I really appreciated Extreme Democracy, especially some essays, but at the same time, I hoped for a theoretization of a new form of democracy, something like the 'absolute democracy' concept of Negri in Multitudes, and did not really find it.

As I'm writing on peer to peer theory, I have the same unresolved difficulty still in how majority-based democracy, corrupted as it is today, and the affinity-based peer to peer networks and commons, can and will function together.

Here's an excerpt from a short dialogue I had Anthony Judge of the Union of International Assocations, and my answer had to be vague as well, but I do hope to resolve it in the future.

The above URL does not have the extensive endnotes, with quotes defining a lot of new terms, such as multitudes, absolute democracy and the like, so do not hesitate to ask the last version by email.

Michel Bauwens, Foundation for P2P Alternatives

EXCERPT from newsletter, P/I 71:

4. a. Judge: Whilst I value your comment regarding the openness engendered by Porto Alegre as characterisic of P2P, you do not provide an opening to the challenges of governance from which P2P backs off. This has been the problem of networking -- it cannot respond to bad internal stuff except by acting under the table. It is left to nasty hierarchies to deal with such stuff -- peers have to move into fascist mode! What is the interface between P2P and other modes of governance?

Michel Bauwens: I find it difficult to answer this one, without experience in such a process, which I haven't seen first hand. But it is my conviction that P2P processes are better in handling difficulties than their authoritarian counterparts, at least in most cases. The question is, would you rather have a conflict amidst a group of peers trying to find solutions on a consensual basis, or have them resolved by a authoritarian hierarchy? Very often, so called egalitarian processes fail, because they are a front for something else. For example, many team projects in corporations fail because the participants have hidden agendas as unacknowledged representatives of their divisional bosses. They come to the team meeting without any true intent to cooperate. Obviously those forms of 'fake P2P' can only fail. I suspect that Porto Alegre like meetings are rife with rivalry between groups, some intent on gaining dominance through manipulation, and themselves characteristed by internal authoritarian rule. The solution then is not to turn to fascistic or authoritarian models of rule, but to deepen the consensual processes and expose the manipulation. P2P is the least likely to act in such denial. P2P does not do away with conflict, but deals with it differently.

What is the interface between P2P and other modes of governance? That is still difficult for me to answer at this stage, so just some general remarks. P2P is a new layer of governance, that comes on top, as it were, the other modes a result of the abundance and holoptism created by the networks and the growing collective intelligence of society. In democracy, you have to unify people living in a same terrority and you have to deal with difference and conflict; P2P creates affinity groups based on a prior consensus around the goal or object of the cooperation. At this stage, I do not see how it can replace democracy, only how democracy can create room for P2P processes everywhere that majority rule is not appropriate. P2P either works through consensus, i.e. integrating the minority viewpoints, or if that fails, by creating room for 'forking off'. For example, concerning governance on a world scale, is majority rule of a world government really appropriate, or would it be better to find a system of interlocking networks, functioning according to P2P processes, as advocated in the book Extreme Democrary?

5. Perhaps of less relevance to you is the concern in which P2P networks fragment into gated communities -- cf my Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities: emergent patterns of isolation within knowledge society
(http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/gated.php).

That is indeed one of the dark sides of networks and P2P. I recall the notions of cyberocracy, defined by David Ronfelds as power mediated by access to networks, and Alexander's Bard notion of netocracy, who sees power as determined by a hierarchy of networks. But as John Heron put it, in peer to peer, authority, hierarchy and centralization, are at the service of participation; while the opposite can occur, using network modes in the service of inequality or domination. Obviously the P2P ethos is about promoting the former, not the latter, and I suspect that in the coming 'distributed civlisation', the conflict will be exactly that, between the forces of Empire using meshworks for domination, and the forces of the multitudes, fighting for democratic participation. This is not the say that there is no dark side to participative processes, but these are the kinds of problems that we welcome, just as in a family, you expect to have challenges with your children and spouse. For true peer to peer, Gated Communities are only acceptable if they favour greater participation. Does a gated community of expert (say doctors) operate to increase their efficiency in healing (in which case though they would also adapt participative practices), or is it a club to maintain privileges? If they are truly dynamic in a bottom-up sense, I see no problem with it, as this is precisely what P2P is about. The equipotency rule creates by definition layers of interlocking networks.