Abstract

This paper is an inquiry into the nature of the emerging peer to peer relationalities that are co-evolving with the networked forms of technology and human organisation. In the first part, we will match the observations of the P2P Foundation collaborative, a network of researchers into p2p phenomena, on the emergence of peer production as a general social process. We will use the relational typology of Alan Page Fiske to system-atize these observations and some conclusions. In the second part, we will make an attempt at some more speculative philosophical and sociological conclusions. Our question will be: what if the emergent peer to peer modalities are not just emergent phenomena, but also new institutional and social and economic models that portend a substantial transformation of our political economy