Peer to peer is first of all a new technological paradigm for the organisation of the information and communication infrastructure that is the very basis of our postindustrial economy. The internet itself, as network of networks, is an expression of this paradigm. As ‘end to end’ or ‘point to point’ network, it has replaced the client-server form, which posited a central server with associated dependent computers. Instead, in a peer to peer network, intelligence is distributed everywhere. Every node is capable of receiving and sending data. (...)

This situation leads to a interesting and first historical analogy: when capitalist methods of production emerged, the feudal system, the guilds and the craftsmen at first tried to oppose and stop them (up to the physical liquidation of machines by the Luddites in the UK), but they largely failed. It is not difficult to see a comparison with the struggle of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) against Napster: they may have won legally, but the phenomenon is continuing to spread. In general, we can interpret many of the current conflicts as pitting against each other the old way of production, commodity-based production and its legal infrastructure of copyright, and the new technological and social practices undermining these existing processes. In the short term, the forces of the old try to increase their hold and faced with subverting influences, strengthen the legal and the repressive apparatus. But in the long term the question is : can they hold back these more productive processes ?

Michael Bauwens