P2P and the Structure of World History

The authors consider the long history of P2P as a mode of exchange drawing on the insights of Kojin Karatani and Karl Marx. The manifestations of both state and nation are considered in a wider framework where market forces and commodity exchange became dominant in the nineteenth century. Four transitions in history are noted starting with the pooling of resources of nomadic bands that was replaced by the reciprocity-based gift economies of tribal systems before the prospective move from a global work-market system to a mode of allocation called associationism. It is argued that this mode will integrate the previous ones but will be dominated by sharing and collaboration. This new integration strongly assimilates reciprocity mechanisms around the pooling and mutualization of productive knowledge. The chapter concludes with considering a strategy for the transition to associationism, P2P and CBPP and the reorganization of society under this new configuration. It argues that the progression to the commons works partly within current frameworks and that by necessity the nation-state system could be evolved from a ‘market state’ to a ‘partner state’ in a global environment in which commoners would eventually become the new ruling class.