Peer-to-peer (meme)
Encyclopedia
Peer-to-peer is not restricted to technology, but covers every social process with a peer-to-peer dynamic, whether these peers are humans or computers. Peer-to-peer
as a term originated from the popular concept of P2P distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. This application structure was popularized by file sharing
systems like Napster
, the first of its kind in the late 1990s.
The concept has inspired new structures and philosophies in many areas of human interaction. P2P human dynamic affords a critical look at current authoritarian
and centralized
social structures. Peer-to-peer is also a political and social program for those who believe that in many cases, peer-to-peer modes are a preferable option.
There are three fundamental aspects of social P2P processes:
Peer production does not produce commodities for exchange value, and does not use the price mechanism or corporate hierarchy
to determine the allocation of resources. It must therefore be distinguished from both the capitalist market
(though it can be linked and embedded in the broader market) and from production through state and corporate planning; as a mode of governance
it differs from traditional linear
hierarchies; and as a mode of property it differs from both traditional private property and state-based collective public property
; it is rather the common property of its producers and users and the whole of humankind. Unlike private property
, peer property is inclusive rather than exclusive — its nature is to share ownership as widely, rather than as narrowly, as possible.
. The threshold for participation is kept as low as possible. Equipotency means that there is no prior formal filtering for participation, but rather that it is the immediate practice of cooperation which determines the expertise and level of participation. Communication is not top-down and based on strictly defined reporting rules, but feedback is systemic, integrated in the protocol of the cooperative system. Techniques of 'participation capture' and other social accounting make automatic cooperation the default scheme of the project. Personal identity becomes partly generated by the contribution to the common project. P2P characterists have been studied by Howard Rheingold
et al.s Cooperation Project.
P2P is a network, not a linear or 'pyramidal' hierarchy (though it may have elements of it); it is 'distributed', though it may have elements of centralization
and 'decentralisation'; intelligence is not located at any center, but everywhere within the system. Assumed equipotency means that P2P systems start from the premise that ‘it doesn’t know where the needed resource will be located’, it assumes that ‘everybody’ can cooperate, and does not use formal rules in advance to determine its participating members. Participants are expected to self-select the module that corresponds best to their expertise. Equipotency, i.e. the capacity to cooperate, is verified in the process of cooperation itself. Validation
of knowledge, acceptance of processes, are determined by the collective through the use of digital rules which are embedded in the project's basic protocol. Cooperation must be free, not forced, and not based on neutrality (i.e. the buying of cooperation in a monetary system). It exists to produce something. It enables the widest possible participation. These are a number of characteristics that we can use to describe P2P systems ‘in general’, and in particular as it emerges in the human lifeworld. Whereas participants in hierarchical systems are subject to the panoptism of the select few who control the vast majority, in P2P systems, participants have access to holoptism, the ability for any participant to see the whole.
, etc...) do not deter participation. Viral communicators, or meshworks, are a logical extension of the internet. With this methodology, devices create their own networks through the use of excess capacity, bypassing the need for a pre-existing infrastructure. The 'Community Wi-Fi
' movement, Open Spectrum advocacy, file-serving television, and alternative meshwork-based telecommunication infrastructures are exemplary of this trend.
The second requirement is alternative information and communication systems which allow for autonomous communication between cooperating agents. The web (in particular the Writeable Web and the Web 2.0
that is in the process of being established) allows for the universal autonomous production, dissemination, and 'consumption' of written material while the associated podcasting
and webcasting developments create an 'alternative information and communication infrastructure' for audio and audiovisual creation. The existence of such an infrastructure enables autonomous content production that may be distributed without the intermediary of the classic publishing and broadcasting media (though new forms of mediation may arise).
The third requirement is the existence of a 'software' infrastructure for autonomous global cooperation. A growing number of collaborative tools, such as blogs and wiki's, embedded in social networking software facilitate the creation of trust and social capital
, making it possible to create global groups that can create use-value without the intermediary of manufacturing or distribution by for-profit enterprises
.
