Comments on: My first contributions to the foundation

By: Bas Reus

Bas Reus — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:58:35 +0000

@Sam: you can try to translate the text with http://www.worldlingo.com/en/websites/url_translator.html, not perfect but definately worth a try.
I certainly think that the biggest difference with communism is the freedom that comes with P2P, and also that it is self-organizing. That makes the comparison with communism peculiar. Therefore I think the article on self-organizing networks is more ‘true’, and also nice to read. In line with the article on self-organizing is called ‘Peer-to-peer: Networks of unknown friends’, available in Dutch and English.

Bas Reus

By: Michel

Michel — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:32:40 +0000

I would like to add my own five cents too, without having read the original too.

First, the meeting points between Marxism and P2P, then the essential differences. P2P Theory aims to be integral and meta-paradigmatic, so it feels free to pick and choose amongst different traditions, which can be from both liberal and socialist stock, including many others.

Second,the peer to peer dynamics of non’reciprocal exchange resemble Marx own definition of the end stage of his vision, but crucially, in peer to peer, it is already a reality.

But the differences are equally crucial: the various socialisms are expressions of industrial society, p2p of the networked information society, really existing socialist movements where orientated towards the state, and obtaining power within the state (social democrats) or changing it to a new state, p2p is firmly within civil society, and reinforces the autonomy of civil society.

P2P is post-ideological, and because it is an actual existing practice, based on free cooperation, it can and does appeal to anyone who wants to work on common projects, it can appeal to progressive liberals (Benkler, Lessig), capitalist libertarians (Eric Raymond and many programmers), and post-workerist left traditions (Gorz in France)

I personally believe, though I’m personally myself definitely a left-of-center type of person, that any identification, or even explicit usage, of exclusivelysocialist type of language, is counterproductive. What counts is the mutual agreement on common projects, that these use free-open code and content, are collaboratively managed, and produce results that are commonly accessible. It is commons-oriented, rather than market or state oriented, but can collaborate with both.

Michel Bauwens

By: Sam Rose

Sam Rose — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:41:00 +0000

I wish that I could read the webmarxism essay, but sadly I am illiterate in that language.

I guess I want to comment that I persoanlly don’t think that a lot of the things that are happening in the P2P realm actually resemble “communist”, nor “Marxist” philosophy.

I think a lot of people make this mistake association because of the rhetoric that actual Communists and Marxists used to try and sell their way of doing things to people.

However, if this is published in english somewhere, I’d be interested to see it so that I can better understand the argument being put forth.