Michel Bauwens (born 21 March 1958) is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

theorist in the emerging field of

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

(P2P) collaboration, writer, and conference speaker on the subject of

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

and

business innovation Service innovation is used to refer to many things. These include but not limited to: # Innovation in Service (economics), services, in ''service products'' – new or improved service products (commodities or public services). Often this is ...

. Bauwens founded the P2P Foundation, a global organization of researchers working in open collaboration in the exploration of

peer production Peer production (also known as mass collaboration) is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of many people is coordinated towards a shared outcome. Overview P ...

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...

, and

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

. He has authored a number of essays, including his thesis ''The Political Economy of Peer Production''.

Biography

Bauwens regularly lectures internationally on P2P theory, the resource

commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...

and their potential for

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...

, taking a materialistic-conceptual approach. In the first semester of 2014 Bauwens was research director with th
FLOK Society
(Free Libre Open Knowledge) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies of Ecuador (IAEN). The FLOK Society developed a first of its kind Commons Transition Plan for the Ecuadorian government. Over fifteen policy papers the plan outlines policy proposals for transitioning Ecuador to what is described as a social knowledge economy based on the creation and support of open knowledge commons. One version of the plan i
available online
He currently lives in

Chiang Mai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

P2P theory

In ''The Political Economy of Peer Production'' Bauwens regards

P2P P2P may refer to: * Pay to play, where money is exchanged for services * Peer-to-peer, a distributed application architecture in computing or networking ** List of P2P protocols * Phenylacetone, an organic compound commonly known as P2P * Poin ...

phenomena as an emerging alternative to

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

, although he argues that "

is highly dependent on the market for peer production produces use-value ic?through mostly immaterial production, without directly providing an income for its producers." However, Bauwens goes on to argue that the interdependence is mutual: the capitalist system and market economies are also dependent on P2P production, particularly on distributed networks of information processing and production. Consequently, P2P economy may be seen as extending or already existing outside the sphere of free/open source software production and other non-rival immaterial goods. This idea is explored also in the essay ''Peer to Peer and Human Evolution'' that expands the P2P

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

beyond

computer technology Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

. It argues that egalitarian networking is a new form of relationship that is emerging throughout

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

, and profoundly transforming the way in which society and human civilization is organised. The essay argues that new forms of non-representational politics are a crucial ingredient in finding the solutions to current global challenges; as well as a new and progressive ethos representing the highest aspirations of the new generations.

Honors and awards

* 2012 - Bauwen was nominated and included on the Post Growth Institut
Enrich List
– a parody of the Forbes List of Billionaires that aims to highlight influential

post-growth Post-growth is stance on economic growth concerning the limits-to-growth dilemma — recognition that, on a planet of finite material resources, extractive economies and populations cannot grow infinitely. The term "post-growth" acknowledges t ...

thinkers "whose collective contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures".

Controversy

Bauwens has repeatedly spoken out against

identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...

, claiming it as antithetical to egalitarian participation within a post-racial community. This perspective was criticized as being a form of

racial color blindness Color blindness is a term that has been used by justices of the United States Supreme Court in several opinions relating to racial equality and social equity, particularly in public education. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle Sch ...

. In response, numerous contributors to the P2P Forum chose to officially distance themselves from him and his views. In May 2021, Bauwens allegedly removed several signatories of the disassociation statement from the P2P Foundation wiki. Since it is a community-maintained wiki, this raised further controversy. Two weeks later, Bauwens also edited the P2PF wiki article of P2P Lab (where several signatories belonged) diminishing its role. The wiki entries have been restored by other wiki editors.

Works

Bauwens has written for

Open Democracy openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage de ...

and

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

and has been mentioned by the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

De Morgen ''De Morgen'' (Dutch for ''The Morning'') is a Flemish newspaper with a circulation of 53,860. The paper is published in Antwerp, Belgium. History and profile ''De Morgen'' originates from a merger in 1978 of two socialist newspapers ' (meaning ...

, and Living Green Magazine.

Books

*2013, "De wereld redden Met peer-to-peer naar een postkapitalistische samenleving", by Michel Bauwens and Jean Lievens
Houtekiet
, *2014, "Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy", by

Vasilis Kostakis Vassilios or Vassileios, also transliterated Vasileios, Vasilios, Vassilis or Vasilis ( el, Βασίλειος or Βασίλης), is a Greek given name, the origin of Basil. In ancient/medieval/Byzantine context, it is also transliterated as Basile ...

and Michel Bauwens
Palgrave Macmillan
*2015, "Sauver le monde, Vers une société post-capitaliste avec le peer-to-peer", by Michel Bauwens and Jean Lievens, Les liens qui libèrentbr>preface
by

Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler (; 1 April 1952 – 5 August 2020) was a French philosopher. He was head of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He was also the founder in 2005 of the politi ...

at editionslesliensquiliberent
,

Essays

Peer-to-Peer Relationality
by Michel Bauwens, 4 March 2012, published on blog.p2pfoundation.net *2014,
From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-operativism
, Bauwens, Michel and

, Triple-C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 12(1)

Reports

A Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy
By Michel Bauwens, Nicolas Mendoza and Franco Iacomella, et al. Orange Labs and P2P Foundation, 2012.

Documentaries

* With

Frank Theys Frank Theys (born 1963 in Uccle, Belgium) is Belgian filmmaker and visual artist. Theys lives in Brussels and Amsterdam. Theys' video and interactive installations to experimental film, documentary, and theater performance have been placed into c ...

, Bauwens is the co-creator of the 2006 documentary ''

TechnoCalyps ''TechnoCalyps'' is a 2006 Belgian transhumanism documentary film written and directed by Frank Theys. It explores the advance of technology. Documentary precept Set as a three-part documentary, ''TechnoCalyps'' posits that genetics, robotics, a ...

'', an examination of

transhumanism Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. Transhuma ...

and the 'metaphysics of technology'.

Speeches

* In September 2014 he gave a keynote at th
Degrowth Conferences
in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, Germany on "The Transition to a Sustainable Commons Society in Ecuador and beyond".

References

External links

The Foundation for P2P Alternatives
(official site)

- Interview by Richard Poynder,3 September 2006, published on poynder.blogspot.com
Interview with Michel Bauwens
- Interview by Prodromos Tsiavos, University of Oslo, spring 2008 (video, 30 min)
De meest inspirerende belg
- "The most inspiring Belgian", Interview, published by één, Café Corsari, 16 October 2013, in Belgian (video, 10 min) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bauwens, Michel 1958 births">the Foundation for P2P Alternatives
summary essay on P2P Theory --> {{DEFAULTSORT:Bauwens, Michel 1958 births
Living people
Integral thought Belgian activists Belgian political writers Intellectual property activism Belgian male writers 21st-century Belgian writers