The fourth requirement is a legal infrastructure that enables the creation of use-value and protects it from private appropriation
. The General Public License (which prohibits the appropriation of software code), the related Open Source Initiative
, and certain versions of the Creative Commons
license fulfill this role. They enable the protection of common use-value and use viral characteristics to spread. GPL and related material can only be used in projects that in turn put their adapted source code in the public domain
.
The fifth requirement is cultural. The diffusion of mass intellectuality, (i.e. the distribution of human intelligence) and associated changes in ways of feeling and being (ontology
), ways of knowing (epistemology) and value constellations (axiology
) have been instrumental in creating the type of cooperative individualism needed to sustain an ethos
which can enable P2P projects.
based capitalism
, and the second mode was the model of a centrally-planned economy, then the third mode is defined neither by the motor of profit, nor by central planning: to allocate resources and make decisions, it does not use market and pricing mechanisms, or managerial commands, but instead uses social relations. Peer production is a significant part of the mainstream
economy, even if it is not much advertised as such in mainstream economic literature.
Despite significant differences, P2P and the capitalist market are highly interconnected. P2P is dependent on the market and the market is dependent on P2P. Peer production produces use-value through mostly immaterial
production, without directly providing an income for its producers. Participants cannot live from peer production, though they derive meaning and value from it.
The market and capitalism are also dependent on P2P. Capitalism has become a system relying on distributed networks, in particular on the P2P infrastructure in computing and communication. Productivity is highly reliant on cooperative teamwork
, most often organized in ways that are derivative of peer production's governance. The support given by major IT companies to open-source development is a testimony to the use derived from even the new common property regimes. The general business model
seems to be that businesses use the P2P infrastructure
, and create a surplus value through services, which can be packaged for exchange value
. For-profit enterprises mostly use partial implementations of P2P. Amazon
built itself around user reviews, eBay
lives on a platform of worldwide distributed auctions, and Google
is constituted by user-generated content. Value creation today is no longer confined to the enterprise, but beholden to the mass intellectuality of knowledge worker
s, who through their lifelong learning/experiencing and systemic connectivity, constantly innovate within and without the enterprise.
Peer-to-peer systems contribute to more specific forms of distributed capitalism. The massive use of open source software in business, enthusiastically supported by venture capital
and large IT companies such as IBM
, is creating a distributed software platform that will drastically undercut the monopolistic rents enjoyed by companies such as Microsoft
and Oracle
, while Skype
and VoIP will drastically redistribute the telecom
infrastructure. In addition, it also points to a new business model that is 'beyond' products, focusing instead on services associated with the nominally free FS/OS software model. Industries are gradually transforming themselves to incorporate user-generated innovation, and a new intermediation may occur around user-generated media. Many knowledge workers are choosing non-corporate paths and becoming mini-entrepreneurs, relying on an increasingly sophisticated participatory infrastructure, a kind of digital corporate commons.
: neither market pricing nor managerial command are required for P2P processes to make decisions regarding the allocation of resources. There are further differences:
Markets do not function well for common needs that do not involve direct payment (national defense
, general policing, education
and public health
). In addition, they fail to take into account negative externalities (the environment, social costs, future generations).
, and the resulting use-value of the projects supersedes for-profit alternatives.
Historically, though forces of higher productivity
may be temporarily embedded in the old productive system, they ultimately lead to deep upheavals and reconstitutions of the political economy
. The emergence of capitalist modes within the feudal system is a case in point. This is particularly significant because leading sectors of the for-profit economy are deliberately slowing down productive growth (through patents and monopolization
) and trying to outlaw P2P production and sharing practices.
s of countries are composed of a specialized and privileged body of individuals, who monopolize political decision-making. Their function is to enforce existing laws, legislate new ones, and arbitrate conflicts via their monopoly on violence. Legislation can be open to the general citizenry through open source governance
, allowing policy development to benefit from the collected wisdom of the people as a whole.
Michel Bauwens
has stated, that society is not a peer group with an a priori consensus, but rather a decentralized structure of competing groups and representative democracy
cannot be replaced entirely by peer governance.
