To put the following into context:

P2P Theory envisages a new political economy that evolves around a core centered on non-reciprocal peer production (Commons-oriented), surrounded by other modes of production which are re-formed and in-formed by the peer to peer mode.

The core would be surrounded by:

– a re-invigorated field of reciprocity-based gift economies, based on a continuaton of the traditional forms which still exists in the South, and augmented by modern forms such as those using LETS or community currencies

– it would have a market which can no longer exernalize costs to the environment or future generations, and is not centered on the endless accumulation of capital. This is related to movements such as Natural Capitalism, Monetary Reform, and Taxation Reform, Fair Trade.
– it would have forms of the state and governance that are informed by the P2P principle, i.e. multistakeholdership forms of governance

In this context, I would like to mention two contributions by Kevin Carson. The first one, which I’m reproducing here, proposes a strategy that promotes fair markets but takes measures against corporate capitalism. I find most of them sensible, though disagree with an exclusively toll-based public highway system. The second, on how this would apply to the international arena, is reproduced in the P2P Encyclopedia here (http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Markets_without_Capitalism), and should be read as a complement.

Kevin Carson:

“1) eliminate all corporate welfare spending, and translate this and all other budget savings (e.g., a radical scaling back of the drug war) into income tax cuts on the lowest brackets; eliminate all differential corporate income tax benefits, including deductions and credits, and lower the corporate income tax rate enough to make it revenue neutral;

2) eliminate all credit union regulations more restrictive than those on ordinary commercial banks; eliminate capitalization requirements and other entry barriers for banks engaged solely in providing secured loans against property;

3) fund federal highways and airports entirely with tolls and other user-fees, with absolutely no subsidies from general revenues, and no use of eminent domain;

4) repeal Taft-Hartley, all legislation like the Railway Labor Relations Act which restrains specific categories of workers from striking, and all legal restrictions on minority unionism in workplaces without a certified union;

5) repeal all food libel laws, liberalize or eliminate restrictions on alternative medicine, and radically scale back or eliminate the so-called “intellectual property” of the agribusiness, infotainment, and drug industries; radically scale back or eliminate patents in general;

6) devolve control of federal land to states, counties and municipalities, with those governments replacing much or all taxation of income and sales with severance and resource extraction fees as a source of revenue;

7) restore the common law of liability to its full vigor, in preference to the regulatory state, as a way of forcing pollutors and other corporate malefactors to internalize the costs they impose on society; make civil damages directly proportional to the harm done;

8) at the state level, drastically scale back the drug war and translate the savings into eliminating the sales tax and cutting income taxes on the lower brackets; at the state and local levels, eliminate all corporate tax incentives, public spending on industrial parks, and the like, and reduce income taxes on the lower brackets accordingly; at the local level, shift all current taxes on buildings and improvements and personal property, and all sales taxes, onto the unimproved site value of land;

9) at the local level, accept some portion of taxes in LETS notes and other alternative currencies;

10) eliminate all local zoning restrictions on mixed-use development like neighborhood grocers in subdivisions, and walkup apartments downtown; fund all urban freeway systems with tolls; require real estate developers to pay the full cost of extending roads and utilities to new subdivisions, instead of passing on the cost to tax- and ratepayers in old neighborhoods .”