[iDC] Towards the Domination of Distributed Networks and a Revolution that Creates

[Vasilis Kostakis]

Dear All,

While walking towards the completion of the paper I am working on, I would
like to share with you the abstract and  part of its context.


[The world is on the verge of silence and rebellion, as we face a very
serious multidimensional crisis that affects all spheres of life. There is
an economic, political, social, ecological and cultural crisis as a
consequence of the establishment of globalised system of market economy,
representative 'democracy' and the related forms of hierarchical structure
[Fotopoulos, 2002].

In addition, it seems that nowadays, we need a revolution that does not
demand; we need a constant revolution that creates really different from the
former ones. As Deleuze and Guattari put it "we do not lack communication,
on the contrary we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance
to the present" [Hardt, and Negri, 2001]. However, in Information Age this
revolution is more impending than ever.

Peer to Peer (P2P in short) is the premise of a new mode of production,
governance, and property that stems from the relational dynamic at work in
the distributed networks. While P2P processes are on the way to prevail over
the centralised market system, and distributed structures and networks are
proliferating, a large population inversion of multitudes is being built
enhancing the approaches to the creation of open code social manifesto,
which will subvert the current closed code operating system.

People start disputing the illusive sense of freedom in terms of being free
from something, and they understand the real freedom in terms of engaging,
creating and self-expressing. The emancipatory P2P movement, and the
sociable Web, which are not just 'children' of the technological
(r)evolution, express a deeply shift in the epistemology and ontology in our
culture, and offer the means to solve the global problems, which is the end
in itself of the revolution, by relying on the collective intelligence and
wisdom of humankind.

As the economic production directly becomes political production, it is only
today, with the rise of the immaterial production to the hegemonic role,
that the revolutionary reversal becomes 'objectively possible' [Zizek,
2005]. The immaterial production is directly biopolitical [Hardt, and Negri,
2001] and thus the way towards the absolute democracy is more open than
ever.

This is the truth of P2P logical: together we have everything and together
we know everything [Bauwens, 2007, 1]. In this thesis I expand a little more
by stating that together we create everything and together we decide for
everything.

Keywords: market economy, distributed networks, peer processes, multitude,
population inversion, open code social manifesto]

and

[Laser Theory and P2P" is mainly an intersection of three monumental essays:
the "Empire" by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Michel Bauwens' thesis "P2P
and Human Evolution" and Takis Fotopoulos' book "Towards an Inclusive
Democracy".

Fotopoulos claims that a transition to real, direct, inclusive democracy
presupposes a new subjectivity, as a successful revolution should solely
come 'from below', while Bauwens, Hardt and Negri highlight that nowadays
the new emancipatory modes of production, property and governance create a
new subjectivity. Within this thesis I state that P2P movement is a passage
towards the absolute, real democracy, as P2P processes can prevail over the
current market economy on which the concept of the so-called representative
'democracy' is based. Laser Theory of Social Change makes a tentative
approach to the dynamics of the construction, or rather the insurgence, of a
powerful social organization and the scaffolding "which is continuously
constructed and renewed by the new cooperative productivity" [Hardt and
Nergi, 2001]. To put the matter bluntly, Laser Theory aims at delineating
the creation of the subjectivity that through "its practical experimentation
will offer the models and determine when and how the possible becomes real"
[Hardt and Nergi, 2001]; when and how the revolution that creates becomes
mature; when and how the absolute, real democracy in economy and politics
will shine on. ]

Your comments, ideas and criticism are very welcome.

Thank you for your time.

Vasilis

--

Thesis: http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Laser_Theory_and_Peer_to_Peer
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