Peer projects which evolve beyond a certain scale and start facing issues of decisions about scarce resources, will probably adapt some representational mechanisms. Representative and bureaucratic decision-making can and will in some places be replaced by global governance networks which may be self-governed to a large extent, but in any case, it will and should incorporate more and more multistakeholder models (i.e. collaborative e-democracy
), which strives to include all groups that could be affected. This group-based partnership model is different, but related in spirit, to the individual-based peer governance, because they share an ethos
of participation.
movement and the "Occupy" movement (i.e. Occupy Wall Street
). The movements see itself as a network of networks that combines players from a wide variety of fields and opinion, who, despite the fact that they do not see eye to eye in all things, manage to unite around a common platform of action around certain key events.
They are able to mobilize vast numbers of people from every continent
, without having at their disposal any of the traditional news media
, such as television, radio or newspapers. Rather, they rely almost exclusively on the P2P technologies described above. Thus, Internet media are used for communication and learning on a continuous basis, prior to the mobilizations, and also during the mobilizations.
Independent Internet media platforms such as Indymedia, as well as the skillful use of mobile phones, are used for real-time response management, undertaken by small groups that use buddy-list technologies, and sometimes open source programs that have been explicitly designed for political activism such as TextMob.
Many reports have appeared, including those described in Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mob
s, about the political significance of SMS
in organizing successful protests and ‘democratic revolutions’. The network model allows for a more fluid organization that does not fix any group in a permanent adversarial position. Various temporary coalitions are created on an ad hoc
basis depending on the issues.
Business and economics:
Culture:
Philosophy and spirituality:
Politics:
Science:
Technologies:
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
as a term originated from the popular concept of P2P distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. This application structure was popularized by file sharing
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
systems like Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
, the first of its kind in the late 1990s.
The concept has inspired new structures and philosophies in many areas of human interaction. P2P human dynamic affords a critical look at current authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
and centralized
Centralization
Centralisation, or centralization , is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group....
social structures. Peer-to-peer is also a political and social program for those who believe that in many cases, peer-to-peer modes are a preferable option.
Definition
P2P is a specific form of relational dynamic, based on the assumed equipotency of its participants, organized through the free cooperation of equals in view of the performance of a common task, for the creation of a common good, with forms of decision-making and autonomy that are widely distributed throughout the network.There are three fundamental aspects of social P2P processes:
- peer productionPeer productionPeer production is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome. The production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field...
- the collaborative production of use value is open to participation and use to the widest possible number (as defined by Yochai Benkler, in his essay Coase's Penguin); - peer governance - production or project is governed by the community of producers themselves, not by market allocation or corporate hierarchy;
- peer property - the use-value of property is freely accessible on a universal basis; peer services and products are distributed through new modes of property, which are not exclusive, though recognize individual authorship (i.e. the GNU General Public LicenseGNU General Public LicenseThe GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
or the Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
licenses).
Peer production does not produce commodities for exchange value, and does not use the price mechanism or corporate hierarchy
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
to determine the allocation of resources. It must therefore be distinguished from both the capitalist market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
(though it can be linked and embedded in the broader market) and from production through state and corporate planning; as a mode of governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
it differs from traditional linear
Linear
In mathematics, a linear map or function f is a function which satisfies the following two properties:* Additivity : f = f + f...
hierarchies; and as a mode of property it differs from both traditional private property and state-based collective public property
Public property
Public property is property, which is dedicated to the use of the public. It is a subset of state property. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership...
; it is rather the common property of its producers and users and the whole of humankind. Unlike private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
, peer property is inclusive rather than exclusive — its nature is to share ownership as widely, rather than as narrowly, as possible.
