal and the agrarian era. But as an orienting generalization that allows the contrasting of the changes occurring after the emergence of modernity, it remains useful.Thus, the concept of `premodern', means the societies based on tradition, before the advent of industrial capitalism, with fixed social roles and a social organisation inspired by what it believes to be a divine order; modern means essentially the era of industrial capitalism; finally, the choice of the term postmodern does not denote any specific preference in the `wars of interpretation' between concepts such as postmodernity, liquid modernity, reflexitive modernity, transmodernity etc.. It simple means the contermporary period, more or less starting after 1968, which is marked by the emergence of the informational mode of capitalism. I will use the term cognitive capitalism most frequently in my characterization of the current regime, as it corresponds to the interpretation, which is the most convincing in my view. The French magazine Multitude[i] is my main source for such interpretations. It's essential meaning is the replacement of an older 'regime of accumulation', centered on machines and the division of labor corresponding to them; and one centered on being part of a process of accumulation of knowledge and creativity, as the new mainspring of power and profit. Finally, note that in the accompagnying graphs of figures, I sometimes usethe early modern/late modern/P2P era. In this way, the current time frame can be distinguished from a hypothetical coming situation where P2P is more dominant than it is today, and what that would change in the characteristics of such a society.

I will conclude my essay with the conclusion that P2P is nothing else than a premise of a new type of civilization that is not exclusively geared towards the profit motive. What I have to convince the user of is that 1) a particular type of human relational dynamic is growing very fast across the social fields, and that such combined occurrence is the result of a deep shift in ways of feeling and being. 2) That it has a coherent logic that cannot be fully contained within the present `regime' of society. 3) that it is not an utopia, but, as `an already existing social practice', the seed of a likely major transformation to come. I will not be arguing that there is an 'inevitable evolutionary logic at work', but rather that a new and intentional moral vision, holds the potential for a major breakthrough in social evolution, leading to the possibility of a new political, economic, and cultural 'formation' with a new coherent logic.

Such a large overview will inevitably bring errors of interpretation concerning detailed fields. I would appreciate if readers could bring them to my attention. But apart from these errors, the essay should stand or fall in the context of its most general interpretative point: that there is indeed a isomorphic emergence of peer to peer throughout the social field, that despite the differences in expression, it is the same phenomena, and that it is not a marginal, but a 'fundamental' development. It is on this score that my effort should be judged. If the effort is indeed judged to be successful, I then would hope that this essay inspires people from these different fields to connect, aware that they are sharing a set of values, and that these values have potential in creating a better, but not perfect or ideal, society.

How does the explanatory framework which I will provide for P2P, differ from the use of the earlier metaphor of the network society, described by Manuel Castells and many others, and lately in particular by the network sociality concept proposed by Andreas Wittel? The best way to differentiate the approaches is to see P2P as a subset of network conceptions.

If you would have been a social scientist during the lifetime of Marx and witnessed the emergence and growth of the factory-based industrial model, and you would then have arrived at the equivalent of what social network theory is today, i.e. an analysis of mainstream society and sociality. This is what the network sociality model of Andreas Wittel provides. But at the same time that the factory system was developing, a reaction was created as well. Workers were creating cooperatives and mutualities, unions and new political parties and movements, which would go on to fundamentally alter the world. Today, this is what happens with peer to peer. Whereas Castells and Wittel focus on the general emergence of network society and society, and describes the networks overall and the dominant features of it, I want and tend to focus on the birth of a counter-movement, centered around a particular format of sociality based in distributed networks, where the focus is on creating participation for all, and not the buttressing of the 'meshworks of exploitation'. As the dominant forces of society are mutating to networked forms of organizing the political economy (called Empire by Toni Negri), a bottom-up reaction against this new alienation is occurring (alienated, because in Empire, the meshwork are at the service of creating ever more inequality), by the forces of what Negri and Hardt call the multitude(s). These forces are using peer to peer processes, and a peer to peer ethos, to create new forms of social life, and this is what I want to document in this essay.

1.B. The use of a integral framework

One word about my methodology. I have been inspired by mostly two traditions or methods of inquiry: the integral method, and the sociology of form.

I use as heuristic device, and as such device only, the four quadrant system developed by Ken Wilber (Wilber, 2001). This does not mean I share the conclusions of his `Theory of Everything', which I think are seriously flawed. But as a method for assembling, presenting and understanding my data, I find it to be extremely useful. The four quadrant system organizes reality in `four aspects', which encompass the subjective (evolution of self and subjectivity), the materiality of the single organism (objectivity), the intersubjective (the interaction of groups of subjectivities and the worldviews and cultures they so create), and the behavior of groups of objects, i.e. the interobjective perspective of systems. The integral theory tradition tries to construct a narrative of the unfolding cosmic processes, in explanatory frameworks that enfolds them all. It also does this historically, trying to make sense of an evolutionary logic, trying to enfold the different historical phases into a unified human understanding. Apart from the 'neoconservative' Wilberian version of integral theory, I have equally been influenced by the 'critical integral theory', or anti-systemic 'materialist-subjectivist' account of Toni Negri (Negri, 2001)

If you'd place explanatory theories about the evolution of matter/life/consciousness into 2 axis define by the `relative attention given to either the parts or to the whole', and another one `relative attention given to difference or to similarities', integral theory would be that kind of hermeneutical system that pays most attention to the whole, and to structural similarities, rather than to the parts and to difference. In doing this it runs counter to the general tendency of modern objective science to focus on parts (to be analytical), of postmodernism to focus on difference, and hence to reject integrative narratives, and to systems theories and its follow-ups, which ignore subjectivity. It is this distinction from dominant epistemologies, which makes it particularly interesting to uncover new insights, missed by the other approaches. It is not superior, but complementary to other approaches[ii]. But a key advantage of the integral framework is that it integrates both subjective and objective aspects of realities, refusing to reduce one to the other.

To conclude, generally speaking, an integral approach is one that:

respects the relative autonomy of the different fields, and looks for field specific laws

affirms that new levels of complexity causes the emergence of new properties and thus rejects reductionisms that try to explain the highly complex from the less complex

always relates the objective and subjective aspects, refusing to see any one aspect as a mere epiphenomena of the other. This implies a certain agnosticism as to the theories that posit one particular quadrant as the more fundamental cause (such as for example historical materialism)

in general, attempts to correlate explanations emanating from the various fields, in order to arrive at an integrative understanding

My modified form of the four-quadrant system starts with the `exterior-individual', i.e. single objects in space and time, i.e. the evolution of the material basis of the universe, life, and brain (the evolution from atoms to molecules to cells etc..), but in my personal modification, this quadrant includes technological evolution, as I (and others such as McLuhan, 1994) can legitimately see technology as an extension of the human body. Second, we will look at the systems (exterior-collective) quadrant: the evolution of natural, political, economic, social and organizational systems. Third, we will look at the interior-collective quadrant: human culture, spiritualities, philosophies, worldviews. In the fourth quadrant we will be discussing the interior-individual aspects, and we look at changes occurring within the sphere of the self. However, in practice, despite my stated intention, I have found it difficult to separate individual and collective aspects of subjectivity and they are provisionally treated in one section. That this is so is not surprising, since one of the aspects of peer to peer is it participative nature, which sees the individual always-already embedded in social processes.

Figure 1: Typology of scientific approaches (ways of looking at the world)

Parts

Whole

Includes
Difference

Postmodern approaches

Subjects and Objects

Similarity

Integral Approaches
Subjects and Objects

Similarity

Analytical Sciences

Systemic Sciences
Objects Only

Figure 2: An integral framework for understanding P2P

Individual Aspects
Collective Aspects

Interior Aspects

Subjective field

The subject / the self

Intersubjective field

Spirituality / Worldviews
Exterior Aspects

Objective field

Technological artifacts as extensions of the body

Interobjective field

Natural Systems / Political, economic, organizational systems

The combined use of the four quadrants also has important advantages in avoiding various kinds of reductionisms:

  1. The analytical-materialist reductionism (scientism), which attempts to totally explain the world of life and culture by the properties and processes of matter.
  2. The biological/darwinistic reductionism, which attempts to totally explain the life of culture by the animalistic processes of survival of the fittest.
  3. The 'wholistic' reductionism of the system sciences, which do not take into account the agency of the subject.
  4. The linguistic reductionism of extreme postmodernists, which tend to totally bypass materiality and reduce everything to language games

In conclusion: the integral approach allows us to use these various partial perspectives and to use them as heuristic devices, so that we can obtain a fuller picture combining them. What distinguishes an 'integral approach' from the other approaches is its use of a subjective-objective explanatory framework.

