Comments on: Are P2P relations personal, or impersonal? https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/are-p2p-relations-personal-or-impersonal/2006/02/27 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:29:13 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: Michel https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/are-p2p-relations-personal-or-impersonal/2006/02/27/comment-page-1#comment-303 Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:29:13 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.com/?p=105#comment-303 StefanMz from Oekonux, contributed this to my earlier query about the impersonal/personal nature of peer to peer processes. After the personalized relationships of premodern society, and the impersonal processes of industrial society, where do we go from there, what is the exact nature of P2P processes?

“My starting point is the historical development of forces of production. This term “development of forces of production” describes very generally, how humans produce their lives. It grasps the triangle relationship between humans, means, and nature. Each of these aspects are determining an epoch: first, the “natural” epoch, where humans predominantly produce their lives via developing the ways of cultivating the ground; second, the “industrial” epoch, where humans predominantly produce their lives via developing the means (as tools, machinery, industry, science); third, the “human” epoch, where humans develop themselves as an end in itself. What we currently observe (my hypothesis), is the transition between second and third epoch.

The historically different types of producing human life evolve in a corresponding societal form. The societal forms are the ways, how humans build relationships between each other when producing their lives (when they just *live*). The corresponding forms of the three epochs above are: “natural epoch” with personal-concrete domination (different types of personal domination: slavery, feudal domination etc.); “industrial epoch” with abstract-alienated domination (abstract domination by the impersonal mechanism of making more money from money); “human epoch” – personal-concrete non-dominion form of society.

So the difference is not personal-concrete vs. personal-abstract (I don’t know, what this could be), but personal or abstract types of domination – and the free society without domination including a type of societal organisation, which bases on personal relationships. This does not necessarily mean, that “you know each other” (which is impossible), but the cooperation is driven by humans and their goals instead of an abstract impersonal mechanism (what we have in capitalism).”

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