Characteristics
P2P processes are not structureless, but are characterized by dynamic and changing structures which adapt themselves to phase changes. Its rules are not derived from an external authority, as in hierarchical systems, but are generated from within. It does not deny ‘authority’, but only fixed forced hierarchy, and therefore accepts authority based on expertise, initiation of the project, etc. P2P may be the first true meritocracyMeritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
. The threshold for participation is kept as low as possible. Equipotency means that there is no prior formal filtering for participation, but rather that it is the immediate practice of cooperation which determines the expertise and level of participation. Communication is not top-down and based on strictly defined reporting rules, but feedback is systemic, integrated in the protocol of the cooperative system. Techniques of 'participation capture' and other social accounting make automatic cooperation the default scheme of the project. Personal identity becomes partly generated by the contribution to the common project. P2P characterists have been studied by Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold
-See also:* Collective intelligence* Information society* The WELL* Virtual community-External links:***** at TED conference** a 48MB Quicktime movie, hosted by the Internet Archive...
et al.s Cooperation Project.
P2P is a network, not a linear or 'pyramidal' hierarchy (though it may have elements of it); it is 'distributed', though it may have elements of centralization
Centralization
Centralisation, or centralization , is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group....
and 'decentralisation'; intelligence is not located at any center, but everywhere within the system. Assumed equipotency means that P2P systems start from the premise that ‘it doesn’t know where the needed resource will be located’, it assumes that ‘everybody’ can cooperate, and does not use formal rules in advance to determine its participating members. Participants are expected to self-select the module that corresponds best to their expertise. Equipotency, i.e. the capacity to cooperate, is verified in the process of cooperation itself. Validation
Data validation
In computer science, data validation is the process of ensuring that a program operates on clean, correct and useful data. It uses routines, often called "validation rules" or "check routines", that check for correctness, meaningfulness, and security of data that are input to the system...
of knowledge, acceptance of processes, are determined by the collective through the use of digital rules which are embedded in the project's basic protocol. Cooperation must be free, not forced, and not based on neutrality (i.e. the buying of cooperation in a monetary system). It exists to produce something. It enables the widest possible participation. These are a number of characteristics that we can use to describe P2P systems ‘in general’, and in particular as it emerges in the human lifeworld. Whereas participants in hierarchical systems are subject to the panoptism of the select few who control the vast majority, in P2P systems, participants have access to holoptism, the ability for any participant to see the whole.
Infrastructure for social P2P processes
The first requirement to facilitate the emergence of peer-to-peer processes is the existence of a technological infrastructure that enables distributed access to 'fixed' capital. Individual computers that enable a universal machine capable of executing any logical task are a form of distributed 'fixed capital,' available at low cost to many producers. The internet, as a point to point network, was specifically designed for participation by the edges (computer users) without the use of obligatory hubs. Although it is not fully in the hands of its participants, the internet is controlled through distributed governance, and outside the complete hegemony of particular private or state actors. The Internet's hierarchical elements (such as the stacked IP protocols, the decentralized Domain Name SystemDomain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
, etc...) do not deter participation. Viral communicators, or meshworks, are a logical extension of the internet. With this methodology, devices create their own networks through the use of excess capacity, bypassing the need for a pre-existing infrastructure. The 'Community Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
' movement, Open Spectrum advocacy, file-serving television, and alternative meshwork-based telecommunication infrastructures are exemplary of this trend.
The second requirement is alternative information and communication systems which allow for autonomous communication between cooperating agents. The web (in particular the Writeable Web and the Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
that is in the process of being established) allows for the universal autonomous production, dissemination, and 'consumption' of written material while the associated podcasting
Podcasting
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
and webcasting developments create an 'alternative information and communication infrastructure' for audio and audiovisual creation. The existence of such an infrastructure enables autonomous content production that may be distributed without the intermediary of the classic publishing and broadcasting media (though new forms of mediation may arise).
The third requirement is the existence of a 'software' infrastructure for autonomous global cooperation. A growing number of collaborative tools, such as blogs and wiki's, embedded in social networking software facilitate the creation of trust and social capital
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...
, making it possible to create global groups that can create use-value without the intermediary of manufacturing or distribution by for-profit enterprises
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
.
The fourth requirement is a legal infrastructure that enables the creation of use-value and protects it from private appropriation
Appropriation (economics)
Appropriation is a non-violent process by which previously unowned natural resources, particularly land, become the property of a person or group of persons. The term is widely used in economics in this sense...