In the following pages, I do not aim to create a 'Theory of Everything'. I try to function as an integrator, as everyone is obliged to do today, i.e. construct temporary and malleable integrative understandings, which are then confronted with other ones. The only moral and scientific obligation is that such integration embrace as much of reality, as one possibly can. Thus, the following is an integration of all the descriptive, explanatory and social-evolutionary (i.e. historicized in social formations) strands, that I can possibly hold together in a coherent fashion. And the 'object' of this integration is 'Peer to Peer'.

1.C. The Sociology of Form

If the above integral approach has guided me as a safeguard to avoid proposing overtly reductionist interpretations and to cast my net as wide as possible, as well as for the organization of the subject matter, then the search for 'isomorphism' has been of great value in precisely defining what P2P is and how it differs from its close cousins, such as the gift economy. The method involves looking at the emergence of a same form throughout the social field, to define its precise characteristics in a ideal type as we gathered more information, which then in turn again helps in differentiating 'pure P2P' from its derivatives. The sociology of form focuses neither on the parts (individuals and their choices), nor on the collective as a whole (society and its socialization), but on the interaction between the parts, their 'form of exchange'[iii]. Particular usage is made of Alan Page Fiske's quaternary model of human intersubjective relationships.

1.D. Some acknowledgments

This essay is part of a larger project, the writing of a French-language book, which I'm undertaking with Remi Sussan, a Paris-based free-lance journalist working for `digital' magazines like TechnikArt. Hence, the continuing dialogue with him has been a great source of inspiration and clarification in terms of the ideas expressed in this essay. We share an enthousiasm for understanding P2P, though we frequently differ in our interpretations. The current essay therefore reflects my own vision.

A first essay on P2P, essentially descriptive, but supported by many citations, is available on the internet on the Noosphere.cc site, and was written in 2003. However, most of these citations have now been integrated as endnotes. In this current essay, which was written pretty much in a `free flow of consciousness' mode, though I will mention quite a few names of social theorists, citations have been kept at a minimum, but I may add them in later version as footnotes.

Some acknowledgements about the sources used: amongst the contemporary and near-contemporary thinkers that I have been reading most recently in preparing this essay are: Norbert Elias (Elias, 1975), Louis Dumont (Vibert, 2004), and Cornelis Castoriadis (Castoriadis, 1975); the Italian-French school of thought around Multitude magazine, especially Toni Negri and Michael Hardt, Maurizio Lazzarato (Lazzarato, 2004), Philippe Zafirian (Zafirian, 2003).Amongst the specific P2P pioneers I have read, are Pekka Himanen (Himanen, 2002), for his study of work culture; John Heron (Heron, 1998) and Jorge Ferrer (Ferrer, 2001), for their work on participatory spirituality. Timothy Wilken of Synearth.org was instrumental in the discovery of the theories of Edward Haskell and Arthur Coulter, on synergetics and cooperation, which are explained on his website. Mackenzie Wark's Hacker Manifesto (Wark, 2004) and Alexander Galloway's Protocol (Galloway, 2004), have strongly influenced my analysis of P2P power structures.

2. P2P as the Technological Framework of Cognitive Capitalism[iv]

2.1.A. Defining P2P as the relational dynamic of distributed networks

Alexander Galloway in his book Protocol makes an important and clear distinction between centralized networks (with one central hub where everything must pass and be authorized, as in the old telephone switching systems), decentralized systems, with more than one center, but these subcenters still being authorative (such as the airport system in the U.S. centered around hubs where planes must pass through), from distributed systems, where hubs may exist, but are not obligatory (such as the internet). In distributed networks, participants may freely link with each other, they are fully autonomous agents. Hence the importance to clearly distinguish between our usage of the concepts 'decentralized' vs. 'distributed'. Peer to peer is specifically the relational dynamic that arises in distributed networks.

So: what is peer to peer? Here's a first tentative definition: It is a specific form of relational dynamic, is based on the assumed equipotency of its participants[v], organized through the free cooperation of equals in view of the performance of a common task, for the creation of a common good, with forms of decision-making and autonomy that are widely distributed throughout the network. Equipotency means that there is no prior formal filtering for participation, but rather that it is the immediate practice of cooperation which determines the expertise and level of participation. It does not deny `authority', but only fixed forced hierarchy, and therefore accepts authority based on expertise, initiation of the project, etc...

P2P is a network, not a hierarchy (though it may have elements of it); it is 'distributed', though it may have elements of centralization and 'decentralisation'; intelligence is not located at any center, but everywhere within the system. Assumed equipotency means that P2P systems start from the premise that `it doesn't know where the needed resource will be located', it assumes that `everybody' can cooperate, and does not use formal rules in advance to determine its participating members. Equipotency, i.e. the capacity to cooperate, is verified in the process of cooperation itself. Validation of knowledge, acceptance of processes, are determined by the collective. Cooperation must be free, not forced, and not based on neutrality (i.e. the buying of cooperation in a monetary system). It exists to produce something. It enables the widest possible participation. These are a number of characteristics that we can use to describe P2P systems `in general', and in particular as it emerges in the human lifeworld. Whereas participants in hierarchical systems are subject to the panoptism of the select few who control the vast majority, in P2P systems, participants have access to holoptism, the ability for any participant to see the whole. Further on we will examine more in depth characteristics such as de-formalisation, de-institutionalisation, de-commodification, which are also at the heart of P2P processes.

Whereas hierarchical systems are based on creating homogeinity amongst its 'dependent' members, distributed networks using the P2P dynamic regulate the 'interdependent' participants preserving heterogeinity. It is the 'object of cooperation' itself which creates the temporary unity. Culturally, P2P is about unity-in-diversity, it is concrete 'post-Enlightenment' universalism predicated on common projects; while hierarchy is predicated on creating sameness through identification and exclusion, and is associated with the abstract universalism of the Enlightenment.

To have a good understanding of P2P, I suggest the following mental exercise, think about these characteristics, then about their opposites. So doing, the radical innovative nature of P2P springs to mind. Though P2P is related to earlier social modes, those were most in evidence in the early tribal era, and it now emerges in an entirely new context, enabled by technologies that go beyond the barriers of time and space. After the dominance during the last several millennia, of centralized and hierarchical modes of social organisation, it is thus in many ways now a radically innovative emergence, and also reflects a very deep change in the epistemological and ontological paradigms that determine behaviour and worldviews.

An important clarification is that when we say that peer to peer systems have no hierarchy or are not centralized, we do not necessarily mean the complete absence of such characteristics. But in a P2P system, the use of hierarchy and centralization, serve the goal of participation and many-to-many communication, and are not used to prohibit or dominate it. This means that though P2P arises in distributed networks, not all distributed networks exhibit P2P processes. Many distributed bottom-up processes, such as the swarming behaviour of insects, of the behaviour of buyers and sellers in market, are not true P2P processes, to the degree that they lack holoptism, and do not promote participation. P2P, as a uniquely human phenomenom integrates moral and intentional aspects. When distributed meshworks, for example interlinking boards of directors[vi], serve a hierarchy of wealth and power, and are based on exclusion rather than participation, this does not quality as a full P2P process.

2.1.B. The emergence of peer to peer as technological infrastructure

But how does all of the above it apply to technology?

In this and the next section, I will attempt to describe two related aspects. One is that P2P-formatted technologies are now the very infrastructure of business processes. Second, that the new technologies of communication being created are in fact an alternative communication infrastructure that in part transcends the state and corporate control of traditional one-to-many mass media. This is not to say that the new infrastructure is not controlled 'at all', that corporate forces are not at work in it, but means that we cannot be blind to its radical potential, and radical 'actuality' neither. Here as in the other sections we will see how P2P is at the same time the very basis of the system, while also significantly transcending it.

