SigINT10: P2P Communism vs. The Client Server State
By Dmytri Kleiner’s (Slides)
Dmytri’s talk compares peer to peer and client server with communism and captalism. It is important that these terms refer to their original meanings:
- Communism is a theoretical society with no classes and no state.
- Capitalism refers to a society in which the owners of Capital are able to abstain from direct-production by appropriating the products of workers who employ their property in production.
Mesh networks can be compared to communism:
- Participants can interact directly
- No Toll Gate, No Prices
Star networks can be compared to capitalism:
- The Capitalist is the Operator
- Roles and credentials create classes
- Mediation is needed to charge a price
Historically the internet itself was created by universities and could be more compared to communism. The big online services (CompuServe, AOL, etc) have a capitalistic background.
The enclosure of the internet shows a number of phases:
Enclosure 1.0: Capitalism bought all ISP, so ISP’s are now run by big corporations.
Enclosure 2.0: The return of Client-Server
The start topology is is being re-imposed on the Internet:
- Usenet being replaced by Webforums
- Email being replaced by Social Medea
- IRC being replaced by Twitter, etc
In fact P2P is being criminalized: there is not positive media coverage for it.
Capitalist will Not Fund P2P
- Capitalism requires enclosure, with privileged access to scarce resources, it can capture profit.
- Capitalism requires Mediation, enforcing prices requires control of circulation.
- Capitalism requiries a Star Topology.
- Capitalism requires enclosure, with privileged access to scarce resources, it can capture profit.
Venture Communism
- If we can not find alternatives to Capitalist financing, it is not only the Internet as we know that we will lose, but also the chance to remake society in it’s image.
- In order to create a society where we produce and share as equals, we need Venture Communism