. The General Public License (which prohibits the appropriation of software code), the related Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
, and certain versions of the Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license fulfill this role. They enable the protection of common use-value and use viral characteristics to spread. GPL and related material can only be used in projects that in turn put their adapted source code in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.
The fifth requirement is cultural. The diffusion of mass intellectuality, (i.e. the distribution of human intelligence) and associated changes in ways of feeling and being (ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
), ways of knowing (epistemology) and value constellations (axiology
Axiology
Axiology is the philosophical study of value. It is either the collective term for ethics and aesthetics—philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value—or the foundation for these fields, and thus similar to value theory and meta-ethics...
) have been instrumental in creating the type of cooperative individualism needed to sustain an ethos
Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
which can enable P2P projects.
P2P processes and capitalism
There are two important aspects to the emergence of P2P in the economic sphere. On the one hand, as format for peer production processes, it is emerging as a 'third mode of production' based on the cooperation of autonomous agents. Indeed, if the first mode of production was laissez-faireLaissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
based capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, and the second mode was the model of a centrally-planned economy, then the third mode is defined neither by the motor of profit, nor by central planning: to allocate resources and make decisions, it does not use market and pricing mechanisms, or managerial commands, but instead uses social relations. Peer production is a significant part of the mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
economy, even if it is not much advertised as such in mainstream economic literature.
Despite significant differences, P2P and the capitalist market are highly interconnected. P2P is dependent on the market and the market is dependent on P2P. Peer production produces use-value through mostly immaterial
Intangibles
The term intangibles is most commonly used to describe things that are recognized but not easily quantified; a common example are economic intangibles which describes something not easily quantified within a given theory of economics...
production, without directly providing an income for its producers. Participants cannot live from peer production, though they derive meaning and value from it.
The market and capitalism are also dependent on P2P. Capitalism has become a system relying on distributed networks, in particular on the P2P infrastructure in computing and communication. Productivity is highly reliant on cooperative teamwork
Teamwork
Teamwork is action performed by a team towards a common goal. A team consists of more than one person, each of whom typically has different responsibilities....
, most often organized in ways that are derivative of peer production's governance. The support given by major IT companies to open-source development is a testimony to the use derived from even the new common property regimes. The general business model
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
seems to be that businesses use the P2P infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
, and create a surplus value through services, which can be packaged for exchange value
Exchange value
In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market...
. For-profit enterprises mostly use partial implementations of P2P. Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
built itself around user reviews, eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
lives on a platform of worldwide distributed auctions, and Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
is constituted by user-generated content. Value creation today is no longer confined to the enterprise, but beholden to the mass intellectuality of knowledge worker
Knowledge worker
Knowledge workers in today's workforce are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development. They use research...
s, who through their lifelong learning/experiencing and systemic connectivity, constantly innovate within and without the enterprise.
Peer-to-peer systems contribute to more specific forms of distributed capitalism. The massive use of open source software in business, enthusiastically supported by venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
and large IT companies such as IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, is creating a distributed software platform that will drastically undercut the monopolistic rents enjoyed by companies such as Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
, while Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
and VoIP will drastically redistribute the telecom
Telecommunications Service Provider
A telecommunications service provider or TSP is a type of communications service provider that has traditionally provided telephone and similar services...
infrastructure. In addition, it also points to a new business model that is 'beyond' products, focusing instead on services associated with the nominally free FS/OS software model. Industries are gradually transforming themselves to incorporate user-generated innovation, and a new intermediation may occur around user-generated media. Many knowledge workers are choosing non-corporate paths and becoming mini-entrepreneurs, relying on an increasingly sophisticated participatory infrastructure, a kind of digital corporate commons.
P2P systems vs. market economy
Social P2P systems are different from market economyMarket economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
: neither market pricing nor managerial command are required for P2P processes to make decisions regarding the allocation of resources. There are further differences:
- Market economy is similar to insect-like swarm intelligenceSwarm intelligenceSwarm intelligence is the collective behaviour of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence...