The Internet, as it was conceived by its founders (Abbate, 1999), and evolved in its earliest format, was a point to point network, consisting of equal networks, and the travel of data uses different sets of resources as necessary. It is only later, after the rise of stronger and weaker networks, of open, semi-closed and closed networks, that the internet became hybrid, but it still in essence functions as a distributed network, having no central core to manage the system. Its hierarchical elements, such as the layered internet protocol stack (though specifically designed to allow P2P processes), the domain name system (a decentralized system of authorative servers which can disconnect participants), or internet governance bodies, do not prohibit many-to-many communication and participation, but enable it. The evolution of the internet is largely seen to be 'organic' rather than centrally directed, no single central player can direct it, though some players are more influential than others.

The web similarly was seen as a many-to-many publishing medium, even though it follows a semi-hierarchical client-server model (hence decentralized rather than distributed). However, it is still and will remain a essentially participative medium allowing anyone to publish his own webpages. Because of its incomplete P2P nature, it is in the process of becoming a true P2P publishing medium in the form of the Writeable Web projects, that allow anyone to publish from his own or any other computer,in the form of blogging etc... Other P2P media are instant messaging, chat, IP telephony systems, etc.. For the internet and the web, P2P was not yet explicitly theorized (though the idea of a network of networks was), they are weak P2P system in that they only recognize `strong' members, DNS-addressed computers in the internet, servers in the case of the web. In the systems developed afterwards, P2P was explicitly theorized: they are `strong' P2P systems, in which all members, also the weak members (without fixed DNS address for the internet, blogs with permalinks in case of the web) can participate.

Filesharing systems were the first to be explicitly tagged with the P2P label, and this is probably the origin of the concept in the world of technology. In such systems, all voluntary computers on the internet are mobilized to share files amongst all participating systems, whether that be documents, audiofiles, or audiovisual materials. In June 2003, videostreaming became the internet application using the largest bandwidth, and some time before, online music distribution had already surpassed the physical distribution of CD's (in the U.S.). Though the earliest incarnations of these P2P systems still used centralized databases, they are now, largely thanks to the efforts of the music industry[vii], mostly true P2P systems, in particular Bittorrent and the planned development of Exeem. Each generation of P2P filesharing has been more consistent in its applications of peer to peer principles[viii].

Finally, grid computing uses the P2P concept to create `participative supercomputers', where resources, spaces, computing cycles can be used from any participant in the system, on the basis of need. It is generally seen as the next paradigm for computing. Even programming now uses the P2P concept of object-oriented programming, where each object can be seen as a node in a distributed network.

All of the above clearly shows that the new format of our technological infrastructure, which lies at the basis of basic and economic processes, follow the P2P design. This infrastructure enables the interlinking of business processes, beyond the borders of the individual factory and company, and the interlinking of all the individuals involved. Soon, and perhaps it is already the case today, it will be justified to claim that without P2P-formatted technologies, it will be impossible to carry out production and all the related economic mechanisms.

I could go on, but what should emerge in your mind, is not a picture of a series of marginal developments, but the awareness that P2P networks are the key format of the technological infrastructure that supports the current economic, political and social systems. Companies have used these technologies to integrate their processes with those of partners, suppliers, consumers, and each other, using a combination of intranets, extranets, and the public internet, and it has become the absolutely essential tool for international communication and business, and to enable the cooperative, internationally coordinated projects carried out by teams.

On the other hand, P2P systems are not just the outcome of plans of the establishment, but are the result of the active intervention of consumers avid for free access to culture, of knowledge workers actively working to find technical solutions for their needed cooperative work, and of activists consciously working for the creation of tools for an emerging participative culture[ix]. P2P is both 'within' and 'beyond' the current system.

2.1.C. The construction of an alternative media infrastructure

Distributed technological networks are the most important infrastructure for cognitive capitalism. But as a communication infrastructure, the dominant transnational corporations could for a long time rely on their own private telecommunication networks. The internet has radically democratized access to this kind of infrastructure, to everyone with access to a computer. Similarly, for its cultural hegemony, the dominant social system has relied on "one to many" broadcasting system, which require a heavy capital outlay, and are controlled by monopolistic corporate interests, in charge of 'manufactured consent', and in other countries, by the state itself. The stranglehold of corporate media is such, including its hold on our very psyche's (we 'think like television' even when we've not been watching it for years). It has become all but impossible for any social minority (except religious and ethnic groups which can marshall vast resources themselves) to have its voice heard. Media reform seems definitely beyond reach. However, though the internet is also characterized by a certain commercial exploitation, and by very strong commercial entities such as Yahoo, as a whole, and as a distributed network, it is not owned nor controlled by commercial entities. It contains the historical promise of an 'alternative information and communication infrastructure', a many to many, bottom-up resource that can be used by various social forces. Mackenzie Wark, in his Hacker Manifesto, distinguishes the producers of immaterial use value, from the owners of the vectors of information, without whom no exchange value can be realized. The promise of the internet is that we now have a vector of information production, distribution and exchange, that functions at least partly outside of the control of what he calls the 'vectoralist' class. The situation seems to be the following, and we use the distinctions drawn up by Yochai Benkler in his "The Political Economy of the Commons" essay. The physical layer, networks, and communication lines, are widely distributed between commercial, state, and academic interests, with no single player or set of players dominating, and the computers themselves are widely in the hands of the public and civil society. The logical layer, especially TCP/IP, and increasingly the various aspects of the read/write Web, the filesharing protocols are still systematically rigged for participation. The content layer, is on the one hand subject to an increasingly harsh intellectual property regime, but, commercial players are themselves subject to the logic of the economy of attention and the Wisdom Game, dictating policies of information sharing and giving, in order to get the attention. Next to the commercial portals, which may or may not play a nefarious role, the public is widely enabled to create its own content, and has been doing so by the millions. While part of the previously existing Information Commons or public domain is disappearing, other parts are being continuously constructed through the myriad combined efforts of civil society users.

This process is in full swing and is what we attempt to describe in this section. Below, I reproduce an adapted version of a diagram from Hans Magnus Enzensberger, which outlines the difference between 'repressive' and 'emancipatory' media. Without any doubt, the emerging alternative media infrastructure has an overwhelming number of characteristics of being an 'emancipatory' medium: 1) it is based on distributed programming; 2) each receiver is a potential transmitter; 3) it has mobilization potential; 4) it is characterized by interaction and self-production; 5) it enables a political learning process; it allows collective production by equipotent participants; 6) the social control is effected through self-organisation. Just compare this list to the characteristics of corporate television! Thus, the historical importance of these developments seems overwhelmingly clear. This does not mean that the alternative internet media infrastructure automatically leads to emancipation, but that it can certainly enable political processes in that direction.

Let us now summarise these developments in technical terms. In terms of media, the broadband internet is rapidly mutating to enhance the capacities to create distributed online publishing in the form of the Writeable Web[x] (also called read-write web) and blogging[xi] in particular; the distribution of audio programming is possible through internet radio and various audioblogging developments such podcasting[xii] (audio content, music or video distribution through iPod or MP3 players), and other types of 'time-shifted radio' such as mobcasting[xiii] ('casting' to mobile phones), and even Skypecasting (using the popular Voice over Internet Telephony software Skype[xiv], but for broadcasting purposes, especially Internet radio programs). Audiovisual distribution is possible through the emerging video blogging (vlogging[xv]), but mostly through broadband P2P filesharing systems such as Bittorrent[xvi] and Exeem[xvii], now already responsible for the majority of internet traffic. While Exeem is still in development, Bittorrent is considered to be a major innovation making easy broadband-based audiovisual distribution all but inevitable.

All these developments taking together mean that the creation of an alternative information and communication infrastructure, outside of the control and ownership of the state and corporate-based one-to-many broadcasting systems, is well under way. These developments are not the product of a conscious activist strategy as the one proposed by Mark Pesce and practiced by players such as Indymedia, but it also to a large degree the natural outgrowth of the empowerment of the users, who, whenever they by a WiFi hub, or install Skype for personal usage, or any other natural act of ameliorating their own connectivity, are building this alternative infrastructure, from the edges onward, step by step, and this is also why it seems quite unstoppable[xviii]. In a sense, this is another example of the 'production without a manufacturer' or 'the supply-side supplying itself'', explained in 3.1.A (and notes).

