Open and Shut?: Working for a phase transition to an open commons-based knowledge society: Interview with Michel Bauwens

"Today a summit starts in Quito, Ecuador that will discuss ways in which the country can transform itself into an open commons-based knowledge society. The team that put together the proposals is led by Michel Bauwens from the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives. What is the background to this plan, and how likely is it that it will bear fruit?  With the hope of finding out I spoke recently to Bauwens. One interesting phenomenon to emerge from the Internet has been the growth of free and open movements, including free and open source software, open politics, open government, open data, citizen journalism, creative commons, open science, open educational resources (OER), open access etc.  While these movements often set themselves fairly limited objectives (e.g. 'freeing the refereed literature') some network theorists maintain that the larger phenomenon they represent has the potential not just to replace traditional closed and proprietary practices with more open and transparent approaches, and not just to subordinate narrow commercial interests to the greater needs of communities and larger society but, since the network enables ordinary citizens to collaborate together on large meaningful projects in a distributed way (and absent traditional hierarchical organisations), it could have a significant impact on the way in which societies and economies organise themselves.  In his influential book The Wealth of Networks, for instance, Yochai Benkleridentifies and describes a new form of production that he sees emerging on the Internet — what he calls 'commons-based peer production'. This, he says, is creating a new Networked Information Economy.  Former librarian and Belgian network theorist Michel Bauwens goes so far as to say that by enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) collaboration, the Internet has created a new model for the future development of human society. In addition to peer production, he explained to me in 2006, the network also encourages the creation of peer property (i.e. commonly owned property), and peer governance (governance based on civil society rather than representative democracy) ..."