. There are autonomous agents in a distributed environment, but each individual only sees his own immediate benefit. - Markets are based on 'neutral' cooperation, and not on synergistic cooperation: no reciprocityNorm of reciprocityThe norm of reciprocity is the social expectation that people will respond to each other in kind—returning benefits for benefits, and responding with either indifference or hostility to harms. The social norm of reciprocity often takes different forms in different areas of social life, or in...
is created. - Markets operate for the exchange value and profitProfit (economics)In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total opportunity costs of a venture to an entrepreneur or investor, whilst economic profit In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total...
, not directly for use value. - Whereas P2P aims at full participation, markets only fulfill the needs of those with purchasing powerPurchasing powerPurchasing power is the number of goods/services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if you had taken one dollar to a store in the 1950s, you would have been able to buy a greater number of items than you would today, indicating that you would have had a greater purchasing...
.
Markets do not function well for common needs that do not involve direct payment (national defense
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
, general policing, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
). In addition, they fail to take into account negative externalities (the environment, social costs, future generations).
P2P economic system
In The Political Economy of Peer Production Bauwens regards P2P phenomena as an emerging alternative to capitalist society. P2P economy may be seen as extending or already existing outside the sphere of free/open source software production and other non-rival immaterial goods. Peer production effectively enables the free cooperation of producers, who have access to their own means of productionProduction (economics)
In economics, production is the act of creating 'use' value or 'utility' that can satisfy a want or need. The act may or may not include factors of production other than labor...
, and the resulting use-value of the projects supersedes for-profit alternatives.
Historically, though forces of higher productivity
Productivity
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
may be temporarily embedded in the old productive system, they ultimately lead to deep upheavals and reconstitutions of the political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
. The emergence of capitalist modes within the feudal system is a case in point. This is particularly significant because leading sectors of the for-profit economy are deliberately slowing down productive growth (through patents and monopolization
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
) and trying to outlaw P2P production and sharing practices.
P2P governance
GovernmentGovernment
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s of countries are composed of a specialized and privileged body of individuals, who monopolize political decision-making. Their function is to enforce existing laws, legislate new ones, and arbitrate conflicts via their monopoly on violence. Legislation can be open to the general citizenry through open source governance
Open source governance
Open-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
, allowing policy development to benefit from the collected wisdom of the people as a whole.
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens is a Belgian Peer-to-Peer theorist and an active writer, researcher and conference speaker on the subject of technology, culture and business innovation.-Biography:...
has stated, that society is not a peer group with an a priori consensus, but rather a decentralized structure of competing groups and representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
cannot be replaced entirely by peer governance.
Peer projects which evolve beyond a certain scale and start facing issues of decisions about scarce resources, will probably adapt some representational mechanisms. Representative and bureaucratic decision-making can and will in some places be replaced by global governance networks which may be self-governed to a large extent, but in any case, it will and should incorporate more and more multistakeholder models (i.e. collaborative e-democracy
Collaborative e-democracy
Collaborative e-democracy is a democratic conception which combines key features of direct democracy, representative democracy, and e-democracy...
), which strives to include all groups that could be affected. This group-based partnership model is different, but related in spirit, to the individual-based peer governance, because they share an ethos
Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
of participation.
Open source movements and P2P processes
Many new movements are taking on P2P organizational formats, such as the alter-globalizationAlter-globalization
Alter-globalization is the name of a social movement that supports global cooperation and interaction, but which opposes the negative effects of economic globalization, feeling that it often works to the detriment of, or does not...
movement and the "Occupy" movement (i.e. Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters which began September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district...
). The movements see itself as a network of networks that combines players from a wide variety of fields and opinion, who, despite the fact that they do not see eye to eye in all things, manage to unite around a common platform of action around certain key events.
They are able to mobilize vast numbers of people from every continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
, without having at their disposal any of the traditional news media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
, such as television, radio or newspapers. Rather, they rely almost exclusively on the P2P technologies described above. Thus, Internet media are used for communication and learning on a continuous basis, prior to the mobilizations, and also during the mobilizations.