These technological developments form the basis for a new practice of citizen-produced 'journalism'[xix] or 'reporting' (for lack of a better term) centered around the phenomemon of blogs, and augmented by the other techniques we have been discussing[xx]. See the example of the Korean OhMyNews[xxi], working with 35,000 citizen reporters and 40 staff members, as an example of a new type of hybrid journalism. These developments are a new vehicle for the production of 'public opinion', for the creation, expression , distribution and sharing of knowledge. And it is both supplementing and competing with the traditional mass media vehicles that used to mold public opinion[xxii]. It represents an important opportunity to distribute views that fall outside the purview of 'manufactured consent'. Clay Shirky has called it a 'process of mass amateurisation'[xxiii], an analysis that is related to my own concept of 'de-institutionalisation', a key aspect of peer to peer process which I discuss in 3.3.C.

All this outpouring of expression, news and commentary is interlinked in a blogosphere, which has developed its own techniques to distill what is important, from what is less important. Similar with the broadcast model is that the blogosphere still has hubs and connectors drawing large crowds, but different is that it creates the possibility of a "long tail". This means that whereas in the broadcast world the distribution curve bottoms out at the end, with no resources left for minority interests, in P2P media, this bottoming out does not occur (the curve flattens before reaching the bottom), because the possibility exists of creating thousands upon thousands of micro-communities, organized by affinity. David Weinberger, focusing on the role of the blog for the individual, says it is 'an expression of 'the self in conversation'[xxiv], that is available as a permanent record (through the innovation of permalinks,which create a fixed and permanent URL for every entry, unlike webpages which were always subject to change and disappearance). A crucial innovation for the spread of blogs has been the development of RSS feeds[xxv], i.e. Really Simple Syndication, which allows internet users to 'subscribe' to any blog they like, and to manage the totality of their feeds through their email, RSS reader software, or online sites like Bloglines.

Therefore, in physical terms, for the evolving telecommunications infrastructure, the broadcast model is being replaced by the `meshwork system', which is already used by the Wireless Commons movement[xxvi] to create a worldwide wireless communications network that aims to bypass the Telco infrastructure [xxvii]. Several local governments aim to aid such a process[xxviii]. For Yochai Benkler,the development of a "Open physical layer" based on open wireless networks, the so-called Spectrum Commons, is a key precondition for the existence of a "Core Common Infrastructure".

In such a system a wide array of local networks is created at very low cost, while they are interlinked with `bridges'. Communication on these networks follows a P2P model, just like the internet. Mark Pesce has already developed a realistic proposal to build an integrated alternative network within ten years[xxix], based on similar premises, and with the additional concept of developing a 'Open Source TV Tuner'[xxx] which he predicts will completely overturn traditional broadcasting. (The same technology could also be used for phone calls, once hybrid WiFi phones are available[xxxi].) He has developed serious arguments about why 'netcasting' is not only economically feasible, but superior to the broadcasting model[xxxii]. There are also already commercial versions of `file-serving television' models such as the one pioneered by TiVo[xxxiii] as well as the different plans involving TV over Internet Protocol[xxxiv]. "Radio Your Way" is a similar, though less popular, application for radio[xxxv] and there is a similar broad array of internet radio developments[xxxvi]. Telephony using the Internet Protocol[xxxvii], recently popularized by Skype, is similarly destined to overcome the limitations of the hitherto centralized telephone system. P2P is generally seen as the coming format of the telecommunication infrastructure, even by the industry itself, and confirmed by my own former experience as strategic planner in that industry. [xxxviii]



While mobile telephony is strongly centralized and controlled, it will have to compete with wireless broadband networks, and users are busily turning it into yet another participative medium, as described by Howard Rheingold in Smart Mobs.

In the above phenomenology of P2P, notice that I have taken an extreme literal definition of P2P, as many hybrid forms exist, but the important and deciding factor is: does it enable the participation of equipotent members? One of the key factors is: how inclusionary is the social practice, or technology, or theory ,or any other manifestation of the P2P ethos.

These developments almost certainly mean that a new format of distribution and consumption is arising. At stake is the eventual unsustainability of the current TV broadcast model, in which the TV stations sell their audiences to advertisers, because they control the audience and the distribution of the programs. In the new form of distribution, in which users themselves take control of the choice and timing of the programs, because of the easy replication throughout the internet, both disintermediation and re-intermediation occur. The "hyperdistribution" of audiovisual material, think about the millions already downloading movies and TV programs, creates a direct link between producers and consumers. However, the economy of attention suggests process of re-intermediation. But as we have seen in the blogosphere for printed content, this process can be undertaken by clever algorhythms and protocols and reputation-based systems, coupled with processes of viral diffusion of recommendations in affinity groups, and do not necessarily mean commercial portals or intermediaries. In a upcoming book, Mark Pesce has coined the concept of 'hyperpeople' to describe the new generation of techno-savvy youngsters who are already living this new reality, and as the technology becomes increasingly easier to use, it will be spreading throughout the population. And of course, it is not just a new form of consumption, there are also changes at the producer side, with audiences becoming themselves the producers of audiovisual material, as we can see in the growth of podcasting programs. Two consequences flow from this. First, the generalization of the phenomemom of the "Long Tail",whereby minority audiences are no longer constrained by the 'lowest common-denominator' mass media and mass marketing logic; and we can expect a flowering of creativity and self-expression. Second, the possibility of new majorities of taste and opinion forming, outside of the constraints of the mass production of unified corporate taste. As we expect from the playing out of P2P processes, we see both a strengthening of personal autonomy and a new type of collectivity. For some time now, we have seen democracies bypass majority opinions and the development of hypermanipulation. The hope is that techno-social developments are creating the possibility of a new balance of power, a 'second superpower' of global public opinion that is more democratic in character.

To judge the progress or regress of these efforts, we should look at developments in the physical layer of the internet: who owns and controls it, at present a wide variety of players, with a key role for the public and civil society who own the computers which are in fact the intelligent core of the internet; the logical layer or protocols, which pits closed systems against open systems in a continious conflict; and the content layer, which pits the free creation of an Information Commons against permanent attempts to strengthen restrictive intellectual property rights. According to Yochai Benkler, what we need is a Core Commons Infrastructure, which would consist of an

an open physical layer in the form of open wireless networks, a 'spectrum commons'

an open logical layer, i.e. systematic preference for open protocols and open platforms

an open content layer, which means the roll back of too restrictive IP laws geared to defend business monopolies and stifle the development of a free culture

Let's conclude by assessing the current 'techno-social' state of progress of such an alternative infrastructure:

Bittorrent , Exeem, and other software programs enable broadband peercasting

Viral diffusion exists to circulate information about programming

What needs to be built is:

a meshwork of netcasting transmitters, as proposed by Mark Pesce

user-friendly desktop software, to manage content (Pesce's Open Tuner proposal)

better social mechanisms to select quality into such an alternative framework

Figure - Repressive Media vs. Emancipatory Media

Repressive Media

Emancipatory Media

Centrally controlled programming

Distributed programming

One transmitter, many receivers

Each receiver potentially a transmitter

Immobilisation of isolated individuals

Mobilisation potential

Passive consumers

Interaction and self-production

Depolitisation

Political learning process

Production by specialists

Collective production

Control by property owners or the state

Social control through self-organisation

Source: Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Video Culture. Peregrine Smith, 1986, pp. 110-111

2.2. Explaining the Emergence of P2P technology

Why this emergence? The short answer is: P2P is a consequence of abundance (in fact it is both cause and consequence). With the advent of the `Information Age' that started with mass media and unintegrated private networks for multinationals, but especially with the advent of the internet and the web itself, which allow for digital copying and distribution of any digital creation at marginal cost, information abundance is created. For business processes, the keyword becomes `flow', and the integration of these endless flows. Production of material goods is predicated on the management of immaterial flows. In such a context, centralized systems inevitably create bottlenecks holding up the flow. In a P2P system, any node can contact any other node, without passing through such bottlenecks. Hierarchy only works with scarcity, and in a situation where the control of scarce resources determines the end result of the zero-sum power games being conducted. In a situation of abundance, centralized nodes cannot possible cope. Information, I probably do not need to remind the reader of this, is different from material goods, in that its sharing does not diminish its value, but on the contrary augments it. Conclusion: P2P is 'deblocking'.

