From P2P Foundation

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Citations 2.1 David Graeber on Free Market Populism 2.2 David Graeber on Markets and States 2.3 Marvin Brown on why we need Civic Design for Civilizing the Economy 3 Key Articles

Introduction

• Michel Bauwens:

1. The basic orientation of p2p theory towards societal reform: transforming civil society, the private and the state
2. To the Finland Station: the political approach of P2P Theory

Citations

David Graeber on Free Market Populism

"There have, certainly, been times and places when a kind of free market populism has emerged, where markets began operating independently of governments, at least to some degree – Medieval Islam is one famous example, and later, Ming China—but in such cases, they tended to operate in very different ways than the kind of markets we’re now familiar with, less about competition, much more about creating and maintaining relations of interpersonal trust, or for instance, profit-sharing operations instead of interest, etc etc."

- David Graeber [1]

David Graeber on Markets and States

"This is a great trap of the twentieth century: on one side is the logic of the market, where we like to imagine we all start out as individuals who don’t owe each other anything. On the other is the logic of the state, where we all begin with a debt we can never truly pay. We are constantly told that they are opposites, and that between them they contain the only real human possibilities. But it’s a false dichotomy. States created markets. Markets require states. Neither could continue without the other, at least, in anything like the forms we would recognize today." (http://p2pfoundation.net/First_Five_Thousand_Years_of_Debt)

Marvin Brown on why we need Civic Design for Civilizing the Economy

"When people say, ”We have seen the problem and the problem is us,” they deceive themselves. We are not the problem. The problem is one of design. Our current design of how we live together in unjust and unsustainable, and it is still controlled by commercial conversations without any moral foundation. Those who control financial markets are sovereign. If we expand and protect civic conversations we may, in time, participate in the solution—an economy based on civic norms making provisions for this and future generations." (http://www.civilizingtheeconomy.com/2011/12/what-is-a-citizen-and-the-civic/)

Key Articles

• Matt Cropp: P2P-Driven Decline in Transaction Costs and the Coming Micro-Ownership Revolution