Independent Internet media platforms such as Indymedia, as well as the skillful use of mobile phones, are used for real-time response management, undertaken by small groups that use buddy-list technologies, and sometimes open source programs that have been explicitly designed for political activism such as TextMob.
Many reports have appeared, including those described in Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mob
Smart mob
A smart mob is a group that, contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links. This network enables people to connect to information and others, allowing a form of social coordination. Parallels are made to,...
s, about the political significance of SMS
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
in organizing successful protests and ‘democratic revolutions’. The network model allows for a more fluid organization that does not fix any group in a permanent adversarial position. Various temporary coalitions are created on an ad hoc
Ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....
basis depending on the issues.
Notable figures
The following is a list of individuals who have made contributions to the peer-to-peer paradigm.Business and economics:
- Eric Von HippelEric von HippelEric von Hippel is an economist and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, specializing in the nature and economics of distributed and open innovation. He is best known for his work developing the concept of user innovation – that end-users, rather than manufacturers, are...
, author of The Democratisation of Innovation, on user innovation communities - Pekka HimanenPekka Himanen-Biography:Pekka Himanen defines himself as a philosopher and a public intellectual. He studied philosophy at the University of Helsinki. In 1994, with his thesis on the philosophy of religion, The challenge of Bertrand Russell, he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the same university, thus...
, for his examination of the new work culture in 'Hacker Ethics' - Peter DruckerPeter DruckerPeter Ferdinand Drucker was an influential writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.”-Introduction:...
author of Concept of the CorporationConcept of the CorporationConcept of the Corporation is a book by management professor and sociologist Peter Drucker. It is widely held to be the first book of its kind.-Overview:...
for term 'federal decentralization'
Culture:
- Lawrence LessigLawrence LessigLawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
, created the Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
licences and is an advocate of Free Culture against the encroachments of excessive intellectual property restrictions - Jimmy WalesJimmy WalesJimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
, InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
entrepreneur - Dan GillmorDan GillmorDan Gillmor is a noted American technology writer and columnist. He is director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard...
for his advocacy of citizen-based journalismJournalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and... - Mark PesceMark Pesce- Biography :September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology , for a Bachelor of Science degree, but left in June 1982 to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-technology industry. He worked as an Engineer for the next few years, developing prototype firmware and...
, for his campaign around the issue for an alternative information and communications infrastructure - Howard RheingoldHoward Rheingold-See also:* Collective intelligence* Information society* The WELL* Virtual community-External links:***** at TED conference** a 48MB Quicktime movie, hosted by the Internet Archive...
, for his books on the emerging sociality in the online world, such as Virtual Communities and Smart MobsSmart MobsSmart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution is a book by Howard Rheingold dealing with the social, economic and political changes implicated by developing technology. The book covers subjects from text-messaging culture to wireless internet developments to the impact of the web on the marketplace...
Philosophy and spirituality:
- John HeronJohn HeronJohn Heron is a pioneer in the creation of a participatory research method in the social sciences, called co-operative inquiry, which was based on his work in 1968-69 on the phenomenology of social encounter, and which has been applied by practitioners in many fields of professional and personal...
, founder of cooperative inquiry techniques in the field of spirituality - Jorge FerrerJorge FerrerJorge Ferrer is chair of the department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the author of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality, and co-editor of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious...
, author of Revisioning Transpersonal Psychology, an extended review of the development of participatory spirituality - Henryk SkolimowskiHenryk SkolimowskiHenryk Skolimowski is a Polish philosopher. He completed technical studies, musicology and philosophy in Warsaw. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University....
, author of The Participatory Mind - David SkrbinaDavid SkrbinaDavid Skrbina is a pioneer of ecophilosophy. He stood for the office of Lieutenant Governor for the U.S. state of Michigan as the Green Party candidate in 2006, as the running mate of Douglas Campbell....