Second, P2P systems are predicated on redundancy, several resources are always available to conduct any process. This makes them a lot less vulnerable than centralized systems to any kind of disruption, P2P systems are extraordinarily robust. One cannot, in terms of resources, compare any centralized system, to the extraordinary combination of millions of peripheral systems with the billions and trillions of unused memory, computing cycles, etc.... These are only unlocked in a P2P system.

Abundance is again both a cause and a consequence of complexity. In a situation of a multiplication of flows, flows that no longer follow predetermined routes, it cannot possible be predicted, where the `solution' for any problem lies. Expertise comes out of a precise combination of experience, which is unpredictable in advance. Thus, systems are needed that allow expertise to unexpectedly announce itself, when it learns that it is needed. This is precisely what P2P systems allow to an unprecendented degree. Conclusion: P2P is 'enabling'.

There is also a 'democratic rationale' to the above enabling of resources. Since it is a bottom-up rather than a top-down process. P2P is 'empowering'. Finally, associated with this, is the 'sharing' rationale.

2.3.A. Placing P2P in the context of the evolution of technology

Premodern technology was participative, and not as differentiated and autonomous. The instruments of artisans were extensions of their bodies, with which they `cooperated'. The social lifeworld, was not yet as differentiated into different spheres or into subject/object distinctions, since they saw themselves, not as much as separate and autonomous individuals, but much more as parts of a whole, following the dictates of the whole (holism), moving in a world dominated by spirits, the spirits of men (the ancestors), of the natural world, and of the objects they used. (Dumont, 1981).

Modern technology could be said to be differentiated (division of labour, differentiation of social fields, relative autonomy of technological evolution), but is no longer participative. The subject-object dichotomy means that nature becomes a resource to be used (objects used by subjects). But the object, the technological instrument, also becomes autonomous, and in the factory system typical of modernity, a dramatic reversal takes place: it is the human who becomes a `dumb' extension of the machine. The intelligence is not so much located in the machine, but in the organization of the production, of which both humans and machines are mere cogs. Modern machines are not by itself intelligent, and are organized in hierarchical frameworks. Modern humans think themselves as autonomous agents using objects, but become themselves objects of the systems of their own creation. This is the drama of modernity, the key to its alienation.

In post-modernity, machines become intelligent (though not in the same way as humans, they can only use the intelligence put in them by the humans, and so far lack the creative innovation, problem-solving and decision-making capabilities). While the old paradigm of humans as objects in a system certainly persists, a new paradigm is being born. The intelligent machines become computers, extensions now of the human brain and nervous system (instead of being extensions of the external limbs and internal functions of the body in the industrial system). Humans again start cooperating with the computers, seen as extensions of their selves, their memories, their logical processes, but also and this is crucial: it enables affective communication amongst a much wider global community of humans. Of course, within the context of cognitive capitalism (defined as the third phase of capitalism where immaterial processes are more important than the material production; where information `as property' becomes the key asset), all this still operates in a wider context of exploitation and domination, but the potential is there for a new model which allies both differentiation (the autonomous individual retains his freedom and prerogatives), and participation. Within the information paradigm, the world of matter (nanotech), life (biotech) and mind (AI) are reduced to their informational basis, which can be manipulated, and this opens up nightmarish possibilities of the extension of the resource-manipulation paradigm, now involving our very own bodies and psyches. However, because of the equally important paradigm of participation, the possibility arises of a totally new, subjective-objective, cooperative way of looking at this, and this is an element of hope.

According to the reworking of Foucault's insights by Deleuze and Guattari, there is a clear connection between the type of society and the type of technology that is dominant. Simple mechanistical machines were dominant in the classical period of modernity, the period of sovereignity (18th cy.); thermodynamic systems became dominant in the 19th cy, inaugurating disciplinary societies; finally Deleuze dates the advent of control societies, to the advent of cybernetic machines and computers. Our sections on the evolution of power will detail this aspect of the evolution of technology.

2.3.B. P2P and Technological Determinism

Starting our description with the emergence of P2P within the field of technology could be misconstrued as saying that P2P is a result of technology, in a `technology-deterministic fashion'.

The precise role of technology in human evolution is subject to debate. A first group of positions sees technology as `neutral'. Humans want more control over their environment, want to go beyond necessity,and in that quest, built better and better tools. But how we use these tools is up to us. Many inventors of technology and discoverers of scientific truths have argued this way, saying for example that atomic energy can be used for good (energy) or for bad (war), but that is entirely a political decision.

A different set of positions argues that on the contrary, technological development has a logic of its own, that as a system is goes beyond the intention of any participating individual, and in fact becomes their master. In such a reading, technological evolution is inevitable and has unforeseen consequences. In the pessimistic vision, it's in fact the ultimate form of alienation. This is so because technology is an expression of just a part of our humanity, instrumental reason, but when embedded in the technological systems and its machines, it then forces us to ressemble it, and we indeed follow the logic of machines loose many parts of our full humanity. Think of the positions of Heidegger, Baudrillard, and Virilio as exemplars of such a type of analysis. Like-minded analysis would point out that though strict Taylorism has disappeared from immaterial-based production ,the factory model has in fact spread out throughout society now, forming a kind of `Social Taylorism'. Efficiency and productivity thinking has taken over the sphere of intimacy. There has been a dramatic destruction of social knowledge and skill, of autonomous cultures, and this type of knowledge has been `appropriated' by the system of capital, and re-sold to us a commodities. Think of paid-for online dating, as a symptom of the loss of skill in dating, as one example.

Technological determinism can also have a optimistic reading. In this view, for example represented by the progress ideology of the late 19th century, and currently by the technological transhumanists, such as Kurzweil (Kurzweil, 2000), technology represents an increasing mastery and control over nature, a means of going beyond the limitations set to us by nature, and, for this type of interpretation, that is an entirely good thing.

The position I personally feel the closest to is the `critical philosophy of technology'[xxxix] developed by Andrew Feenberg (Feenberg, 1991, 1999). In his analysis, technological artifacts are a social construction, reflecting the various social interests: those of capital, those of the engineering community conceiving it, but also, those of the critical voices within that community, and of the `consumers' subverting the original aims of technology for entirely unforeseen usages. Feenberg comes very close to recognize the new form of power that we discuss in section four: i.e. the protocollary power (Galloway, 2004) which concerns the `code'. The very form of the code, whether it is for the hardware or the software, reflects what usages can be made of technology.

It is in this sense that I see a first important relation between the emergence of P2P and its technological manifestations. The engineers who conceived the point to point internet already had a wholly new set of conceptions which they integrated in their design. It was in fact explicitely designed to enable peer-based scientific collaboration. Thus, the emergence of peer to peer as a phenomena spanning the whole social field is not `caused' by technology; it is rather the opposite, the technology reflects a new way of being and feeling, which we will discuss in section 6A in particular. This position is a version of that put forward by Cornelis Castoriadis in his "L'Institution Imaginaire de la Societe". Society is not just a physical arrangement, or a rational-functional arrangement, but everything is experienced symbolically and reflects a meaning that cannot be reduced to the real or the rational. It is the product of a 'radical social imaginary'. And this imaginary though rooted in the past (through the symbolic meaning of institutions), is nevertheless a constitutive creation of mankind. Technology is just such a creation, a dimension of instituted society, that cannot be divorced from the other elements[xl]. In this context, peer to peer is the product of a newly arising radical social imaginary. Nevertheless, this does not mean that technology is not an important factor.

Why is that? In a certain sense, peer to peer, understood as a form of participation in the commons, i.e. as communal shareholding, which we discuss in section 3.4.C, has `always existed' as a particular relational dynamic. It was especially strong in the more egalitarian tribal era, with its very limited division of labor, before the advent of property and class division. But it was always limited to small bands. After the tribal era, as we enter the long era of class-based civilization, forms of communal shareholding and egalitarian participation have survived, but always subvervient, first to the authority structures of feudalism and similar `land-based systems', then to the `market pricing' system of capitalism. But the situation is now different, because the development of P2P technology is an extraordinary vector for its generalization as a social practice, beyond the limitations of time and space, i.e. geographically bounded small bands. What we now have for the first time is a densely interconnected network of affinity-based P2P networks. Thus, the technological format that is now becoming dominant, is an essential part of a new feedback loop, which strengthens the emergence of P2P to a degree not seen since the demise of tribal civilization. It is in this particular way that the current forms of P2P are a historical novelty, and not simply a repeat of the tolerated forms of egalitarian participation in essentially hierarchical and authoritarian social orders.

To repeat: it is not the technology that causes P2P. Rather, as technology, it is itself an expression of a deep shift in the epistemology and ontology occurring in our culture. But nevertheless, this technology, once created, becomes an extraordinary amplifier of the existing shift. It allows a originally minoritarian cultural shift to eventually affect larger and larger numbers of people. Finally, that shift in our culture, is itself a function of the emergence of a field of abundance, the informational field, which is itself strongly related to the technological base that has helped its creation.

To explain this argument, let us formulate this question of `why now?', in a slightly different manner. Technology philosophers such as Marshall McLuhan (McLuhan, 1994) and others, have pointed out that technology is an `extension of our bodies', or more precisely of the faculties of our bodies and minds. In a simplified way: tribal-era technologies, such as spears and arrows, reflect the extremeties of our limbs, the nails and fingers. Agricultural era technologies reflect the extension of our muscular system and the limbs proper: arms and legs. Industrial era technologies reflect our central body and its internal metabolic functions: the transformation of raw materials into more refined products that can be used by our body. Industrial economies are about producing, distributing and consuming physical products. But the information economy era is characterized by the externalization of our nervous system (telephone and telegraph) and our minds (computers), with a logic of first one-to-one communication technologies, then many to one (mass media), and finally with the internet and computer networks: many to many.

If we look at history in such a broad and large way, we can see P2P principles operating in the small bands of the tribal era. But as soon as society complexified itself through more and more elaborate division of labor, such was the complexity of organisation society, that it seemed to make more sense to create centralized institutions. According to system theorists, `fixed arrangements dramatically reduce transaction costs'. In a Darwinian sense, one could say that they could better manage information scarcity, so that a lesser number of players could rationalize the organisation of such complexity, through hierarchical formal rules. After the revolution of print, followed by the invention of electronic communication, and a dramatic lessening of information scarcity, we see a further integration of a more differentiated world system, and the emergence of a market, though within that market, it still made more sense to have larger and larger monopolistic players. With the advent of worldwide communication networks through, and before the internet these were a monopoly of the large companies, we see the occurrence of major changes in organizational logic: a flattening of hierarchies. According to system theorists complex systems cannot themselves control there increasing number of ever-more efficient subunits, unless by granting them ever-more increasing functional autonomy. The larger system controls whether a subunit has carried a task, but no longer how it is carried out. Thus his law of `requisite hierarchy' which states that the need for hierarchy diminishes in so far as the subunits increase their own capacity for control. And the 'law of requisite variety' of Arvid Aulin[xli], which states that where internal controls or external regulation is absent, hierarchy is needed. Thus one of the keys to understand current processes is that communication technologies have enabled this kind of control and regulation to such a degree, as shown in P2P processes, that centralized command and control can in fact be overcome to a very great extent. Or more correctly, that the subunits become primary, down to the level of individual participants, who can now voluntarily defer to the subunit for minimal control of `what is produced' (and no longer `how it is produced'), while the subunits to the same vis a vis the overall system. Within corporations P2P processes can only partially thrive, because they have to protect the profit motive, but outside the corporation, this limit can be overcome, and those processes of `production going outside the boundaries of the corporation' are increasingly showing that the profit imperative, and the private appropriation of the social-cooperative processes, is becoming counter-productive. In a lot more simpler terms, let us then conclude that the development of information-processing capabilities has liberated cooperation from the constraints of time and space. Thus, while accepting the argument that P2P processes have always existed, but confined to small bands (or, it eventually emerged for very short periods in revolutionary situations only to be defeated by their then still more efficient authoritarian and centralized enemies), it is indeed `only now', that such massive emergence of P2P is possible. We must thus inevitably conclude that technology a very important factor in this generalized emergence.

3. P2P in the Economic Sphere

3.1.A. The third mode of production

In the economic sphere, P2P is emerging as nothing less than a `third mode of production' (as first defined by Y. Benckler[xlii] using the concept of `Commons-based peer production'). If the first mode of production is free-market based capitalism, and the second mode was the now defunct model of a centrally-planned state-owned economy, then the third mode is defined neither by the motor of profit, nor by any central planning.

Worldwide, groups of programmers and other experts are engaging in the cooperative production of immaterial goods with important use value, mostly new software systems, but not exclusively. The new software, hardware and other immaterial products thus being created are at the same time new means of production, since the computer is now a universal machine `in charge of everything' (every productive action that can be broken down in logical steps can be directed by a computer). Software is 'active text' which directly results in 'processes'. This takes the form of either the Free Software Movement ethos [xliii], as defined by Richard Stallman (Stallman, 2002 ), or in the form of Open Source projects, as defined by Eric Raymond (Raymond, 2001). Both are innovative developments of copyright that significantly transcend the implications of privaty property and its restrictions. Free software is essentially 'open code'. Its General Public Licence says that anyone using free software must give subsequent users at least the same rights as they themselves received: total freedom to see the code, to change it, to improve it and to distribute it[xliv]. There is some discussion as to whether Free Software must be 'free', in the sense of free beer[xlv]. While its spokesmen clearly say that it is okay to charge for such software, the obligation of free distribution makes this a rather moot argument. The companies that sell software, such as Red Hat which sells version of Linux, could be said to charge for the services attached to its installation and use, rather than for the freely distributable software. This is an important argument for those stressing, as I do, the essential non-mercantile nature of free software. But in any case, if in a for-profit enterprise software is developed so that it can be sold as a product, in the case of free software, if it is sold, it is a means of producing more software, to strengthen the community and obtain financial independence to continue further projects.

FS explicitely rejects the ownership of software, since every user has the right to distribute the code, and to adapt it and is thus explicitely founded on a philosophy of participation and 'sharing'. Open Sources is admittedly less radical: it accepts ownership of software, but renders that ownership feeble since users and other developers have full right to use and change it[xlvi]. But since the OS model has been specifically designed to soften its acceptance by the business community which is now increasingly involved in its development[xlvii], it generally over a lot more control of the labor process. OS licenses allow segments of code to be used in proprietary and commercial projects, something impossible with pure free software. But even free software projects have become increasingly professionalised[xlviii], and it now generally consists of a core of often paid professionals, funded by either nonprofits or by corporations having an interest in its continued expansion; they also use professional project management systems, as is the case for Linux. Despite their differences, in subsequent chapters of the book I will use both concepts more for their underlying similarity, without my use denoting a preference, but on a personal level would be probably closer to the free software model, which is the 'purer' form of commons-based peer production.

Despite it rootedness as a modification of intellectual property rights, both do have the effect of creating a kind of public domain in software, and can be considered as part of the information commons. However, the GPL does that by completely preserving the authorship of its creators. Free software and open sources are exemplary of the double nature of peer to peer that we will discuss later: it is both within the system, but partly transcends it. Though it is increasingly attractive to economic forces for its efficiency, the profit motive is not the core of why these systems are taken up, it is much more about the use value of the products. You could say that they are part of a new 'for-benefit' sector, which also includes the NGO's, social entrepreneurs and what the Europeans call 'the social economy', and that is arising next to the 'for-profit' economy of private corporations. Studies show that the personal development of participants are primary motives, despite the fact that quite a few programmers are now paid for their efforts[xlix]. Open Sources explicitely promotes itself through its value to create more efficient software in the business environment. It is even being embraced by corporate interests such as IBM and other Microsoft rivals, as a way to bypass the latter's monopoly, but the creation of an open infrastructure is clearly crucial and in everyone's interest. But through the generalization of a cooperative mode of working, and through its overturning of the limits of property, which normally forbids other developers and users to study and ameliorate the source code, it is beyond the property model, contrary to the authoritarian, bureaucratic, or 'feudal' modes of corporate governance; and beyond the profit motive. We should also note that we have here the emergence of a mode of production that can be entirely devoid of a manufacturer[l]. In the words of Doc Searls, senior editor of Linux magazine, we see the demand-side supplying itself[li].

In conclusion:

Seen from the point of view of capitalism or private for-profit interests, commons-based peer production has the following advantages[lii]: 1) it represents more productive ways of working and of mobilizing external communities to its own purposes[liii]; 2) it represents a means of externalizing costs or of lowering transaction costs[liv]; 3) it represents new types of business models based on 'customer-made production', such as eBay and Amazon; 4) it represents new service-based business models, where by free software is used as the basis of providing surrounding services (Red Hat); 5) it represents a common shared infrastructure whose costs and building is taken up largely by the community and which prohibits both monopolistic control by stronger rivals as well as providing common standards so that a market can develop around it. In all these senses FS/OS forms of peer production are 'within the system'. But in other important senses, it still goes 'beyond' the system.

To summarise the importance of the 'transcending' factors of Commons-based peer production: 1) it is based on free cooperation, not on the selling of one's labour in exchange of a wage, nor motivated primarily by profit or for the exchange value of the resulting product; 2) it not managed by a traditional hierarchy; 3) it does not need a manufacturer; 4) it's an innovative application of copyright which creates an information commons and transcends the limitations attached to the property form.

How widespread are these developments? Open-source based computers are already the mainstay of the internet's infrastructure (Apache servers); Linux[lv] is an alternative operating system that is taking the world by storm[lvi]. It is now a practical possibility to create an Open Source personal computer that exclusively uses OS software products for the desktop, including database, accounting, graphical programs, including browsers such as Firefox[lvii]. As a collaborative method to produce software, it is being used increasingly by various businesses and institutions[lviii]. Wikipedia[lix] is an alternative encyclopedia produced by the internet community which is rapidly gaining in quantity, quality, and number of users. And there are several thousands of such projects, involving at least several millions of cooperating individuals. If we consider blogging as a form of journalistic production, then it must be noted that it already involves between 5 and 10 million bloggers, with the most popular ones achieving several hundred thousands of visitors. We are pretty much in an era of `open source everything', with musicians and other artists using it as well for collaborative online productions. In general it can be said that this mode of production achieves `products' that are at least as good, and often better than their commercial counterparts. In addition, there are solid reasons to accept that, if the open source methodology is consistently used over time, the end result can only be better alternatives, since they involved mobilization of vastly most resources than commercial products.

Open source production operates in a wider economic context, of which we would like to describe `the communism of capital', with `the hacker ethic' functioning as the basis of it's new work culture.

Figure - Choosing for a Open Source Desktop

Nature of Program

Windows

Free Software / Open Source Alternative

Desktop Operating System

MS Windows

Linspire Lindows, Gnome, or BeOS Max

Instant Messaging

AOL AIM

Jabber

Office Suite

MS Office

OpenOffice or Gnome Office

Accounting Program

Intuit

Compiere

Project Management

IBM Lotus Notes

Horde Project, or Net Office Project

Database Program

MS Access

Twiki, Druid, Gnome DB

Fax Management

Esher VSI Fax

HylaFax or Mgetty+Sendfax

Browsing

Internet Explorer

Firefox

3.1.B. The Communism of Capital, or, the cooperative nature of cognitive capitalism

In modernity, the economic ideology sees autonomous individuals entering into contracts with each other, selling labor in exchange for wages, exchanging commodities for fair value, in a free market where the `invisible hand' makes sure that the private selfish economic aims of such individuals, finally contribute to the common good. The `self' or subject of economic action is the company, led by entrepreneurs, who are the locus of innovation. Thus we have the familiar subject/object split operating in the economic sphere, with an autonomous subject using and manipulating resources.

This view is hardly defensible today. The autonomous enterprise has entered a widely participative field that blurs clear distinctions and identities. Innovation has become a very diffuse process[lx]. It is linked with its consumers through the internet, today facing less a militant labor movement than a `political consumer' who can withhold his/her buying power with an internet and blogosphere able to damage corporate images and branding in the very short term through viral explosions of critique and discontent. It is linked through extranets with partners and suppliers. Processes are no longer internally integrated, as in the business process re-engineering of the eighties, but externally integrated in vast webs of inter-company cooperation. Intranets enable widespread horizontal cooperation not only for the workers within the company, but also without. Thus, the employee, is in constant contact with the outside, part of numerous innovation and exchange networks, constantly learning in formal but mostly informal ways. Because of the high degree of education and the changing nature of work which has become a series of short-term contracts, a typical worker has not in any real sense gained his essential skills and experience within the company that he is working for at any particular moment, but expands on his skill and experience throughout his working life. Innovation today is essentially 'socialized' and takes place 'before' production, or 'after' production, with reproduction being at marginal cost concerning immaterial goods, and even if costly in the material sphere, being just an execution of the design phase[lxi].

Moreover, because the complexity, time-based, innovation-dependent nature of contemporary work, for all practical terms, work is organized as a series of teams, using mostly P2P work processes. In fact, as documented very convincingly by Eric von Hippel, in his book "The Democratisation of Innovation" (Von Hippel, 2004), innovation by users is becoming the most important driver of innovation, more so than internal market research and R & D divisions. These user innovation communities are very important in the world of extreme sports for example, in technology and online music[lxii], and in an increasing number of other areas. Recently, in May 2005, Trendwatching.com, a business-oriented innovation newsletter using thousands of spotters worldwide, has devoted a whole issue to the topic of 'Customer-made innovation', highlighting several dozen examples in all sectors of the economy.[lxiii]

The smarter companies are therefore consciously breaking down the barriers between production and consumption, producers and consumers, by involving consumers, sometimes in a explicit open-source inspired manner, into value creation[lxiv]. Think of how the success of eBay and Amazon are linked to their successful mobilization of their user communities: they are in fact integrating many aspects of commons-based peer production. There are of course important factors, inherent in the functioning of capitalism and the format of the enterprise, which cause structural tensions around this participative nature, and the use of P2P models, which we will cover in our explanatory section[lxv]. The same type of user-driven innovation has also been noted in advertising[lxvi]. Accordingly, new business management theories are needed, which Thomas Malone calls "Coordination Theory", and it involves studying (and organizing accordingly) the dependencies and relationships within and without the enterprise[lxvii]. Not surprisingly this research into 'organisational physics' is also done through open source methods[lxviii]. Apart from 'vanguard corporations' that incorporate peer production as an essential component of their activities, there is a broad shift towards a new attitude towards consumers, with many associated phenomena. Management theorists with a feeling for these trends argue that a radical shift is occurring, and needs to occur, in the managerial class, in order to be able to capitalize on these developments. David Rotman of the Rotman School of Management argues that they have to become businesspeople will have to become "more 'masters of heuristics' than 'managers of algorithms'"[lxix]. Books describing this shift are Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, and C.K. Prahalad's The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers.

So the general conclusion of all the above has to be the essentially cooperative nature of production, the fact that companies are drawing on this vast reservoir of a 'commons of general intellectuality', without which they could not function. That innovation is diffused throughout the social body. That, if we accept John Locke's argument that work that adds value should be rewarded, then it makes sense to reward the cooperative body of humankind, and not just individuals and entrepreneurs. All this leads quite a few social commentators, from both left and liberal (free enterprise advocates), to bring the issue of the universal wage on the agenda and to retrieve the early Marxian notion of the 'General Intellect'[lxx].

Why do we speak of `cognitive capitalism'? For a number of important reasons: the relative number of workers involved in material production is dwindling rather rapidly, with a majority of workers in the West involved in either symbolic (knowledge workers) or affective processing (service sector) and creation (entertainment industry). The value of any product is mostly determined, not by the value of the material resources, but by its level of integration of intelligence, and of other immaterial factors (design, creativity, experiential intensity, access to lifeworlds and identities created by brands). The immaterial nature of contemporary production is reconfiguring the material production of agricultural produce and industrial goods. In terms of professional `experience', more and more workers are not directly manipulating matter, but the process is mediated through computers that manage machine-based processes. Cognitive capitalism is therefore a hypothesis that the current phase of capitalism is distinct in its operations and logic from earlier forms such as merchant and industrial capitalism[lxxi].

According to the hypothesis of cognitive capitalism, there are three main approaches in analyses of the current political economy:

  1. `neo-classical economics' seeks for the laws of capitalism `as such', and is today much involved in creating models and mathematizing them; according to CC theorists, it lacks a historical model to take into account the changes.


  2. Information economy models claim that information/knowledge has become a independent third factor of production, changing the very nature of our economy, making it `post-capitalist'


  3. In between is the hypothesis of cognitive capitalism, which, though it recognizes that we have entered a new phase, a third `cognitive' phase, it is still within the framework of the capitalist system.

What CC-researchers are building on is an earlier and still very powerful school of economic theory, known as the Regulation School[lxxii] and especially strong in France (M. Aglietta), which considers that, despite differences in national models, there are commonalities in the structural evolution of the capitalist system, that it has been characterized by different `regimes' which each had their particular modes of `regulation' (forms of balancing the inherent instability of the system). It was they, who focused most on the theories of post-Fordism, arguing that after 1973, the Taylorist-Fordist system of organizing work and the economy (with as its corollary Keynesianism) had been replaced by new systems of organizing work and regulating the economy.

McKenzie Wark's Hacker Manifesto (Wark, 2004) goes one step further in this analysis and argues that the key factor of the new era is `information as property'. According to him, we have a new class configuration altogether. While the capitalist class owned factories and machinery, once capital was abstracted in the form of stocks and information, a new class has arisen which controls the `vectors of information', the means of producing, storing and distributing information, the means to transform use value in exchange value. This is the new social force he calls the `vectoralist' class. The class who actually produces the value (as distinct from the class that can `realise'it and thus captures the surplus value), he calls the hacker class. It is distinguished from the former because it actually creates new means of production: hardware, software, new knowledge (wetware). See 3.3.D. for a fuller explanation of the different interpretations of the current political economy, of which P2P is a crucial element.

3.1.C. The Hacker Ethic or `work as play'

In section 3.2 we will attempt to show the contradictory nature of the relationship between capitalism and peer to peer processes. It needs P2P to thrive, but is at the same threatened by it. A similar contradiction takes place in the sphere of work. We said before how in the industrial, `Fordist' model, the worker was considered an extension of the machine. Another way of saying this, is that intelligence was located in the process, but that the worker himself was deskilled, he was required to be a `dumb body', following instructions. The worker had to sell his labor in order to survive, and meaning could only be found in the activity of working itself, as a means of survival for the family, as a way of social integration, as a means of obtaining identity through one's social role. But finding meaning in the content of the work itself was exceptional.

In post-Fordism important changes and reversals occur. Today, the worker is supposed to communicate and cooperate, to have a capacity to solve problems. He is required not only to use his intelligence, but also has to engage his full subjectivity. Certainly this increases the possibility to find fulfillment and meaning through work, but that would be to paint a too rosy picture. Inside the company, the quest for fulfillment is often contradicted by the empty purpose of the company itself, especially as efficiency thinking, short termism and a sole focus on profit, are taking hold as the main priorities[lxxiii].

Peer to peer processes characteristic of the project teams are in tension with the hierarchical, feudal-like nature of the management by objectives models[lxxiv], whose 'information scarcity'-based model is becoming counterproductive even on capital's own terms[lxxv]. Psychological pressure and stress levels are very high, since the worker has now full responsibility and very high targets.[lxxvi] One could say that instead of exploiting the body of the worker, as was the case in industrial capitalism, it is now the psyche being exploited, and stress-related diseases have replaced industrial accidents. But this is not all: the productivity model and modes of efficiency thinking have left the factory to diffuse throughout society. It is not uncommon to manage one's family and children and household according to that model. Dual-career parents come home tired and stressed to children that have spent their day time in institutions since their very early age and have little occasion to spend 'quality time' together; and are managed (or manage themselves) like 'human resources' in a very competitive environment. An increasing number of human relations (such as dating) and creative activities have been commoditized and monetized. As the pressure within the corporate timesphere intensifies through the hypercompetition based model of neoliberalism, learning and other necessary activities to remain creative and efficient at work have been exported to private time. Thus paradoxically, the Protestant work ethic has been exacerbated, or as Pekka Himanen (Himanen,2001) would have it in his Hacker Ethic[lxxvii], there has been a `Friday-isation of Sunday' going on. In other words, the values and practices of the productive sphere, the sphere of the workweek including Friday, defined by efficiency, have taken over the private sphere, the sphere of the weekend, Sunday, which was supposed to be outside of that logic. But even within the corporate sphere itself, these developments have lead to a widespread dissatisfaction of the workforce.

[lxxviii] Interesting work is being done in investigating the new forms of network sociality, as for example by Andreas Wittel, but he also writes that this form of sociality, which he contrasts with community[lxxix], is geared to the creation and protection of proprietary information. This is in sharp contrast with the Peer to Peer sociality, and thus, focuses on the exacerbation of the Protestant work ethic, and its cultural effects, rather than on the reaction against it. Similary, Pekka Himanen will not distinguish between the entrepreneurs and the knowledge workers.

And this is precisely the important hypothesis of a Peer to Peer sociality: new subjectivities and intersubjectivities (which we will discuss later), are creating a counter-movement in the form of a new work ethic: the hacker ethic (see also Kane, 2003). As mass intellectuality increases through formal and informal education, and due to the very requirements of the new types of immaterial work, meaning is no longer sought in the sphere of salaried work, but in life generally, and not through entertainment alone, but through creative expression, through `work', but outside of the monetary sphere. Occasionally, and it was especially the case during the new economy boom, companies try to integrate such methods, the so-called `Bohemian' model. This explains to a large part the rise of the Open Sources production method. In the interstices of the system, between jobs, on the job when there is free time, in academic circles, or supported by social welfare, new use value is being created. Or more recently, by rival IT companies who are understanding the efficiency of the model and seeing it as a way to break the monopoly of Microsoft software. But it is done through a totally new work ethic, which is opposed to the exacerbation of the Protestant work ethic. And as it was first pioneered by the community of `passionate programmers, the so-called hackers, it is called `the hacker ethic'. Himanen (Himanen, 2004) explains a few of its characteristics[lxxx]:

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  • 0. Executive Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 1.A. What this essay is...
  • 1.B. The use of an inte...
  • 1.C. The Sociology of Form
  • 1.D. Some acknowledgments
  • 2. P2P as the Technolog...
  • 2.1.A. Defining P2P as...
  • 2.1.B. The emergence o...
  • 2.1.C. The construction...
  • 2.2. Explaining the Eme...
  • 2.3.A. Placing P2P in t...
  • 2.3.B. P2P and Technolo...
  • 3. P2P in the Economic ...
  • 3.1.A. The third mode o...
  • 3.1.B. The Communism of...
  • 3.1.C. The Hacker Ethic...
  • 3.2 Explaining the Emer...
  • 3.2.A. The superiority ...
  • 3.3 Placing the P2P Era...
  • 3.3.A. The evolution of...
  • 3.3.B. The Evolution of...
  • 3.3.C. Beyond Formaliza...
  • 3.3.D. The Evolution of...
  • 3.4 Placing P2P in an i...
  • 3.4.A. P2P, The Gift Ec...
  • 3.4.B. P2P and the Market
  • 3.4.C. P2P and the Commons
  • 3.4.D. Who rules? Cogni...
  • 3.4.E. The emergence of...
  • 4. P2P in the Political...
  • 4.1.A. The Alterglobali...
  • 4.1.B. The `Coordinatio...
  • 4.1.C. New conceptions ...
  • 4.1.D. New lines of con...
  • 4.2.A. De-Monopolizatio...
  • 4.2.B. Equality, Hierar...
  • 4.3. Evolutionary Conce...
  • 5. The Discovery of P2P...
  • 6. P2P in the Sphere of...
  • 6.1.A. A new articulati...
  • 6.1.B. Towards `contrib...
  • 6.1.C. Participative Sp...
  • 6.1.D. Partnering with ...
  • 7. P2P and Social Change
  • 7.1.A. Marginal trend o...
  • 7.1.B. P2P, Postmoderni...
  • 7.1.C. Three scenarios ...
  • 7.1.D. Possible politic...
  • 8. Launch of The Founda...
  • Reactions to the Essay:...
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  • Page 2
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