The first is that the two social revolutions that he refers to: from slavery to feudalism, and from feudalism to capitalism, involved a transfer of power from one propertied elite to a different propertied elite (slave owners to feudalists, and then feudalists to capitalists). In the process, as Michael correctly points out, many of the old elites adopted the new property forms themselves. When decisive clashes occurred en route to these social revolutions, the new rising elite class would mobilise the ordinary people behind them with all kinds of promises, that were soon forgotten after the changes were made. In that sense the mass of people who actually produced the wealth were largely pawns in a struggle between two elites vying for who could exploit the wealth produced by the ordinary people.

What capitalism has prepared is a very different possibility – that of the transfer of power and wealth to the population as a whole and thus for the end of elites entirely. Rather than look for P2P to develop a layer of powerful people who can challenge capitalism for their own different interests, we should move away from elites entirely and think in terms of how best to transfer power and wealth into the hands of the mass of the population and put them in conscious control of the world and in harmony with its environment.

Where P2P can and will undoubtedly play a key role is in helping to make a new democratic socialist economy work far better than capitalism ever did.

This brings me on to the second hole in Michael’s position. He argues that the failure of the socialist experiment is based on the fact that there was not an alternative propertied class or economic model available to effectively challenge capitalism and replace it, as he puts it “both from the bottom, and from the top, a double reconfiguration of classes to a new system”. The problem is that we have little evidence that P2P is producing an alternative class or property form that can challenge capitalism – Google, Facebook etc. are after all clearly capitalist entities and are not at all challenging the existing capitalist institutions (they even fund both political parties in the US. It is just as likely that capitalism will embrace the most potentially profitable aspects of P2P either in terms of corporate structures (Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on) or just by finding ways to profitably utilise the general benefits of the internet and P2P production (Wikipedia etc.). Yes, it is possible that localised production using the latest 3D Printing and related technologies could temporarily give space to small producers but how long would it be before the concentration of ownership would kick in again providing the advantages of brand, marketing, cheaper supply and so on? If we are honest, we do not know the answer to these things so how can we start assuming things that do not yet exist? One thing I am certain of is that the ever present power of money that the ever-increasing wealthy command can possibly corrupt all but a few of the committed supporters of the movement.

The last contradiction in Michael’s argument is his call for the creation of “an integrated set of alternative patterns and institutions, so that when the old metasystem breaks down, the new subsystem is sufficiently robust to serve as an alternative template for the phase transition. All of this is of a tall order, and we are far from ready for this. Nevertheless, it is what we must do.”
One can as easily argue that the socialist movement has exactly the same task – to develop plans for an alternative set of institutions that is sufficiently robust to be able to operate effectively in a post capitalist society. Indeed, I would argue that it precisely the failure of the socialist movement to develop a serious democratic socialist alternative that has left us high and dry after the collapse of the bureaucratic planned economies of the Soviet Bloc. We argue for a planned society but we have no real plans for one, just a few slogans usually laid out in a ‘What We Stand For’ column at the back of newspapers sold in town squares or on demonstrations. This lack of a worked out set of alternative policies totally undermines the credibility of the socialist left with the mass of people who have lost confidence in the ‘welfare socialism’ or ‘state socialism’ models of the past.

So I would argue that the P2P movement should not try to see itself as an alternative to the democratic socialist movement but as an integral part of it, renovating and transforming it in the direction of an enhanced critique of capitalism and more importantly towards the formulation of a far more convincing alternative to it.
Pat Byrne
email: [email protected]

What prompted me to comment was this statement: “it starts with transgressive, ‘subcultural’ behaviour that ignores the constraints of the larger society”…such as growing Weed. Prohibition has resulted in the emergence of intensive gardening techniques a)highly adaptable to the built environment b)highly productive micro-ops c)produces higher yields, and higher quality with relatively few inputs. Despite the seemingly counter intuitive statement, higher quality results in fewer inputs; similarly, consumption of higher quality products results in lower aggregate consumption.

This is relative to the current “Urban Farming” movement that merely attempts to replicate 70’s “Organic” Farming techniques at smaller scale–a political movement. Cannabis is an edible herb. The techniques are easily adaptable to micro food production systems. To put this in perspective: I could, and have, put a highly productive organic food system into operation with abundant local resources in a fraction of the time and cost as opposed to improving soil tilth–which is largely nonexistent in built environment.

Obviously, improving soil tilth should be a community priority. But as you’ve noted, the emergence of alternatives will likely come about as a result of crisis. Cannabis producers already exist in communities; trust me: somebody grows weed in your neighborhood; statistically speaking, several people. Urban Farmers not so much. So the skill sets already exist in place as a distributed network.

I’ve given up on pointing this out to people in the local food movements. In fact, it was my attempts that highlighted the political nature of the urban food movement in my mind.

As an aside: the War on Weed, which is were most of the resources have been focused based on the gateway myth, has resulted in 5th generation genetics; the distributed nature of the production system resulted in the exponential growth in diversity of genetics. The product is an organic pharmacology for the 21st century.

Enjoyed your thoughts; hope I contributed something.

Gregory Wade

Hi Alan, I believe the three aspects actually go hand in hand. You have the constructive work of building a counter-economy, you have the accelerations of history marked by intense mobilizations, and you have the policy formulations. A massive mobilzation without a alternative is a riot, it can remove regimes but not really start something new. Hence we need all three. Autonomous practices, social mobilization, and credible policy alternatives.

Right. It will be fascinating to see how far it gets — if it gets anywhere — on these fronts, especially the latter (the old institutional order). This is really where the rubber meets the road. It would be wonderful if it could be done by peaceful Fuller-like means (referring to the quote on your main page), simply building the parallel new structures and then letting nature take its course.

Will the heavily entrenched structures of capital just sail on down without a (hot) fight? Doubtful, but you never know.

Interesting time to be alive, huh?