, author of a history of the participatory worldview - Gilles DeleuzeGilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix GuattariFélix GuattariPierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
, for their early anticipation of the 'rhizomatic' future
Politics:
- McKenzie WarkMcKenzie WarkMcKenzie Wark is an Australian-born writer and scholar. He works mainly on media theory, critical theory and new media. His best known works are A Hacker Manifesto and Gamer Theory.-Life:...
, author of a class analysis of the information age, and his hypothesis of the vectoralist class (owners of the vectors of information) in his book A Hacker Manifesto [2004] - Toni Negri and Michael HardtMichael HardtMichael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000...
, for their analysis of the Multitudes in Empire and Multitude - Miguel Benasayag, for his development of networked counter-power and 'creation as resistance'
- John Holloway, author of Revolution without Power
- David BollierDavid BollierDavid Bollier is an American activist, writer, and policy strategist. He is co-founder of the , Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, and writes technology-related reports for the Aspen Institute...
, Commons advocate - Paul B. Hartzog, scholar of network culture and peer-to-peer governance (panarchyPanarchyPanarchy is a conceptual term first coined by the Belgian botanist and economist Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860, referring to a specific form of governance that would encompass all others. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the noun as "chiefly poetic" with the meaning "a universal realm," citing...
) - Alexander GallowayAlexander GallowayLieutenant-General Sir Alexander Galloway KBE, CB, DSO, MC was an officer in the British Army during World War I and World War II...
, for his unveiling of the importance of protocol as a form of power, in his book Protocol [2003]
Science:
- Andreas Wittel on network sociality (network sociality is not P2P sociality, but the mainstream adoption of networked behaviour by knowledge workers)
- Steve Weber, study of open source processes
- Yochai BenklerYochai BenklerYochai Benkler is an Israeli-American professor of Law and author. Since 2007, he has been the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.- Biography :In 1984, Benkler...
, study of Commons-based peer production
Technologies:
- Vint CerfVint CerfVinton Gray "Vint" Cerf is an American computer scientist, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American computer scientist Bob Kahn...
- 'father' of the internet - Richard StallmanRichard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, founder of the Free Software movement - Eric RaymondEric S. RaymondEric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
, founder of the Open Source initiative - Eben MoglenEben MoglenEben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation....
, founder of the Software Freedom Law CenterSoftware Freedom Law CenterThe Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
See also
- Collaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracy is a democratic conception which combines key features of direct democracy, representative democracy, and e-democracy...
- Commons-based peer productionCommons-based peer productionCommons-based peer production is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler to describe a new model of socio-economic production in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is coordinated into large, meaningful projects mostly without traditional hierarchical...
- Distributed economiesDistributed Economies-Definition:There is no official definition for DE, but it could be described as a regional approach to promote innovation by small and medium sized enterprises, as well as sustainable development...
- DistributismDistributismDistributism is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as G. K...
- Leaderless resistanceLeaderless resistanceLeaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups , including individuals , challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and civil disobedience...
- Metagovernment
- Network economyNetwork EconomyThe network economy is the emerging economic order within the information society. The name stems from a key attribute - products and services are created and value is added through social networks operating on large or global scales...
- "Occupy" protests
- Peer educationPeer educationPeer Education is an approach to health promotion, in which community members are supported to promote health-enhancing change among their peers...
- Peer mentoringPeer mentoringPeer mentoring is a form of mentorship that takes place in learning environments such as schools, usually between an older more experienced student and a new student. Peer mentors should not be confused with prefects...
- Peer supportPeer supportPeer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, listening, or counseling...
- Peer-to-peerPeer-to-peerPeer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
- Peer-to-peer banking
- Peer-to-peer rentingPeer-to-peer rentingPeer-to-peer renting refers to the process of an individual renting an owned good, service, or property to another individual. It is also referred to as Person-to-Person rental, P2P renting, Collaborative Consumption, and Product Service System...
- Peer productionPeer productionPeer production is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome. The production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field...
- Production for useProduction for useProduction for use is a defining criterion of a socialist economy and distinguishes socialism from capitalism...
- Open designOpen designOpen design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation...