One of the most compelling ideas in the P2P oeuvre is that of “peer production.” It suggests flatter organizations, more equal relationships, and production that’s a far cry from the exploitation of yore. And not coincidentally so. P2P comes out of a technical discipline in which networks organize relations, power is subordinated to messaging and communication, and participants have shared stakes in a common weal and product.
So the question becomes, can such a view of production and productive relations also serve as a way of organizing society? Is it capable of such a thing? How might it have to change?
Society is of course more than production of goods and services. There are values, traditions (even in modern times!), cultures and subcultures, to name but a few. Community relations are reproduced by human interaction, through social exchanges that have little to do with the market place and a lot to do with values, beliefs, and basic human discourse and activity. And how people feel about each other. Social interactions are the process by which society’s big stuff (its institutions, law, its leadership and political organization) are reproduced through the smallest face-to-face encounters. And these daily communications involve the feelings, friendships, and commitments we all have with others. The beauty of interaction is this: that it binds us together while knitting together society’s very fabric, at the same time and in the same activity. Nothing that we do with other people, nothing that we do that communicates to others, is just self-expression. Social action is individually motivated action in social form. Both individuals and society are involved. But most importantly perhaps, these community relations have history. And that’s where p2p is at times challenged and deficient, and where I’m curious to know what p2p can do to advance itself.
It’s not that market theories or production models don’t value history, but that the social network model of human relations tends to look forward. Indeed, it’s open-ness is one of its best features. But does this kind of open-ness comes at the price of memory? Networks formed to coordinate actions, to conduct communication and to organize people, companies, organizations and so on work because they’re neither bound by tradition nor obliged by hierchical structures (e.g. the classic pyramidal corporate structure). And while p2p is compelling and catching, recent world events demonstrate that the world’s best diplomats still have to duck at the sound of incoming rockets launched in the names of deep, historic grievances, territories, and leaders.
I’m curious to hear what we think of this. Is p2p hobbled by its ahistoricity? How deeply can p2p organize human relations? Does there always have to be a production or productive activity involved, an exchange or circulation of objects, instructions, messages? How social can p2p be, and by that I mean can p2p organize social relations and sustain them beyond ad hoc or exchange-based communities and groups?
A lot of questions, I know, but I trust that I’m in the right place to ask them!
–Adrian Chan